166 
MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OF 
"Proceedings of Director-General of Ordnance,” Yol. X., Part 1, p. 65.— 
Extract from "a report, 15. 11. 71, of Colonel Phillpotts, Commanding 
Ii.H.A., at Aldershot, upon the 9-pr. and 16-pr. rifled muzzle-loading equip¬ 
ment of horse and field artillery engaged in the autumn manoeuvres of 
1871”:— 
"Every battery should have Nolan's range-finders fitted to Nos. 1, 3, 4, 
and 6 guns. These instruments were most favourably reported on by officers 
commanding batteries during the manoeuvres.” 
II. —That to know the distance of an enemy is of the utmost 
IMPORTANCE TO ARTILLERY. 
It is impossible to establish this point by experiment, until instruments for 
determining distances have been used in action, but every work upon artillery 
treats of the importance of knowing the range. The rules of the game of 
Kriegs-spiel strongly enforce this fact. 
Tables A and B have been compiled by a Erench officer from the results of 
actual practice with the Erench field-piece. The 12-pr. Armstrong is more 
accurate than the Erench gun of 9 centimetres, but it is improbable that the 
disparity is sufficiently great to seriously affect the comparisons drawn. 
The tables are only made for shot, and it might at first sight appear that 
they ought to have taken into account the bursting effect of shell; but in a 
paper opening a new subject, it would be premature to deal with the more 
complicated projectile until the question had been first ventilated with regard 
to the simpler. 
Table A.— Showing the number of rounds per 100 which would strike a 
company of 34 files in line [on a target ZZyds. long by 6ft. 8 ins.) } 
calculated for the Cayion raye de 9 centimetres. 
Error in estimating 
the range. 
900 yds. 
1100 yds. 
1300 yds. 
1700 yds. 
0 vds. 
62-4 
43-7 
37-1 
28-3 
65 » . 
50-1 
36-1 
25 
14-8 
110 „ . 
30-9 
15-7 
6-1 
1*9 
Could we, by losing a certain amount of time at the commencement, ascer¬ 
tain the range as closely as we would like, would it be wrnrtii our while to do 
so at 900 yds. range? 
Clearly it would be of no avail to reduce the error below 50 yds., and 
whether it w r ould pay to lose time in order to keep our error limited to 50 
rather than to 100, would depend upon the amount of time expended in 
determining the distance, and the length of the period for which the battery 
would be firing upon the same-point. 
If we suppose that a gun fires one round in the first minute after coming 
into action, and two rounds in every succeeding minute, we see that it would 
be better to lay 100 yds. wrong every time than by losing one minute to 
