404 
FIELD ARTILLERY PROGRESS. 
can never take the place that its public spirit and intelligence seem to 
demand. But when these military and technical qualities are tho¬ 
roughly mastered; when they are a part of the artilleryman's nature— 
as they must become; there remains the crucial question whether he 
can employ his arm with its fullest effect against an enemy. 
To shoot well seems, at first sight, a very simple thing; but if we 
consider all that it implies, it will be seen that there is work enough 
before any service that undertakes in earnest to study and accomplish 
it, and that the world has never yet seen anything approaching to the 
full effect that modern field artillery may produce. It implies, on the 
part of the leaders, a perfect knowledge of the power of their guns and 
of the effect of their different projectiles under all the varying con¬ 
ditions of wind, soil, slope of ground, the formation of the enemy and 
the cover he can obtain; of the effect of greater or less command upon 
their own fire, and the effect of accidents of ground in sheltering 
their own guns, or making the range more difficult for the enemy to 
pick up. It implies also such an eye for country that there shall never 
be hesitation in moving guns by the easiest line from point to point. 
And this knowledge must be so ingrained as to require no conscious 
process of thought—to be as much a man's own as his words of 
command. In no other way can he employ his arm as favourably as 
circumstances allow. It is evident that his practical course in the field 
must always be the best one open to him—not the best in the abstract; 
but he will never take the best course relatively if he has to go back in 
his mind upon the absolutely best use of his guns and ammunition. 
His whole mind must be free to receive the instructions of his supe¬ 
riors, to understand their spirit, and to carry them out intelligently, 
with or without orders, as the circumstances change. Moreover, the 
actual superior officers of artillery are not the only leaders it is neces¬ 
sary to consider; all officers—indeed, many N.O. officers too—are 
possible leaders. At any moment on the field of battle the juniors may 
succeed to command—command for which they will be very helpless 
if they have no knowledge beyond the requirements of their own 
immediate work; and in nearly every case the junior officers must 
eventually become the seniors, and the requisite knowledge should 
precede and not follow the assumption of command. 
For all ranks the power of good shooting means that the art of 
laying guns, of covering them, of passing them over obstacles, and 
handling them under the exigencies of the service with readiness and 
resource; the power of rapidly estimating distance, knowledge of 
ammunition (especially the bursting' points at various ranges of 
shrapnel)—all these things, which appear simple enough but never¬ 
theless require much practice, should be known, not merely in some 
out-of-the-way corner of the mind, and amongst a few, but amongst 
all, as intimately and as much a matter of course as the routine of 
parade movements or stable duties. 
Depend upon it, the instruction of even the humblest gunner in a 
battery cannot be carried too far, provided nothing of his own proper 
and immediate duty is sacrificed. Idleness is called justly the root of 
all evil; but employment without sense or reason is nearly as bad. I 
