COMMENDED ESSAY, 1897. 
367 
distinction should be made in the method of conducting fire, in 
accordance with the scheme represented, and that hitting a small target 
should not always be the height of our ambition ! 
Let us now decide how best to ensure proper training in accordance Company 
with these ideas, and suppose that a company has been sent to its practlce - 
“ practice station ” or has been struck off all duties for a week, and that, 
if it is to use guns of a different nature to those it has had to do with, 
an extra day or two has been allowed to learn the single gun drill and 
study the communications. 
The C.O. would commence by manning a group of light guns, if Elementary, 
possible 64 prs., the gun detachments being formed chiefly of the 
younger soldiers, and practice at a stationary target or slowly drifting one. 
In action it may often happen that the instruments get destroyed or 
communications interrupted, when the direction of fire would probably 
get out of the hands of the B.C. and his range finders, and into those of 
the G.G.C.’s, and the system employed for ranging would be the 
“ bracket.” 
To prepare the younger officers for such duty, and to give them confi¬ 
dence, this elementary practice should be left entirely in their hands ; 
they should be allowed to make such arrangements for observation of 
fire as could be carried out at a minute or two’s notice. To fulfil these 
conditions, the most they could probably do would be to send an 
observer a few hundred yards to a flank, who would signal unders and 
overs by any pre-arranged method. The C.O. should leave the G.G.C. 
absolutely free to do as he likes, and only interfere if he sees any very 
glaring mistake or anything likely to lead to waste of ammunition, and 
at the end should criticise all errors in the presence of the whole group 
details. 
This practice would be extremely beneficial to all concerned, but 
especially to G.G.C.’s, for it would teach them to think for themselves, 
and give them some idea of what they can do or still have to learn. 
What a lot of responsibility a G.G.C. would have if actually in action ! 
Yet he very rarely gets a chance of firing a series himself, and too often 
only has a very superficial knowledge of what the B.C. has been doing; 
his ideas of fire correction and direction are formed from drill condi¬ 
tions, which convey only a very poor conception of the difficulties met 
with in actual practice. 
The next item in the week’s work should consist, if possible, in Blank, 
manning several groups under service conditions, the laying being at a 
target moving as rapidly as possible towards and from the battery, and 
representing the various forms of attack possible in the case of the 
works manned. Blank ammunition or friction tubes should be used, 
and the imaginary amount over or under, of each shot, should be com¬ 
municated by the B.C. or other officer deputed for the purpose, to the 
range-finding operators. P.F. case II. might first be employed and a 
change made to case III. or D.R.F., and great attention should be given 
to the training requisite to pass smoothly from one system to the other. 
This work would get everyone into their places, test communications, 
give practice to P.F. or D.R.F. operators, and ensure everything being 
in proper order for the firing to be carried out next day. 
The battery should be similarly manned at night and blank ammuni¬ 
tion fired, everything being under service conditions, strict silence 
enforced, and particular care taken to screen all lights. The electric 
search lights should be in use and directed by the B.C. if necessary, 
