330 
GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1897 . 
(b) Shell practice, to be carried out at some place affording oppor¬ 
tunities for day and night practice at quick targets over a clear range. 
(a) The object of this practice would be to accustom officers and 
men to dealing with actual torpedo boats; to prepare them for the 
tactics which raiding boats are likely to employ ; to exercise them in 
picking up and laying on boats by night under service conditions; and 
to teach them the influence exerted by the local conditions of their 
particular port. The co-operation of the naval authorities is a neces¬ 
sity for this form of practice. There has hitherto been considerable 
difficulty in securing such co-operation, but a juster appreciation by 
each service of the other's wants and duties is beginning to be felt. 
Artillerymen no longer regard their guns as the main factor in resisting 
invasion, while most naval officers are prepared to acknowledge the 
usefulness of coast defences as a protection from raid. There are 
indications that joint operations of the kind proposed would not meet 
with much opposition from the Navy. They have been strongly 
recommended by Lord Charles Beresford in a recent magazine article* 
as likely to be of benefit to both services. There are probably few, if 
any, stations at home or abroad provided, or to be provided, with 
quick-firing guns where they could not take place at some period of 
the year. Indeed it is believed that a scheme of this nature is at the 
present time receiving consideration, and may be definitely settled 
before this essay is read. In one station at least manoeuvres of a 
similar kind have already been carried out by private arrangement. 
It is almost superfluous to add that electric lights must be available, 
and such obstructions as would be used in war either placed in position 
or assumed to exist. 
(b) The above operations however would be of little value without 
the addition of actual shooting. 
The “ Instructions for Practice Seawards, 1897," contain a notable 
innovation, viz., a scale for the issue of torpedo-boat targets to various 
stations. The ultimate adoption of these targets can therefore be 
accepted as a certainty, and this goes far towards simplifying the 
suggestions which it is intended to offer with regard to shell practice. 
It is assumed that the means of running them will be similar to that 
which has been for some time in use successfully at Shoeburyness, viz., 
a winding engine on shore and a wire cable, led over bollards. Also 
that the speed will not be less than twenty knots. 
There are however objections, which it is submitted are well 
grounded, to the proposed distribution of these targets at home. 
{Some of the stations to which they are allotted are notorious for the 
foulness of their ranges, and none it is believed afford any facilities for 
night practice. It will surely be acknowledged that if this is the case, 
and if blank practice can take place as suggested under (a), it will be 
better, instead of attempting to carry out shell practice under artificial 
conditions at these stations, to send details from thence to one specially 
selected place, where obstacles of the kind referred to are not present. 
Such a place would thus become the practice camp for quick-firing 
artillery, and in selecting it accessibility should be kept in view. The 
“ Urgent Questions for the Council of Defence,” Nineteenth Century, February, 1897 
