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THE QUESTION OE THE AMMUNITION EQUIPMENT 
OF AETILLEEY IN THE FIE LD. 
BY 
MAJOR S. J. NICHOLSON. 
The “Notes on the Ammunition Equipment of Artillery in the 
Field,” published in the last December number of the R.A.I. Papers, 
open so large and vital a question, and the conclusions drawn in it are 
so sweeping and so diametrically opposed to our present system (with 
which it may safely be said a majority of officers are quite satisfied), 
that it may be permitted to urge some arguments in favour of the 
existing state of affairs. 
The Notes suggest that the authorities, who settled the proportion of 
projectiles carried, arrived at their conclusions from having “over¬ 
looked or insufficiently considered the conditions of service in the field.” 
Might it not, however, be fair to suppose that to this most important 
factor they gave its full value, and that the system they pursued was 
very much as follows, viz.:—Having taken the results of carefully con¬ 
ducted and minutely recorded experiments to show what amount and 
what nature of work the various projectiles were capable of doing 
under favourable circumstances, they then considered thoroughly how 
much of such effect might fairly be expected under the strain of 
service; and these two preliminary enquiries being finished they settled, 
from a consideration of the frequency of the occurrence of the various 
requirements of field artillery, what proportions of different projectiles 
should be carried. 
The object of the following remarks is to suggest that such a suppo¬ 
sition is not unwarranted, and, in addition, that the results arrived at 
are satisfactory. 
For the sake of clearness the description of characteristics of the 
Various projectiles, and the recommendations urged in the notes, are 
here shortly arranged and epitomized. 
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