GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1893 . 363 
big mountings, a few thus mounted being kept in every work ready to 
be run out to suitable points of vantage whenever required. Others, 
on fixed cone mountings (which are quicker and better for rapid fire 
than the transporting mountings), should be mounted en barbette (not 
behind walls or shields) in the works or in suitable situations. 
No attempt should be made, with the bulk of the heavg guns, no 
matter how well provided with P.F. or D.R.F. installations, to follow, 
or aim at, these swift craft, though a few guns, here and there, with 
specially selected men, should be told oft for this purpose. Promiscuous 
firing, if indulged in, will inevitably cover the channels and mine-fields 
with smoke, and do more real harm to the Defenders than to the 
Attackers. But these guns can nevertheless be utilised. 
The power of heavy shrapnel shell is very great, and torpedo boats are 
ill adapted to resist it. The thickness of a French sea-going torpedo 
boat is only j\-inch of steel, with an additional protecting plate J-inch 
thick over the conning towers, boiler spaces, and torpedo discharges. 
Without reckoning the large, heavy and irregular fragments of the 
bodies of such shells, which would probably be capable of going clean 
through such a boat at 600 to 800 yards from the point of burst of the 
shell, the bullets can penetrate such plates up to 300 yards from the 
point of burst. 
Instead, therefore, of attempting with half trained garrisons, in the 
midst of darkness, confusion, and excitement, to carry out the elaborate 
and slow processes of range-finding, group differences, predictions, &c., 
&c., requiring large fort garrisons and staffs, and almost certain to fail 
under the circumstances enumerated, the Gordian knot should be boldly 
cut, and the gun defence reorganised as follows:— 
( a.) The Q.F. guns must be greatly increased in numbers, and 
must deal with the torpedo boats by direct fire. 
(/;.) A few specially selected, well placed, medium, or heavy guns, 
with picked detachments and observers, should be detailed 
• for the same duty. 
(<?.) Fire-swept Areas .—All the rest of the heavy guns should be 
told off into groups, as large as possible, 1 and kept loaded 
with shrapnel shells and time fuzes and tubes in the vents. 
The guns of each group should be laid on parallel bearings 
but at different elevations, and the fuzes set to suit these 
elevations, the result being that, on their being fired, as a 
salvo, the whole of the water in front of that group would 
be swept by a storm of missiles. The idea is represented 
roughly by Fig. 2. A beam of light should be so placed as 
to be crossed, by the Attacker, a few moments before he 
reaches the fire-swept area, and the guns should be fired 
by the officer on look-out duty. Those guns which are laid 
for the higher elevations, and consequently have longer 
times of flight, should be those furthest from the direction 
of the Attack, as shown by the figure. The exact training 
1 Several tactical groups of guns may be combined into one for this purpose. This is specially 
ipplicable to old works where the guns are close together. 
