149 
THE 
COMPOSITION AND STRENGTH 
OF 
A. SIEGE TRAIN 
REQUIRED FOR THE 
ATTACK OF A MODERN FORTRESS, 
BY 
COLONEL E. WRAY, C,B., 
ROYAL ARTILLERY, 
Before attempting to lay down siege equipments suitable to 
the requirements of the day, it will be necessary to consider 
two most important phases of the question, 
1st. The nature and extent of the changes which have taken 
place in armaments, and, as far as may have been decided, in the 
method of attack, since the last siege operations were undertaken 
by the British Army in Europe. 
2nd. The degree to which such changes have altered the con¬ 
ditions of the defence, as well as those of the attack, of fortified 
places. 
The greatest difference of opinion prevails at this moment amongst 
the members of both Ordnance Corps on many of the points in¬ 
volved in the above considerations, some maintaining that the in¬ 
troduction of rifled artillery, small arms of precision, and Gatling 
guns, the adoption of the Moncrieff principle, and the use of curved 
fire for breaching unseen revetments, have, together with other 
novelties, revolutionised, if they have not rendered obsolete, the 
systems of Vauban and other great masters of the science of 
attack and defence; whilst not a few, especially amongst the older 
members of the Artillery, are sceptical as to any great advantage 
possessed by rifled arms over smooth-bores for siege purposes, take 
little account of the Gatling gun, or of the immense advance 
made during the last ten years in the range and accuracy of 
infantry fire, disbelieve in the efficacy of curved fire, and placing 
every confidence in embrasures and iron shields, or barbette bat¬ 
teries, have none whatever in the Moncrieff system. 
Preliminary 
considerations. 
Changes in 
armaments 
since the 
Crimean cam¬ 
paign, and the 
degree of im¬ 
portance to be 
attached to 
such changes. 
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