ARTILLERY POSITIONS AND SCREENING GUNS. 
83 
is, unless the gun is on the crest line. I do not think that artillery 
officers realise sufficiently the importance of not having their guns on 
the sky-line, where they form such good targets to men armed with 
the magazine rifle. A man, six feet high, walking on the top of a 
raountaiu, is very visible; the parts of him you see best are those 
which move most, that is to say, his legs ; but if you could hide half 
his height, and, as it were, cut him in two by covering the man’s legs 
with a screen three feet high in front of him, then you would have the 
effect of raising the sky-line, and he will not be nearly so conspicuous. 
An object, partly hidden, will attract less fire than one fully visible. 
This is a very important point considered in connection with our new 
smokeless powder. It is easier to obtain cover than you would 
imagine. Suppose that as Captain of a field battery, which has just 
come into action, you have to take the limbers to the rear to a position 
to be selected by you under cover if possible, but some 200 to 400 
yards behind the guns. You probably can see the enemy, but you 
cannot discover the required cover from view, so you leave your horses 
and limbers as you think in the open and exposed. You then again 
ride forward to the front to attend to the supply of ammunition, &c. 
If you chance to look back, you may be astonished to find that your 
limbers are perfectly invisible. This is because a hedge or some 
other feature forms a good background. In the case where a battery 
was firing from the bottom of a hill at one higher up near the crest, 
Colonel Maurice told us that the former suffered very little loss from 
the enemy’s plunging fire. I fancy that this immunity may be ascribed 
to the fact that there was a wood behind the guns in the valley, and 
that the background was favourable and deceived the gunners on the 
hill, both in their laying and observation of effect. I think that it 
may be laid down as a principle that concealment from view amounts 
to immunity from fire ; and that in the attack this is to be applied by 
studying “ background” a little more ; but in the defence we can and 
should employ light screens, about three feet high, both for infantry 
and artillery, on occasions when there is no time to make shelter trenches 
or . gun-pits. I think that attention will be paid to this in futuro 
campaigns.” 
Lieut.-Colonel Molesworth, R.H.A.—“ Colonel Hutchinson and 
other officers have spoken in reference to the position of guns. I 
think this is a point not thoroughly understood, and which requires 
more definite orders regarding their exact position on a slope. It is 
often impossible, in broken ground, as I have seen at Aldershot, to 
get as many as 18 guns into position without either cover or command 
being sacrificed. By command I do not mean the actual height of the 
ground, but facility of seeing the enemy. It is therefore often difficult 
to choose a position combining both advantages without running guns 
so far in advance of each other as to be beyond the limits of safety.” 
Colonel Maurice —“I cordially agree with the remarks which have 
been made as to the results that will be produced by the use of smoke¬ 
less powder; and as to the increased danger attached to a position 
Discussion 
o:i Geneial 
Maurice’s 
lecture in 
Dublin 
in 1892. 
