460 
Q.F. G-T7NS FOR FIELD ARTILLERY. 
solutely necessary to keep the batteries,, during the time they are en¬ 
gaged, thoroughly supplied with ammunition. We have only had two 
experiments, so far as I know, with both of which I happen to have 
been concerned in working the supply of ammunition in the field, one 
was at Aldershot where Colonel Davidson and Majors Gossett and 
Guinness came down to Aldershot in superintendence of the large 
ammunition columns then formed and the other was at Okehampton 
where with one particular battery, then of my own Brigade Division, 
we fired off nearly 1,000 rounds in the course of the day and worked 
up the ammunition from the park through the ammunition columns 
for it. Clearly, if the quick firing gun is to come in that will be an 
absolutely necessary part of our drill. It does seem to me the great¬ 
est possible misfortune that now when these huge manoeuvres are 
coming off we should not be able from sheer deficiency of transport to 
practice adequately the working from the park, through the ammuni¬ 
tion columns, to the front of a supply of ammunition. I wish we could 
do it on a limited scale if only with a single battery or brigade division. 
That all the mechanism must be adapted to the most rapid supply 
must be evident to everybody. The daj before yesterday I was work¬ 
ing with one of the present “ Artillery and Store ” waggons, and the 
labour (if I may venture to call the attention of the Ordnance 
Committee to the matter), of getting ammunition out of the huge 
boxes now used, taking out every separate shell in order to pack them 
separately into the ammunition waggon on its arrival is a thing that 
I am certain would entail a break down when we get a quick firing 
gun. You must have some system adopted in which a whole set of 
shells may be taken out into a tray and put straight into the ammuni¬ 
tion column. 
Sir George Clarke :—I may say that I have already built a limber 
to do that. It is divided into pigeon holes for boxes each of which 
forms a portable magazine containing four complete rounds. These 
boxes would be filled at the base and would go thence straight to the 
gun in action without any re-packing. 
The Chairman :—I think that that is the most important improve¬ 
ment we could have, and when it is done I wish Sir George Clarke 
would come up with me and let us see it work right through if I may 
invite him now, because at the present moment it is dismal; it takes 
half an hour and I do not believe we should have half an hour to do it. 
General Richardson said, what I cannot think there can be any 
doubt about, that we have to deal with an entirely new departure; 
that whether it is a question of getting a high explosive shell or of 
ranging or of change of drill it is no use starting with the present 
system of drill and fire discipline which is suited to our present gun 
in considering how we shall deal with the quick firing gun. When 
we have the quick firing gun we shall have to create our drill and 
adapt all the other things to it. We must have it, and we shall have 
to learn the fire discipline, ranging, fuzing, and the ammunition supply 
and everything else that will suit it. 
I agree with many of the points raised by Major Jeffreys, but 
