101 
EXPERIENCES AT GKEHAMPTON IN 1891. 
BY 
CAPTAIN W. L. WHITE, R.A. 
(A Lecture delivered at the Loyal Artillery Institution, November 4th, 1891 ). 
Colonel C. C. Trench, R.A., Director Artillery College, in the Chair. 
By permission of the Commandant of the School of Gunnery and of 
the Camp Commandant Okehampton, I am enabled to place before you 
some of the principal results and some of the points most worthy of 
notice of the practice at Okehampton in 1891. 
The points which were noted in the. report for 1890 (of which my 
paper of last year read in this theatre was the pale reflection) and to 
which attention was drawn in the Instructions for Practice, 1891,” 
naturally attracted the attention of Battery Commanders and a marked 
improvement took place in almost all the points brought forward. I 
shall, therefore, this year, endeavour to bring under review other 
phases of the practice, which want of time, and the fear of making 
the paper too long and wearisome for the “ Proceedings,” forbade .me 
to mention last year. There are two or three points from last year’s 
paper, however, that I must venture for a moment to dwell upon, 
viz. :— 
Distribution of fire , though greatly improved, is not yet what it should 
be, nor will the best effects be produced in the shortest time until the 
fire is distributed from the first shrapnel, or, in the case of continuous 
fronts of target, from the very first round. We must not allow our 
views to be narrowed by the unreal conditions of the practice ground, 
one of which is the want of moral as well as material effect produced 
by the bursting shell of a well distributed fire, an effect which would 
be postponed, perhaps never attained, if we confine our fire too long to 
the ranging point; at all events our men must suffer the more from 
the undisturbed fire of the enemy the longer it is undisturbed. 
Fazes .—The controversy as to whether it was better to get the first 
time fuzes to act on graze or in the air ran high this year. Some 
officers said that they TRIED to get the first fuzes to act on graze; 
15 
3. YOL. XIX. 
