militia artillery competitive practice. 
271 
1. —The manning of forts for coast defence is the most important 
duty of the Garrison Artillery and should constitute their main parade. 
The command of this parade should be always exercised by the 
senior officers present with the regiment; and should include respon¬ 
sibility for the safe conduct of the practice and the management of 
everything, such as tugs, targets, range party, firing batteries, etc., 
employed at drill or practice. This requires much watchfulness, 
general alertness, and care in arrangement, such as would be necessary 
in action ; it should be the colonel's parade and might be officially 
recognised as such. 
2. —All the regiments of the district might be allowed to compete, 
wherever trained, provided they, use traversing guns and moving 
targets. 
3. —Iu order to ensure a maximum of men being trained, a larger 
number of squads per company should be formed, from which selection 
would be made, as in the regulars; but this is possible only if sufficient 
guns are provided to drill with. 
4. —Gun-layers should be similarly trained in greater numbers 
and selected according to rule. 
5. —The number of rounds of ammunition is sufficient at present, 
but some shell might be fired—this being the kind of projectile which 
would be most used in action and is the most difficult to use accurately. 
0.—The nature of the guns used in practice should be more varied; 
all men cannot be trained at one nature—there are not enough guns 
■—and the gun, men are trained at should be the one they fire" from. 
During a training, 12 days is the average number that each man 
undergoes gun drill; no squad can therefore be taught more than the 
drill of one gun ; this is sometimes a 1 2*5" and may in the near future 
be a B.L. gun; the ammunition, if slightly more expensive, should 
not be grudged. 
‘ It is not the case that men having been taught the drill of one of 
the 9", 10", 11", 12*5", R.M.L. guns, can drill equally well at either of 
the others. The difference in the fittings, the mountings and the 
idiosyncrasy of the gun itself would hamper the men in competition. 
7. —The limits of the rectangle counting as a hit should be re¬ 
duced ; the present rule which enlarges the area in proportion to the 
range seems fair in practice, although diametrically opposed to what 
would happen in reality. The longer the range the greater the angle 
of descent and the less the limit of error which admits of a hit; 
as a side issue, the reduction of the vulnerable area, makes the task of 
the range officer to estimate accurately easier. 
8. —In the construction of the target, this officer could be further 
aided by small flags being boomed out from the main flag-post of the 
target, 10 to 20 feet. This would, moreover, increase its visibility from 
the battery and in no way decrease the speed of a target floating in a 
tidal race. An addition of tin pieces to the top of the flag-pole and 
from the top to the floating cross-beams are preferable to flags, which 
twine round the pole, reducing the objective to the width of a few 
inches and rendering it most difficult to see; the tin al§o glitters in 
the light. 
