350 
COMMENDED ESSAY, 1897 . 
Practice from 
quick-firing 
guns. 
Another improvement, when case III. is employed, would be the 
abolition of electric firing. Accidents are now prevented only by the 
greatest care and vigilance ; and there seems no reason why an electric 
bell should not be rung as a signal for firing, instead of the gun being 
actually fired by the observer at the position finder. The “time of 
firing” would be very small, and, if necessary, allowance could be made 
for it ; and the relief to the mind of the group commander and to the 
nerves of the gun detachment would be very great—matters of no small 
importance in war. If electric firing were abolished for case III. it 
would disappear entirely from the drill book, and the forts would be 
well rid of some useless stores. 
As a matter affecting accuracy, some attempt should be made to 
lengthen the radii of the index plates. 
How best to conduct practice from quick-firing guns is a problem 
which cannot well be finally solved until the question of automatic sights 
has been settled, but in dealing with the subject there is one tendency 
which is beginning to show itself which should be carefully avoided. 
This tendency is to throw the whole fire control into the hands of the 
men who lay the guns. Such a system or rather want of system would 
be a fatal mistake. Rigid fire discipline is more absolutely necessary 
with quick firing guns, firing at a very rapidly moving target, than it is 
with heavy guns. 
The practice of the Navy in this respect can be no guide for the Coast 
Artillery, for the conditions of an encounter between ships at sea are 
entirely different from those of the defence of a passage or minefield. 
To give the gun layers control means that each gun will be fired 
independently ; fire might be opened by mistake at friendly boats and 
there would be no means of stopping it, or hostile boats might be 
allowed to run in and there would be no means of ensuring the 
commencement of firing ; observation of fire would be hopelessly 
confused ; concentration of fire would be purely accidental. Night 
fighting is bound to be difficult, and our endeavour therefore should be 
to institute as perfect a system as possible, instead of leaving things 
to chance. 
Automatic sights will no doubt simplify matters ; the officer or 
N.C.O. in command will be able to confine himself to the orders 
for commencing or ceasing fire and to the rate and nature of fire, with¬ 
out troubling himself about ranges and elevations ; but automatic sights 
are still under trial, and there are low-lying batteries where automatic 
sights cannot be used. 
The ranging described in the drill book has one or two very serious 
disadvantages. To begin with, unless the opening shot falls at a suitable 
distance in front of the target, time must be lost, and if it happens to 
have fallen in rear of the target there may be a very considerable loss 
of time before an effective fire can be opened. Loss of time is of course 
fatal. 
Moreover, the system depends entirely on observation of the ranging 
shots. This should be fairly good provided that the sea is calm, and 
that no other groups of guns are engaged ; but with a choppy sea, or 
when other groups are firing, it would be an accident if a particular 
shot could be correctly observed. 
No better plan can be suggested than to follow the system of firing 
with depression range-finder (as proposed above), with slight modifi¬ 
cations, the range-finder itself being modified so as to work more 
rapidly than the existing pattern. 
