116 
EXPERIENCES AT OKEHAMPTON IN 1891 . 
caused by lessening the muzzle velocity are most interesting. I hope tliat next 
year Captain White will be able to give us more information in this direction 
about the whole of the ammunition. I am sure I express the view's of most Field 
Artillerymen when I say we are most anxious for the efficiency of our ammunition. 
It is no' use to say we have the best field gun in Europe, the highest muzzle 
velocity in the world, and the most scientifically curiously constructed carriage, 
if at the same time our ammunition is not equal to or better than any that can 
be brought against us. I cannot agree with Captain White’s statement that “ the 
instructional battery started under no more favourable conditions than any other.” 
Surely the fact of its starting under the same commander who had practised on 
the same ground the previous year was in itself a great advantage. 
Major W. L. Davidson, B.H.A., asked the lecturer if he could suggest 
any reason for the apparent superiority in shooting of the batteries at Glenbeigh 
over those practising elsewhere, as it appears an extraordinary fact that six out of 
eight batteries practising there obtained 1st class, whereas only three out of 
37 batteries did so elsewhere, he proceeded to say the lecturer suggested three 
possible alterations in the rules for competition, in order to equalise results. I 
consider that one course alone should be advocated at a meeting of Artillery 
Officers like the present, and that course is, that the amount of ammunition 
allowed on Scale D should be increased. 20 common, 58 shrapnel, 12 case and 30 
empty common, whereas one battery at Glenbeigh was able to fire 25 common 
and 129 shrapnel in the competition alone. Colonel Spragge recommends that 
the competition should take place towards the end of the practice. I had the 
misfortune to practice on the Shoeburyness scale this year, and the competition 
not only came too early, but too late, and too much in the middle of the practice, 
and it was only by exchanging the recruits’ rounds and case shot that we had 
enough shrapnel for it. Practical officers have been working for years more or 
less, by rule of thumb. The results have been collected and tabulated to great 
advantage. But I think there is a tendency to make the rules deduced from 
these results too hard and fast. I would therefore suggest that in the competition 
more scope be allowed the officer commanding a battery to commence shrapnel 
directly he judges he has the correct range without waiting to verify as he is now 
compelled by the rules, especially at short ranges such as 2000 yards. 
Captain F. E. D. Acland said that since leaving the service, he had had 
exceptional opportunities of seeing the development of artillery work in Europe, 
of witnessing experiments, and of learning the views of foreign gunners. It was 
lamentable to him to hear the lecturer congratulate the regiment on an advance 
when the percentage of hits of shrapnel fire was so ludicrously small. The mean 
error of the time fuzes was far too large—due without doubt to the high velocity— 
and he thought it would surprise the lecturer to hear that in Eussia fuzes were 
rejected if the Imperial Arsenal could not pass a test which insisted on every fuze 
bursting at any range within a space 25 metres long. He criticised the new 
pattern of carriages and thought that however elaborate and complicated designers 
might make their breaks they could never get more work out of them than 
skidding the wheel which could be done more economically and with less weight 
by a few turns of rope on the nave as in the French field gun. He considered 
Major Clarke’s paper on Shrapnel Fire in the “ Proceedings ” as a most valuable 
contribution, and he hoped that it would lead to the introduction of really 
efficient ammunition, so that w T e might have a chance of competing with foreign 
results. It amused him to hear the lecturer solemnly advise battery officers to 
judge of the accuracy of the setting their fuzes by comparing the observed results 
of such setting with the mean error of our most inaccurate and' complicated fuze. 
The regiment was continually crying out for more ammunition, but so long as 
the present system of manufacture and introduction of stores continued, the 
expense would be too great. Take for instance our common shell, it was known 
