118 
SHORT NOTES ON PROFESSIONAL SUBJECTS. 
5. The withdrawal of the present service metal fuzes, and experiments at once 
to be made in order to obtain a really reliable percussion fuze. The committee 
believe it to be perfectly feasible to carry shells fuzed in the limber box. 
6. The black and red fuzes meet all the requirements of the service for use with 
the shrapnel shell. Bange labels should be prepared for adjustment on the fuzes 
that no calculation may be necessary. A small number of fuzes for immediate use 
(not exceeding six) should be carried in a fuze pouch, by one of the numbers at the 
gun. 
7. A range finder should be carried. The committee are very favourably 
impressed with Lieut. Nolan’s instrument, and recommend further trials with it. 
8. Strongly recommend the introduction of a M.L. field howitzer capable of 
throwing a common shell with a large bursting charge. 
9. Steps should be taken to remedy the inferiority which exists in the 9-pr., 
when firing segment shells. 
10. The committee urge the necessity of inculcating the importance of accuracy, 
as against rapidity of fire, for whilst it is in every way desirable to maintain celerity 
of movement, there can be little doubt but that deliberation in laying the gun, and 
in adjusting the fuze, though it may lead to a fewer number of rounds being fired 
in a given time, would be more than compensated for by the better result that 
would certainly ensue. 
11. Packing Ammunition , tyc .—The committee point out several defects of 
arrangement observed by them, that contribute to delay and embarrassment when 
a battery is first brought into action. 
The ammunition boxes are much too high, rendering it difficult for any but a tall 
man to get shells out, one-third of their internal space is not utilized, and, in order 
to keep the shells in their places, it has to be partly filled up with cumbersome 
blocks of wood, which, from their mode of fitting, are awkward to get in and out, 
and liable to jam. 
The necessary height required to adapt these boxes as seats for the gunners had 
much better be made up by folded blankets or other articles of equipment, for 
which at present no place is allotted, than by an arrangement which very materially 
alfects the service of the gun. 
Great objections exists in regard to the arrangements for carrying the fuzes. Two 
or three separate boxes have to be opened before a fuze can be got out, and they 
are complicated and liable to get out of order. 
It would be very advantageous to increase, as far as possible, the accommodation 
for ammunition in the axletree boxes, so that the gun may be rendered for a time 
independent of its limber. A gun by itself can be rapidly intrenched, not so its 
limber and horses, which might in consequence have to be sent to a considerable 
distance to obtain cover. 
Colonel Elwyn did not fully concur in the conclusions drawn from the abstracts, 
and submitted his views in a letter to the President, as follows :— 
“ 1. Upon a careful analysis of the tables and abstracts of practice, and from a 
general survey of the results obtained, it appears to me that the segment shell has in 
two out of the three classes of experiments-—viz., in deliberate firing and against 
entrenchments, shown a superiority to the shrapnel, and in the aggregate results its 
effects were much greater. 
2. The only class of experiments in which the shrapnel showed its superiority 
was in the rapid manoeuvres and rapid firing at unknown distances, in which the 
results were with both shells so unsatisfactory that they can have but little weight 
in showing the superiority of either. Keeping these points in view, I am of opinion 
that the segment shell is a most formidable projectile, that if properly manufactured 
and supplied with fuzes as effective as those sent from Elswick manufactory, it can 
