526 DEFENCE OF ESTUARIES, ETC., AGAINST TORPEDO-BOAT ATTACK. 
I have personally availed myself of every opportunity to see practice 
from quick-firing guns, since I have been stationed in a coast fortress, 
and I may have seen 250 to 300 rounds fired. The target was gener¬ 
ally moving at a rate not exceeding four miles an hour, I am bound to 
say, but that was not the fault of the gunners. Every shot was re¬ 
corded by the range officer on the tug; this prevents the guns firing 
at their quickest rate, as the difficulty of recording successive rounds 
becomes considerable. It would be better I think to fire, say thirty 
rounds, at the quickest possible rate, and let the range officer give a 
general opinion as to the effect of the series. But from the experience 
of the practice I have seen, and considering the great improvement in 
shooting which the layers made after a certain number of rounds, I 
make bold to assert that 6-pr. quick-firing guns are preferable to the 
heavy guns firing case shot for the purpose of defeating torpedo-boat 
attacks. With heavy rifled muzzle-loading guns loaded and laid on a 
certain line, you can only fire each gun once as the boat crosses in that 
line, or again at the following boat if you have time to re-load; for the 
traversing gear will not enable you to catch the torpedo-boat up if it 
has crossed the line on which the gun was laid, before the alarm is 
given, or before the detachment is ready. At the entrance to harbours, 
guns are usually mounted in casemates, with 300 or 400 yards of “dead 
water” under them. 
Heavy shrapnel, I am afraid, I regard as even more unsuitable for the 
purpose than heavy case shot; it is like partridge shooting with a 
blunderbuss. But Captain Wray says nothing of rifle fire, though he 
alludes to the Maxims, which latter, he says, would certainly hit the 
boat, but would scarcely stop it. Now, the man at the wheel in a 
torpedo-boat is quite exposed, and I believe that several of the crew 
would be necessarily exposed also ; without sinking the boat you could 
practically prevent her attaining her object, by successfully attacking 
the 'personnel by the infantry fire of magazine rifles and rifle-calibre 
machine guns. I believe this, in conjunction with a liberal supply of 
6-pr. quick-firing guns judiciously placed, to be the solution of the 
problem “ How to meet a torpedo-boat attack.” 
With the last part of Captain Wray’s article, dealing with the rela¬ 
tive parts to be played by the navy and artillery in defence against 
torpedo-boat attack, I most heartily concur. The Royal Navy, Royal 
Artillery and Royal Engineers must work together on a previously 
thought-out system. Such schemes are drawn up, I believe, but much 
advantage would accrue if they were communicated and explained to 
the subordinate officers of the corps concerned. It would be useful 
if artillery officers, of not less than three years’ service, could be at¬ 
tached to a ship for a fortnight, which should include at least one of 
her periodical practices, in the same way that we are allowed to be 
attached for a short time to an infantry battalion or a cavalry regiment. 
They would not be much in the way; they would pick up much that 
was useful to a coast artilleryman, and a comparison of the naval gun¬ 
nery methods with those of coast artillery might be of interest to the 
naval officers themselves. 
