500 THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE B.L. HOWITZER. 
If we remember that until quite lately the gun was the only weapon 
of the Field Artillery, and if we consider the great differences as 
weapons between the gun, and the howitzer I think we might go further 
and say that the Field Artillery cannot be expected to get full fire effect 
from howitzers. 
The field gun proper is a man-killing weapon, quick-firing (or to be 
so now) and its flat trajectory allows of some latitude in laying and 
bursting Shrapnel without wasting ammunition; its chief fire is direct 
fire and its target must generally be visible over the sights if full effect 
is to be obtained from rapid fire and accurate laying. 
The Field Howitzer has for its projectile a high explosive Common 
Shell for the destruction principally of material, it is not a quick-firer 
(nor does it seem desirable that it should be) its fire is curved, and high 
angle fire, which calls for great accuracy both in laying and ranging 
if effect is to be obtained, and for the use of concealed positions if full 
value is to be got out of the Howitzer ; the nature of the projectile used 
demands judgment in determining the most suitable charge to obtain 
best effects under different conditions. 
Now with the training that the Field Artillery Officers get it should 
not be a matter of surprise, if, when called upon to fight a battery of 
Howitzers, they should treat the Howitzer not as a Howitzer but as a 
low velocity gun. This is what has been done. 
The only instance up-to-date on which the $" Hov/itzer has been em¬ 
ployed on active service is at the Capture of Omdurman last year, when 
the 37th Field Howitzer Battery took part in the bombardment of that 
place. From the accounts that are published in Vol. XXVI. R.A.I. 
"Proceedings,” February 1899, it is clear that this battery was fought 
like an ordinary Field Battery armed with guns, and no attempt was 
made to take full advantage of the howitzer. The ranges varied from 
1200 to 3200 yards, yet the full charge was always used with the result 
(as seems almost certain) of a large percentage (9 per cent.) of blind 
shell, for the fuzes used will not act with certainty at low angles of 
descent. The effect of Lyddite shell depends very greatly on the 
angle of descent at which they strike, and the best effects are obtained 
with steep angles of descent; but the greatest angle of descent at any 
of the ranges with the charge used was about 25 0 . The recoil of the 
gun carriages was considerable and gave much trouble; this would 
have been lessened by using smaller charges. Though the shooting 
seems to have been excellent and the destructive effects of the pro¬ 
jectiles very considerable, it is questionable whether a still better effect 
would not have been obtained if the howitzer had been used as a howit¬ 
zer instead of a low velocity gun. 
Perhaps it is not altogether fair to bring their case forward as an in¬ 
stance, because the battery was really used in operations that partook 
of the nature of siege operations, and it may be urged that this criticism 
is on the howitzers as used in that capacity, and not as they should be 
used ini the field, but it at any rate tends to show that if what are ex¬ 
pected to be operations in the field develop into siege operations it is 
the siege train and not the Field Artillery that should be called upon 
to use these howitzers. 
