MOUNTAIN ARTILLERY ESTABLISHMENTS, ETC. 
261 
Mountain Artillery recruits of the year, to their batteries abroad, 
arrangements to be made for a detachment of men suitable for Moun¬ 
tain Artillery duties to be despatched annually to Newport from the 
home service companies of the Garrison Artillery Divisions—each 
triennially in turn—for instruction. The number of N.-C.O/s and 
men for the course would depend on the number possible to be accom¬ 
modated at Newport and to be trained at one time with a necessarily 
limited staff; possibly sufficient to man a half battery. Two officers, 
either candidates for appointment to Mountain Artillery or of previous 
service in the branch if possible, should be selected to accompany the 
men. The course should last six weeks, commencing with a month/s 
drill at Newport, and concluding with a fortnight’s practice at the 
Mountain Artillery camp at Hay. We should thus, in time, have a 
sufficient number of N.-C.O/s and men available for reinforcing 
Mountain Batteries on active service, or as a nucleus, from which to 
form the personnel of any additional batteries it might be necessary to 
form for active service at any time. 
With reference to (c), the formation of a training school for Moun¬ 
tain Artillery at the head-quarters of the Mountain Artillery at Newport, 
is necessary. First, in order that a uniform and continuous system of 
training may be carried on uninterruptedly on the despatch of the 
service battery abroad, as the school itself would constitute the nucleus 
of a depot; secondly, to ease the very heavy depot duties attaching to the 
service battery there, and so to permit of its efficient training as a 
service unit; thirdly, to experiment with all mountain equipment, and 
to fill generally for the Mountain branch the same role as do the artillery 
schools of Lydd, Golden Hill, &c., for the other branches of the 
Regiment. 
The progress made in our Mountain Artillery development is at 
present painfully slow compared with that in the other branches, 
notably in equipment. For example It is surely time we had a 
better shrapnel for our screw gun than the present pattern, a lighter 
system of pack-saddlery, and a 12-pr. gun to take the place of our 
feeble 7-pr. guns of 200 lbs. and 150 lbs. 
The strength of the staff would be that allowed for every other 
sub-depot, viz. : a Lieut.-Colonel and Adjutant, and the usual office 
staff, &c., with the excess establishment allowed to the service battery 
for depot purposes. 
At present there is no Lieut.-Colonel on the Mountain Artillery es¬ 
tablishment out of India, and the Mountain Artillery is the only depot 
or sub-depot not commanded by a Lieut.-Colonel. If it is not deemed 
advisable to increase the establishment of officers of the Regiment, it 
might surely be possible to place the Garrison Sub-Depot at Woolwich 
under either the Lieut.-Colonel of the District Staff, or the Lieut.- 
Colonel commanding Militia and Volunteer Artillery of the neighbour¬ 
hood. The Lieut.-Colonel at Newport should be looked upon as 
commanding the Mountain Artillery at home, and in addition to his 
usual depot duties would deal with all questions concerning the organi¬ 
sation, drill, and equipment of the batteries on the home and colonial 
establishment. He would be the associate member of the Ordnance 
