SHRAPNEL FIRE. 
215 
of the effect of an otherwise good shrapnel may be entirely lost if such 
errors are not avoided. This is the only part of the question which 
is most easily settled from the actual position of the guns themselves. 
Height above plane is a very important point. The best for each 
range has already been given at p. 185. When shell are made to burst 
closer up, a corresponding decrease in height must be allowed. 
Unless the range has been verified, as suggested before, by percussion 
shell it will be almost impossible to judge whether incorrect height 
above plane is due to error in elevation or in length of fuze, or to a 
faulty burning of this latter; hence the chief difficulty in their use. 
When however the range has been verified, a high burst will without 
fail indicate a short, a low burst a long fuze. 
If the ground should be of such a nature that the actual strikes of 
the bullets can be seen, the judgment of shrapnel is comparatively 
easy. Nearly half the cone should be seen to strike in front of the 
target, for unless such is the case the elevation is too great. When 
the object fired at is a body of men and the strikes cannot be seen on 
the ground, the fall of individuals or a movement of disquiet in the 
general mass will, if narrowly observed, afford a fair criterion of the 
practice. 
When such helps as these cannot be obtained and it is therefore 
necessary to trust to simple observation of the burst of the shell in the 
air, this can be done far more easily and certainly from a point well to 
the right or left of the battery than from the guns themselves. Con¬ 
siderable advantage would be gained by placing a really good man in 
such a position. 
As soon as fair skill is gained in judging shrapnel over the easy 
ground and at the distinct targets hitherto recommended, both ground 
and targets should be changed for others which will afford as nearly 
as possible the conditions of, and the formations incident to, actual 
service. Unless such is the case, it is not troo much to say that not 
only may officers and N.C.O/s fail to attain that skill in the use of 
shrapnel which results from a thorough knowledge of its effects, but 
that they even run the risk of misapplying it from arriving at con¬ 
clusions the very reverse of the truth. 
The ground should offer positions suitable both for attack and 
defence, so that both parts of the main question can be entered into; 
there should be space enough to manoeuvre a few batteries in com¬ 
bined action; rough broken ground, walls, hedges, ditches, woods, and 
other natural cover should be obtainable, and in addition good sound 
ground for field works, shelter trenches, gun pits, &c. 
The targets should consist of dummies representing Cavalry or 
Infantry taking every advantage of the cover that such ground as above 
described can afford, so as to imitate as far as possible the conditions 
of actual service. 
The attack of a position, although it offers a task far more difficult 
than that of the defence, seems to have been to a certain extent lost 
sight of in the experiments referred to in this paper; in the case of 
nearly the whole of them the targets could only have represented an 
enemy attacking over very hazardous ground. 
