EXPERIENCES at okehampton in 1891. 
107 
because it was brought in to try and bring four-gun and six-gun bat¬ 
teries approximately under the same conditions for competitive practice, 
but the number of rounds delivered by a six-gun battery with ordinary 
fire by sections, if it is properly kept up with 20 seconds intervals, is 
exactly the same as if the battery fired rapid fire with seven seconds 
intervals right through from a flank, and by this latter method much 
greater regularity and less flurry would be ensured. Moreover, 
ordinary fire by sections could not be kept up long except under very 
favourable conditions by any battery; 40 seconds, which is the utmost 
time a gun would have, is not, as a rule, sufficient time in which to 
run up, load, and lay with precision for more than two or three rounds. 
In rapid fire from a flank, seven seconds intervals, each gun has also 
40 seconds interval, but I do not think that this fire should ever be 
resorted to except with case shot, where no running up is required and 
.the laying is only very rough. 
The only time when rapid or ordinary fire by sections should be 
allowed is when firing at a moving object and the number of rounds is 
specified, thus “ Rapid fire from the left of sections ; One Round,” 
because it is desired to catch the enemy at a particular spot; the 
-reasons for not firing a salvo on this occasion are given by Prince 
Kraft. 
The practice of Nos. 1 ordering their guns to be fired without any 
word of command from the sectional officer is not so prevalent as here¬ 
tofore ; one reason for this grave breach of fire discipline is very curious, 
and I will give it to you in detail. 
In the older drill books it was laid down, and the wording has sur¬ 
vived into the one at present in use, that, in ordinary fire, one gun is 
to be fired when the shell is home in the gun next to it. I have 
observed over and over again at drill and sometimes at practice, a No. 1, 
instead of attending to his own gun up to the last minute, watching the 
gun next to him and giving the word to his own gun to fire as soon as 
the shell went home in the next gun, without waiting for the sectional 
officer to give the order. I was very much puzzled for a long time to 
account for this practice, but I think I have arrived at the solution. In 
old days when the centre section was armed with howitzers and the 
indifferent powder was carried in flannel bags, there was a certain 
amount of danger that a spark from one gun might ignite the charge 
in one of the howitzers or even the cartridge being carried up to the 
next gun, so the order was issued that no gun was to be fired until the 
charge of the next gun was quite safe in the bore with the projectile 
on top of it. Surely, now that this danger does not exist, and we, 
moreover, put the projectile into the bore before the cartridge, this 
old world custom might be allowed to drop out of our drill-book. If 
rigidly adhered to the intervals between the rounds would depend upon 
the smartness of each detachment, and the time might be indefinitely 
prolonged if one of the loading numbers was killed at the moment of 
loading. 
In order to ensure regularity of fire it is necessary to drill for some 
time watch in hand until the sectional officers have become accustomed 
