DEFENCE OF A COAST FORTRESS. 
27 
enemy’s fire, either by concealment or earth, iron, or other protection 
may be considered, but it must never be forgotten that war is not 
intended to be a sate game, and no portion of the attacking power of 
guns, on high sites at any rate, should be sacrificed to the mere safety 
of gunners. 
Magazines, however, should be made reasonably safe. They must, Cartridge?, 
for rapidity of fire sake, be near the guns, and their destruction might 
mean the destruction of the gun too. It would probably be better to 
divide magazines, on high sites, into many cartridge stores, and make 
the line of least resistance of explosion take a direction away from the 
gun when possible. Cartridges, however, are more easily kept in a 
large magazine. 
Shells are exceedingly difficult to explode, and are safe from all but 
direct hits. 
A vast deal of nonsense has been talked about position-finding; of 
Commanding Officers sitting comfortably in cells, far away from bat¬ 
teries, and merely touching knobs, which discharge the guns with 
deadly effect. Human nature is still human nature, and I have an 
idea that men will fight best when they know that the eye of their 
Commanding Officer, who can recommend them for reward, is witness¬ 
ing their deeds and work. 
Therefore, I think that all means for directing the fire of guns Locality ot 
should be as close to them as circumstances permit them to be used deS l . 10n * fin * 
with good effect. The instruments, whatever they are, should be pro¬ 
tected by concealment and by being placed just where fire, however 
reasonably inaccurate, directed at the guns will probably miss them, 
while there should be a sufficient multiplication of instruments to pre¬ 
vent fire becoming disorganised even if some are destroyed. 
Every single department throughout the fortress should possess the Communica- 
means of most rapid communication with every other part with which it tlona ‘ 
has the remotest connection, and probably in no part of Coast Fortress 
defence is this more absolutely necessary than between the guns and 
everything connected with their service. The full value of the gun 
and its expensive mounting and ammunition will never be expended on 
the enemy without the very best possible communication between all 
its ramifications. 
The best means of communication is still a perfectly open question. 
Order and range electric dials and telephones, visual dials, word of 
mouth and orderlies have alone, as far as I know, been tried. Per¬ 
sonally, I consider all of them more or less unsatisfactory, but I by no 
means think that ingenuity is exhausted. In my opinion telegraphy 
is the best existing means. 
Up to now the best practice, I am aware of, from forts, has been 
made from heavy guns, laid for line over sights, with extemporised 
communications from depression range-finders, with the working units 
visited occasionally by the Commanding Officer. Under any circum¬ 
stances I feel sure that an organisation which will permit a commander 
to visit at his pleasure any portion of his command in action, will tend 
to produce better fighting and more severe punishment on the enemy 
than one which locks him up personally in a distant cell, though in 
