DISCUSSION ON ARTILLERY . 
93 
Royal Artillery would like to have the muzzle velocity of their field 
guns reduced to 920 feet seconds. It seems to me that one of the 
things we are looking forward to now, is to establish the superiority 
of artillery fire early in the action. All modern tactics are tending 
in that direction ; and to do that we must begin at very considerable 
ranges. And if we are going to have a 920 feet-second velocity, most 
certainly our shrapnel will not be effective at anything like long 
range. 
Major H. W. W. Barlow :—I may mention that we have actual¬ 
ly made and tried a jointed 12-pr. gun, weighing 3^ cwt., for 
mountain service. The low velocity of 1200 f.s., which it is necessary 
to adopt to avoid the excessive recoil with a light gun and mounting 
and a comparatively heavy projectile, considerably detracts from its 
efficiency weight for weight as compared with the 2‘5-in. gun, 7 lb. 
projectile and velocity of 1440 f.s. Such a gun would hardly do for 
Field Artillery. 
The Chairman :—Now perhaps, Colonel Hunter-Blair, as I am glad 
to call him, who told us something the other day about the Maxims, 
will tell us again about them, as I daresay there are officers here who 
were not present on the last occasion. 
Lieut.-Colonel W. C. Hunter-Blair :—Well, Sir, as regards the 
Maxims, I had six guns when I went up the river, and as I had nothing 
to go upon I had to organize these six Maxims with some sort of form¬ 
ation, so I took the formation I knew best and thought most suitable, 
and I organized them as far as possible exactly on the lines of a mina- 
ture battery of artillery. We had six *303 guns and they were mounted 
on infantry travelling carriages. We had to each carriage three 
mules; these three mules I always hooked all in on the line of march, 
but it was a very light weight for three mules (except on heavy ground) 
and on coming into action we generally came into action with shaft 
mules only, as being more easy to unlimber. We had a detachment 
of five men to each gun and the battery was divided into three sections 
in the ordinary way, with a section officer to each ; and a great point 
was made of the sections being independent of each other and 
detachable if necessary. We had a native driver to each mule. 5,000 
rounds of ammunition were carried on each carriage, and we had in 
addition twenty boxes carried on camels or mules. The whole weight 
behind the team was only about 12 cwt., so that it was a light gun 
for three mules even on heavy ground. 
As to the fighting of the battery, so far as ranging went, 
the normal method I adopted was the ordinary bracketting system ; 
that is to say we fired a certain number of rounds, ten or twelve, of 
rapid fire, then waited to see where the splash of the’bullets went and 
then corrected the elevation accordingly. 
The Chairman :—What sort of range could you get ? 
Lieut.-Colonel Hunter-Blair : — That of course depended Sir, on 
the ground, and on the atmosphere. In the Sudan the atmosphere is 
very clear, and as a rule on the sandy desert, as most of it was, the 
observation was clear, at any range up to 2,000 or even more yards 
