DISCUSSION ON ARTILLERY . 
71 
gun, although at different times we have fired every class and nature of 
charge ; the gunners all understand it, it is no trouble, and I do not 
think it can be improved upon. Bat speaking for myself I do not like 
the reduced charges because I think the gun does itself best justice with 
the full charge,—it is the charge that suits it, and therefore I think 
that, unless the object were such as to specially call for it, I should not 
use a reduced charge at all. And in Egypt I never did ; we fired 
nothing but full charges the whole time. 
The ranges varied very much indeed. When we first came into 
action we found that the tomb of the Mahdi, which was the first object 
we fired at was most conspicuous; our range-takers took it and gave 
me good ranges all through. Using the mekometer they could 
always give the range in a minute, and very correctly, and no doubt it 
saved many rounds, because in Omdurman there were crowds of build¬ 
ings and walls, and there was no possibility of estimating the range 
as there is in open country; among a lot of buildings and walls 
with prominent objects here and there, there was nothing to take as a 
guide, and one might very well have estimated the range very wrongly. 
We were fortunate enough to get the range very quickly every time. 
The longest range was 3,200 yards. That was an elevation of some¬ 
thing over eighteen degrees and at that range we had to my mind very 
satisfactory shooting. We got a large number of hits, more than I 
hoped for; as I said, the guns did exceedingly well. The shortest 
range was 1,250 yards,—that was directly across the river, to a fort 
that lay on the opposite side exactly in front of us, and which was 
an angle of elevation of a little over six degrees. There were inter¬ 
mediate ranges of all kinds between those two but the greater num¬ 
ber of rounds were at ranges of not much more than 2,200 yards,— 
that and below. 
The Chairman :—May I ask you a question on that particular 
point? You say that when you were firing at these short ranges of 
1,250 yards, you preferred a full charge and a low elevation to using 
a reduced charge and a higher elevation. 
Lieut.-Colonel Elmslie :—Yes Sir. 
The Chairman :—That low elevation and low angle of descent were 
probably the cause of your fuzes not acting. 
Lieut.-Colonel Elmslie :—Yes Sir. 
The Chairman :—Would you still if you went into action prefer a 
full charge and a low angle to a reduced charge and a high angle with 
that fact in your mind ? It would be very interesting for us to know. 
Lieut.-Colonel Elmslie :—I am very much averse, Sir, to changing 
charges in action ; I think it is unsound. If I had had, say six blinds in 
succession I should then have changed the charge no doubt; but as they 
came at irregular intervals during the firing I did not know 
until the end of the day—how many there had been. One was not 
of course carrying out experimental practice as we did at Shoeburyness 
under experimental conditions, and it was not until the end of the day 
that one got to know how many blinds there had been. Bound after 
round was fired and there were bursts iu various directions, and then a 
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