212 
SHRAPNEL EIRE. 
3. At the longer ordinary ranges, unless time is of paramount im¬ 
portance, it will always be as well, even when the distance has been 
accurately obtained by the finders, to verify it by one or two percussion 
shell fired with deliberation, unless from previous experience the allow¬ 
ances made necessary by the state of the ammunition, &c., are well 
known. Such a precaution is less necessary at the shorter ranges, still, 
if the object is one which demands great accuracy of fire—such, for 
instance, as a gun pit—it will generally be worth while adopting; and 
in every case when time is not of importance no harm can, and 
much good may, result from its employment. 
When recourse has been had to percussion for such a purpose, and 
the fire has to be continued with time shrapnel, it must always be 
borne in mind that the former is burst in front, and passes consequently 
below the centre of the object; whereas the latter should, to attain 
the best results, be directed slightly above the centre. The elevation 
should therefore be at once increased, either by the rough and ready 
method of aiming higher on the target, or by the more accurate one of 
giving a few minutes more on the tangent scale. 
Time shrapnel should as a rule have the preference for ordinary 
ranges, except when, an extremely rapid fire being necessary and the 
form and nature of the ground being favourable, the use of percussion 
is preferable. It might at times be advisable to retain percussion shell 
when, from heavy losses, a battery might be deficient in the number 
of skilled men necessary for the slight extra labour and knowledge 
required for the use of time fuzes. 
Moving objects which present themselves at these ranges may, and 
indeed in many cases must, be fired at. The method already suggested 
in the case of distant and long ranges may often be used with advan¬ 
tage ; if however either from a want of definite points to lay on, or 
the waste of time and ammunition which might result from doing so, 
such a course is undesirable, the guns must be laid just in front of the 
object. Since the rate of all paces is well known, as soon as one range 
has been hit off, the others ought to be easily obtained by a simple 
observation of the time between the rounds. The arguments for and 
against time and percussion fuzes for such a purpose have already been 
entered into at length. The conclusion arrived at was that, from the 
amount of ground they cover, the former would under ordinary cir¬ 
cumstances give by far the better results. 
4. At short ranges, since time is almost certain to be an important 
factor in the question, the preference might be given to percussion 
fuzes, especially because the shorter the range the smaller is the waste 
of power due to their use and because the nature of the ground 
becomes also of less importance; under such circumstances it is 
unfortunate that they were not tried in comparison with time fuzes 
in the attack by infantry from 1000 yds. during the Okehampton 
experiments. It certainly seems very unlikely that a better result 
could have been obtained from their employment than was the case 
with the time shell which was used; nevertheless, in artillery questions, 
any theory which is not put to the crucial test of practice is so dan¬ 
gerous and may lead to so many errors, that it is always safer to try 
