THE EOYAL AHTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
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largely increased power over the ground occupied by the enemy. From a 
position directly in face, you often see but the muzzles of the guns of a battery: 
by going 300 or 400 yds. to the right and left you open the limbers of the 
flank guns. By posting the guns on different points of the semicircle over 
which you range, you open up numberless hollows and folds of the ground in 
which troops are placed, creating a general fidgettiness and sense of in¬ 
security, and exerting a moral effect by the number of points from which the 
fire proceeds, which is wholly wanting when the guns are massed in large 
batteries. In many accounts of the battles of the late war, stress is laid on 
the way in which the French were disturbed by the unexpected places from 
which the Prussian artillery opened fire. At the same time, the fire is fully 
concentrated on the desired point, and the guns themselves are far more 
secure because not crowded in a place unfit for them, but placed at wide 
intervals. On this point I will notice a prevalent idea which I think an error. 
It is said that one gun should never be placed alone, under any circumstances. 
This is founded on the notion of maintaining a constant fire, to prevent an 
enemy rushing upon a gun when unloaded—true, to a certain extent, with 
smooth-bores at close quarters, though exaggerated then, but absurd with the 
longer ranges of rifled guns, and especially so in the case I am now consider¬ 
ing, of a distant fire preparatory to attack. Suppose the crest of a hill 
affording good positions for four guns, at intervals of 20 or 25 yds., but no 
other place except spots for one gun each, 80 or 100 yds. on either flank. 
It would be ridiculous not to place the guns there; they are parts of a huge 
battery of perhaps 100 guns, extending over miles of ground, and the thing 
wanted is to place each gun best, whether alone or not. Two guns well 
placed, carefully served, with every round telling, are worth six exposed to 
fire and hurriedly served. Nothing is a greater mistake than to cram more 
guns into a position than it will bear. I believe that one of the things most 
borne in upon Prussian artillerymen in the late war, was the necessity of 
taking very large intervals between their guns and limbers. 
I want to make myself understood upon this point. Excessive dispersion 
of guns without a definite and important object entails many evils. The 
battery is the tactical unit, and as a general rule it will be most convenient to 
keep it together; but just as there are occasions when large masses of guns 
may be concentrated, so there are other occasions when the guns of a battery 
may be more widely separated than usual. To make a fixed rule that one 
gun is never to be alone, and to carry that out, in a narrow sense, is to create 
mischief and confusion. 
There may be occasions when guns will be massed together in considerable 
numbers, but the introduction of rifled guns must tend to make them very 
rare. Fire can now be concentrated from points in such a large arc, and 
with so much more effect than by the direct concentration of the guns them¬ 
selves, that the disadvantages of massing guns appear more prominently. 
These are, that they interfere with the action of the other arms, and are vulner¬ 
able to the attack of skirmishers in an especial degree. Further, if the 
country is not very open, the mass of carriages in advance or retreat has to 
pass by one or two roads^ bridges, or defiles, thus causing delay and difficulty. 
The Prussians discovered the power and freedom given by rifled guns 
working on the flanks* At Sadowa they stuck to their old principles, and 
tried to get to the front in the centre of the battle* They could not find 
