388 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
disembarking and in crossing rongli country, without sustaining any damage, 
shows that they are not liable to get out of order from being of too delicate 
manufacture. They can be loaded and fired very quickly with time and 
concussion fuzes with well-drilled detachments . 
In “ C ” Battery, 4th Brigade, a certain number of fuzes were put aside 
for drill purposes, and no shell was allowed to be brought up from the 
limber to the gun, whether at standing gun drill or in the drill-field without 
the fuzes being screwed in and fixed as would be required on service. If 
the detachments are not well drilled and constantly practised in screwing 
and unscrewing the time fuzes into the shells, there is a liability to confusion 
when the men are under fire, particularly on cold frosty mornings, or in the 
dark, or coming into action in a hurry and unexpectedly. The thread of 
the time fuze cannot be got to fit at once into the nozzle of the shell; the 
man fixing the fuzes forgets in the confusion and smoke, which way he has 
to turn the nut which fastens and unfastens the collar; he is puzzled about 
the right direction to move the key when he tightens the time fuze in its 
place, and a careless No. 1 omits to tighten the nut sufficiently when the 
fuze is set, thus causing premature explosions occasionally. 
Should the E pattern brass time fuze be continued in the service, some of 
these difficulties might be removed, by having the body of the fuze fitted 
with a spring something similar to that on the spring-spike; the fuze could 
then be fixed tightly into the nozzle of the shell as the spring-spike fits into 
the vent of a piece of ordnance, and half the difficulties of screwing would 
thus be done away with. There would still remain the collar and nut to be 
adjusted. It would probably be impossible to extract the fuze when once 
fixed, but that would be a small object when the greater rapidity of fire that 
could be obtained is considered, especially the first rounds on coming into 
action. 
But although the Armstrong field gun has been proved to be an admirable 
substitute for the 9-pr. smooth-bored gun, yet it can in no way replace the 
24-pr. howitzers which for obvious reasons were associated with 9-pr. 
batteries before the introduction of rifled ordnance. 
When a moderately thick earthern field parapet requires to be breached 
by field guns, as at the “ gate-pah " engagement;—when shells require to be 
thrown by hand amongst assailants or defenders of earthworks as at 
Bangiriri ; when ricochet fire at very short distances is required, as at 
Orakau;—the Armstrong field shell will always fail to be as effective as a 
common shell from a 24-pr. howitzer. Therefore the same arguments which 
held good for associating 24-pr. howitzers with 9-pr. guns in the old smooth- 
bored batteries, still apply to the necessity for associating an improvement 
on the 24-pr. howitzer with the 12-pr. Armstrong. 
It is hardly necessary to remark that on all occasions and whatever might 
be the various duties that the men were called upon to undertake, their 
conduct was most praiseworthy, and the duties were performed cheerfully and 
well, whether acting as artillery, cavalry, infantry, military train, or in 
assisting the royal engineers, in building redoubts or bridges, or in making 
roads in the interior of the country. 
