SHOOTING OF COAST ARTILLERY. 
173 
Conduct of a company,—by the amount of crime. 
The training, or discipline, in infantry work,—-by the way in which a 
body works as a company, alone or in battalion, on the parade ground; 
and so on. 
In fact, the efficiency of this fire discipline, like that of any 
other discipline, should be judged by its effects, by the smartness and 
celerity of the gun drill, by the efficiency of the fire control exercised 
in a B.C. or F.C., by the efficiency or otherwise of the specialists 
(signallers, telephonists, range finders and gun layers.) 
All these points should be frequently tested by inspection in mann¬ 
ing a B.C. and so on, by the Lieut. Colonel, whose proper function it 
is to enforce such discipline. 
He should, much more than he does now, frequently inspect com¬ 
panies under his command, either informally by being present when 
a company drills (as a spectator without interfering,) or formally by 
occasional inspection, surprise and otherwise, not merely at the annual 
inspection. 
He should do so frequently and insist upon errors being corrected 
and a proper standard being worked up to. 
At his annual inspection he should inspect stringently the tactical 
working of each company, see the specialists tested, a B.C. manned, 
and so on, and report specifically upon the various points, the aggre¬ 
gate of which, make up fire discipline so far as coast artillery is con¬ 
cerned. 
But to return to the question of encouraging rapidity of fire:— 
Competitive prize firing in H.M. Navy is carried out, not by the firing 
of a given number of rounds , as has hitherto been in vogue with us ; 
but by -firing for a given time. This latter seems the more sound, both 
in theory and practice, and in adopting it, in the new system proposed 
in this paper, a leaf has been stolen from their book. The Royal Navy 
has gone far ahead in gunnery and there is many a point to be learnt 
from its custom and practice, by the coast artillery. 
It is proposed that for each work, a given time , (say from ten to 
twenty minutes,) be laid down, (according to the nature of its arma¬ 
ment etc.) as that for which the company practice, (i.e. the competitive 
prize firing,) is to last, the B.C. being allowed to fire as many rounds 
as he can do, during that given time. 
The credits allotted and the classification made being entirely de¬ 
pendent upon the two factors, the “ accuracy,” and the “ rapidity,” of 
the fire of the company in that given time; these two taken together, 
in the manner shown in Appendix II., giving the “ figure of merit,” 
of the company in its competitive prize firing of that particular day. 
The same system to be persued in judging of the value of all service 
practice. As however, in the case of combined practice from two or 
more works, there exists at present many difficulties in the way of re¬ 
cording results, etc., though it is proposed that the results of com¬ 
bined practice shall be so judged and shown against each company 
firing at combined practice, it is further proposed that it shall not 
count as part of the competitive prize firing of the company for the 
year. 
