523 
Q.F. FIELD ARTILLERY FIRE. 
BY 
LIEUTENANT 0. H. WOOD, R.H.A. 
THERE is a story, which we have most of ns read, of a certain 
king who, when his harvest was ready to gather, used to order out 
his artillery, blow all the heads of corn from their stalks and after¬ 
wards gather up what he was able to. The story goes on to relate 
how a fortune seeker, whose sole patrimony was a scythe, happened to 
pass that way, and in a very short time obtained the contract for cut¬ 
ting the crops throughout the entire country. The king was too go- 
ahead, he had overlooked such a simple device as a scythe. We are 
not told, by the way whether he employed his guns to till the land, 
perhaps he did. History repeats itself. 
The 12-pr. B.L. has been the field gun for about eight years. 
With this gun was introduced a carriage having all the latest im¬ 
provements, nave brakes, tyre brakes, buffers, traversing gear, etc., 
have all been tried in turn. It has taken eight Jong years to get rid of 
them, eight years of expense and failure. Is it all going to be thrown 
away ? The Pendulum appears to have well started on the return swing 
and we are once more confronted with a gun in which there are to be 
all the modern improvements, though some of them seem to be re¬ 
markably like our old friends. 
The latest gun and carriage the 12-pr. of 6-cwt. is the very acme 
of simplicity, and even that will not always stand fast going, over 
ground that is at all rough; how much less chance therefore is there 
of bringing a more complicated gun safely into action, not once only 
but throughout a campaign. A gun carriage may stand a lot of firing 
off* the sea front at Shoeburyness, but it is rough ground that is the 
real test. 
It is practically settled that a Q.F. gun will be the gun of the near 
future, everybody is agreed that on its adoption the safety of the 
British empire depends. There are one or two points however about 
Q.F. guns that might be worth noticing. 
Let us imagine a battery of six Q.F. guns in action against any 
standing target, an opposing battery for instance. Leaving the rang¬ 
ing rounds out of account (roughly speaking it would take the same 
time to range with Q.F. guns as with the present ones), how many 
rounds of battery fire would it take to demoralise the opposing battery 
so that their fire would become harmless ? Assuming the range and 
10. VOL. XXV. 
