100 
SPEED IN FIRING WITH GARRISON GUNS. 
yet the state would always be the gainer, if he can point out errors in 
time for remedy, and get himself listened to, a business which requires 
some energy. His criticisms, to be of value, should be founded on sound 
principles, and I hope to bring home to Garrison Artillery Officers that 
the main question, which should never be absent from their minds, 
should be somewhat as follows :—“ With what rapidity shall I be able 
to pour a stream of shell into a rapidly-moving ship from this battery 
with the proposed gun, mounting, sights, ammunition, stores, and means 
provided for Range finding ? ” Their information on these points is 
generally very scanty, and they may have but a poor idea of what the 
unfinished work is intended to look like on its completion, but they may 
gather much information by careful inquiry and a watchful eye. 
Really great speed in hitting can of course only be obtained by a large 
amount of actual practice and brilliant training. Looking to the cost 
involved in firing large guns Garrison Artillery can, even in the most 
favourable localities, never expect to get the first. They can do their 
best as regards the latter but their training will not approach excellence 
unless they lay stress on speed in working. 
The system of training adopted by the Royal Artillery in the early 
days of the Regiment ran more in the line of ensuring discipline and 
avoiding accidents by exact, minute and rigid drill, than in aiming at 
the attainment of rapidity, for which their mountings and accessories 
were never as suitable as those of the Navy, probably because the latter 
founded their requirements on a far greater amount of actual firing at 
practice. Until quite recent years Garrison Artillerymen, though, as 
now, they were men of grand physique, were below the average in 
intelligence ; and it was probably considered by the authors of drill 
books that a rigid system, even though entailing slow work, was the 
surest method of training such material. 
During the same period the English Navy, though probably dealing 
with even less promising personel, by an almost exactly opposite system 
of training achieved a success such as the world has wondered at ever 
since. The sailor cared little about forms of drill; speed in firing, even 
at the expense of accuracy, was all in all. He sought to add accuracy 
by getting to the closest possible quarters. And magnificently it paid ! 
And will pay again if the far better trained British sailor of to-day 
inherits the reckless pluck which led his predecessor to get near his 
enemy at all costs, and hammer into him the most rapid possible fire. 
It is curious that two such different methods of gunnery should have 
been practised at the same time among servants of the same nation, 
using similar weapons ; and that both should have led to the top of the 
tree, for while Nelson and other Naval chiefs placed our Navy on an 
absolute and enduring summit, our Artillery, or at any rate our Garrison 
Artillery, who were perhaps greater sticklers for minute drill than either 
Field or Horse, were also the leading Artillery of the world, while its 
officers produced inventions which were universally adopted and remain 
in use to this day. 
Until 1859 both services worked with inaccurate ordnance. Many 
guns were still in use which possessed no other means of giving eleva¬ 
tion than quarter-sights and quoins, and laying was largely a matter of 
chance. It is probable that one of the reasons why Garrison Artillery 
did not adopt the Naval method of rapidly pouring in a mass of 
unaimed fire was because, unable to advance to decisive ranges, they 
hoped to obtain accuracy at greater distances by deliberate work. 
