114 
EXPERIENCES AT OKEHAMPTON IN 1891 . 
DISCUSSION. 
Lieut.-Colonel Spragge said as Lieut.-Colonel Commanding a Division at 
Okehampton this season, I think I may make a few remarks on what Captain 
White has told us. As regards the distribution of fire, I am quite of opinion 
that it is a very weak point, and it is curious that it should be so. Why is it 
that what is so easy on paper is so difficult in practice ? This very difficulty to 
make the Majors understand, and for them to make the layers understand your 
wishes in the matter—the object to be attacked and how it is to be attacked. 
Then, even with all the regulations for practice and similar rules, there is still a 
doubt as to which is the right and which is the left of the target. This is a point 
which should be made clear beyond the possibility of a doubt. (Hear, hear.) 
Then there is the inversion of the target caused by Scott’s Sights—and whilst on 
the subject of Scott’s Sights I may remark that there is, I fear, a tendency to use 
them too frequently and on improper occasions.—It will hardly be credited, but I 
once saw them used for firing case shot. (Laughter.) The battery signallers 
were not at all what they should be, and I fear that we shall never get them satis¬ 
factory until they are paid. They are of the utmost importance with large 
bodies of Artillery. Capt. White has emphasised his remarks on exposure in 
taking up positions, but in connection with this he has omitted to note one very 
important point. That is, that as the layers are mostly Nos. 1 of sub-divisions 
it happens, not infrequently, that when the Major, Section Officers and layers are 
going forward to the position, the guns are left solely to the care of the Sergt.- 
Major What is to happen if one good shell is put in amongst the little group in 
front P or what is to guard against a panic amongst the men left thus without 
Officers or N.C.O’s.P Be a Battery Sergt.-Major of the best, as he generally is, 
he cannot take the place of Major, Subalterns and Nos. 1 ; and even in the matter 
of bringing up a battery into position, I saw one battery thus deprived of its Nos. 
1, arrive in position at close interval through the drivers in their excitement 
having closed in one team to another. I consider the system mentioned by 
Capt. White, and proposed for adoption, for covering the ground between the 
800 yds. and case shot range at a rapidly moving object, worked excellently and 
was eminently practical, and I hope it may be embodied in the regulations. The 
arrangements for the supply of ammunition from the one line of wagons worked 
well, but I think batteries with a complete line of wagons should constantly 
practise them at field days instead of their being sent off the field as at present so 
often is the case, and wagons should be sent to Okehampton, to enable all 
batteries, whether 1st Army Corps or not, to practice with them. In the matter 
of fire discipline I saw a very great difference between batieries, certainly much 
greater than could be expressed by the marks given, and I quite agree that the 
marks for the competitive practice should be raised to 100 in this respect. I 
should be glad to see the competitive practice take place later in the camp, and 
to see it spread over several days. Why should it not, indeed all such service 
practice? At present there is a very large element of luck, due to weather and light. 
Eighteen gun layers in a battery is a very desirable consummation, but it would be 
almost an impossibility at such a station as this where the Majors have very great 
difficulties in training their men, and I fear that if insisted upon we should be 
liable to have eighteen indifferent instead of a less number of good layers.^ Before 
I conclude, I cannot help remarking that it is a very curious fact that three out of 
the four battery prize winners came from single battery stations, and would ask 
Capt. White whether his attention has been called to the fact—to me it points to 
the lesson that however admirable it may be to mass batteries together for 
manoeuvres and practice, yet from an artilleryman’s point of view the single 
