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MINUTES OF PEOCEEDTNGS OF 
even more so, considering the more rapid movement required from the 
former. I believe, in order to ensure perfect efficiency in this respect, 
it will be found necessary to give up our present system of composite 
four-wheel carriages, drawn on service by six horses—that is to say, our 
wagons with limbers—and to substitute a system of two-wheel carts 
drawn by one or at-most two horses. 
What can be more cumbrous or less scientifically arranged for draught 
than our ammunition wagons, limbered up as they now are ? The only 
excuse for retaining limbers elsewhere than with the guns is, that in the 
event of a gun-limber becoming disabled, that of its wagon may be used in 
moving off the gun; but it would be easy to adapt the proposed carts to 
this purpose, and if necessary to have a proportion of spare gun-limbers 
in each battery. The advantages of the two-wheel over the four-wheel 
carriage appear sufficiently great to warrant at least the experiment. 
Among them may be noted the greater ease with which a pair of 
horses can be managed by their driver than three pairs harnessed in 
team can be managed by three drivers. Another is the greater ease 
with which the two-wheel carriage can be moved over bad or confined 
ground. Again, there is the greater safety and rapidity with which 
exhausted limbers could be relieved in action; and lastly, there is the 
greater economy, both in men and horses, and the saving of much of 
the present wear and tear of harness and carriages incident to the 
constant manoeuvring at ordinary regimental parades of wagons along 
with their guns. This last, irrespective of the change here suggested 
as to wagons, would no doubt be gained to a great extent by the 
impending change in the tactical organisation of our light field bat¬ 
teries; but so long as the plan of having three pairs of horses harnessed 
in one team is maintained, the difficulty of getting three drivers to act 
together in draught is so great that it is necessary to have them fre¬ 
quently practised in the .driving of the wagons. 
The system here suggested of double-wheel ammunition carts, drawn 
by one or two horses, would also probably be found more suitable to 
the adoption of an organisation for field batteries in time of peace that 
would most readily admit of expansion in time of war. 
June 24, 1871. 
Note. —We know that in a team of six horses harnessed in pairs, the front and centre pairs each 
draw less than ^rd of the weight; the wheel pair, therefore, has more than its fair share, and what 
the front horses do not draw may he considered as in a measure waste of their power. But it 
is evident that under fire each pair, though not doing equal work, is equally exposed with its 
driver. It seems then that with three separate carts, each drawn by one pair of horses with one 
driver, as each pair is equally close to its work there is less waste of power, and therefore more 
weight maybe drawn with the same amount of effort; how much move is matter for experiment and 
calculation, but if the Prussian General Scharnhorst’s estimate be correct—viz., that the centre pair 
of horses in a team of six draws fths and the front pair only ^ths of what the wheel pair draws, it 
would appear that the total weight distributed in three separate two-wheel carts, to be drawn by two 
horses each, might at all events be equal to that now drawn in one cart (for practically the wagon 
with limber is one cart) by three pairs of horses, and that too with less exertion on the part of each 
pair than is under the existing system exacted from the wheel pair; the driving at the same time 
being simplified, and the exposure of drivers, horses, wheels, &c. &c., in replenishing ammunition 
Under fire being lessened.—G. C. 
