352 
COMMENDED ESSAY, 1897 . 
Targets. 
Schools oi 
Instruction. 
I.O.M. and the I.R.F., introduces a condition which is not a service one. 
These officials cannot be everywhere at the same time in actual war¬ 
fare, and their presence tends to make the officers carrying out practice 
too much dependent on them. 
As regards the I.O.M.’s department, there should be a sufficient 
number of armament artificers available to allow of their being dis¬ 
tributed throughout the coast defences at the rate of one to every large 
fort or group of important works ; and each armament artificer should 
have one or more machinery gunners or other artificers to assist him. 
These should all be told off to their appointed places for war, and should 
as a general rule attend all practice from their own forts ; but their 
work in war will be to repair damages, not to carry out the duties of 
officers and gun captains, and in peace practice they should be kept to 
their own work. For example, in the case of a H.P. mounting, if a 
valve is out of order an artificer must repair it, but it is not part of his 
duty to see that the air pressure in the cylinder is correct. Of course, 
until officers and gun captains can be said to have their own guns only 
to look after and know, in the same sense as officers of the Field 
Artillery have, it is difficult for them to be sufficiently familiar with 
the mechanism of the mountings. 
The same principle applies with regard to the I.R.F. and the position- 
finders. As an instructor, the I.R.F.’s duties should have ceased before 
a company does its fort practice. The instruments should be entirely 
in the charge of the company major, and the specialists entirely under 
his command. If anything requires repair, or if anything is so much 
out of order that the specialists cannot deal with it, the services of the 
I.P.F. or I.R.F. and his artificers must be requisitioned. There is 
probably nothing which has militated so much against the efficiency of 
the position-finders as the introduction of specialists and I.R.F.’s. 
Company officers have gradually come to consider that it is no part of 
their duty to look after the instruments, and the I.R.F.’s have been 
unable to manage the whole business themselves. 
An I.R.F. may be of great use, of course, to a company major when a 
company is doing its preliminary practice, and he should certainly 
attend during part of the time as a spectator to see that specialists are 
carrying out their duties in accordance with the drill book. Moreover, 
he may very likely be told off to take charge of some important group 
of instruments in war time, and he should be in his place whenever 
these instruments are used for practice. 
There is little to be said about targets which has not already been 
said over and over again. 
The great want is speed, and that depends more upon the towing 
launch than upon the target ; but the present heavy record targets are 
ill adapted for speed, and should therefore be seldom used, except at 
the longest ranges, when they would represent ships steaming slowly 
past. In such cases, the range should be at least 3,000 yards. For all 
other purposes, provided a target is clearly visible the smaller it is the 
better. There will be less chance of its being destroyed and practice 
will therefore be more continuous ; it will be cheaper and more easily 
towed. 
If the changes set forth in this paper were introduced, two important 
questions would have to be considered. First, what is to become of 
schools of instruction ? and secondly, how should competitive practice, 
if it is retained, be conducted ? 
