DEFENCE OF ESTUARIES, ETC., AGAINST TORPEDO-BOAT ATTACK. 527 
NIGHT FIRING AGAINST TORPEDO-BOATS. 
BY 
CAPTAIN H. T. HAWKINS, R.A. 
It is proposed to put forward a suggestion for improving existing 
armaments for this work—it is very simple, and has doubtless occurred 
to many officers of the Regiment. 
Our large masonry forts at home stations, although not now suited 
for their original purpose of engaging an enemy's battle-ships, have 
enormous capabilities for stopping boats—they contain large numbers 
of guns close together, rendering control comparatively easy, and have 
many other manifest advantages which it is unnecessary to enumerate. 
Are our present arrangements for night firing the best we could have ? 
Would it not be well to have all anti-boat guns in these forts fitted 
with electric firing-gear, the keys centralised in the Fort Commander's 
station, which would be, at night, on the top of the fort in nine cases 
out of ten ? The permanent R.P. bearings being cut in concrete, or 
drawn on a fixed chart, with their firing keys immediately under them. 
These keys need not differ much from ordinary bell-pushes with some 
simple form of guard, possibly like that over one mark of direct-action 
fuze. The electric gear should, besides, give a signal in the Fort Com¬ 
mander's station when its group was loaded, laid and connected up, 
and also light a small, red, incandescent lamp over each gun, to warn 
the detachment, or anyone coming into the casemate, against touching 
the gun or standing too near it. 
The advantages for night-work over any system of friction-tube firing 
are obvious. The Fort Commander (actual or acting), the man of all 
others who must be keenly on the alert all night, has the important 
group for night-work, literally under his thumb, and by a simple word 
to the officer or selected non-commissioned officer in charge of the 
firing gear, can fire any group at a moment's notice. No rousing up 
of sleepy men, and zealous, but confusing, shouting of a number of in- 
; distinct orders—very likely in a high wind or heavy rain ; no firing of 
j B and D groups when E was ordered ; no burst of independent fire, 
leaving the fort offenceless for some minutes, because a ship was sunk 
the night before, and everybody has an exaggerated idea of the speed 
1 of a torpedo-boat, and the necessity of loosing off in time. We are 
dealing, it must be remembered, with young soldiers and auxiliaries, 
I half awake, in their first experience of real excitement. 
With electric firing-gear all the gun-detachments of guns laid on 
permanent R.P. bearings, and most of them must be so, against a target 
coming in 15 yards a second, would sleep round their guns; the only 
people on the alert being the Fort Commander, his assistant for firing, 
range-finders and search-light men, with one telephone man (to tele¬ 
phone exchange), and the sentry on the gate. There could be no 
demoralising false alarms, as everybody except those mentioned would 
11. VOL. XXI. 
