150 
Breech-loading 
and muzzle- 
loading guns. 
Incomplete 
condition of 
the existing 
arrangements 
for conducting 
sieges in future. 
Appointment 
of a committee 
to report on 
the subject. 
The defence 
considered 
with reference 
to altered con¬ 
ditions. 
Advanced 
works. 
Casemates and 
the probability 
of much 
heavier guns 
being used by 
SIEGE TRAINS. 
Some, again, never cease to regret the withdrawal of the Arm¬ 
strong guns from the armaments, and to claim for breeoh-loading 
a superiority over the muzzle-loading system, which the advo¬ 
cates of the latter as stoutly maintain. 
As regards siege-carriages, platforms, brakes for checking recoil, 
holdfasts, as well as a host of details appertaining to the formation 
of works of attack, much remains to be corrected before the 
muzzle-loading siege train now under preparation can be con¬ 
sidered fit to take the field. Nothing is definitely settled as to 
the proportions of fighting-men, drivers, artificers, or horses, re¬ 
quired for working, repairing, or moving siege trains of any given 
strength; nor are the means at hand for readily ascertaining the 
weights of the various articles of equipment, so as to admit of their 
being distributed in loads suitable to the capabilities of the cattle 
of the country in which operations are to be carried on; whilst, as 
regards any detailed or even general plan for conducting a siege 
in future, absolutely nothing has as yet been determined. 
It is true that a special committee is considering the subject, 
and endeavouring to extract from this chaos of opinion the data 
for establishing a system of attack suitable to the altered con¬ 
ditions of war, but as the results of these enquiries are not likely 
to be known for some time, it necessarily follows that the organi¬ 
sation of an equipment for siege purposes must in the interval be 
based on the individual views of any one undertaking to lay it 
down: the task thus becoming a much more difficult one than 
would be the case were any recognised rules for conducting a siege 
available. 
In order to arrive at a just appreciation of the work to be per¬ 
formed at sieges in future, and to form anything like an estimate of 
the proper ordnance and material to be employed, it is advisable 
in the first instance to review briefly the measures likely to be 
adopted by the besieged for meeting the altered conditions which 
the introduction of rifled arms has undoubtedly imposed on both 
combatants; changes on the whole more favourable to the defence 
than to the attack, considering the vastly increased difficulty en¬ 
tailed on the latter, when every other obstacle has been overcome, 
in delivering the assault, if, indeed, it be possible to storm a breach 
at all in the face of resolute men, armed with breach-loading rifles, 
and with Gatling guns in the capponieres. 
It may be assumed that, in order to prevent the besiegers from 
destroying the flanking defences of a fortress, silencing its guns, 
or bombarding it at long ranges, powerful works mounting ordnance 
of the heaviest description would be placed at considerable dis¬ 
tances in advance of the enceinte, casemates being extensively 
used for rendering these defences impervious to vertical fire. 
The perfection to which the construction of overhead-cover has 
been brought would ensure this, but the faces of such batteries 
must always be more or less exposed, in order to enable their guns 
to be used at short ranges; and it is quite certain that masonry 
