118 
EXPERIENCES AT OKEHAMPTON IN 1891 . 
projectile? With regard to the silent drill mentioned by Captain Smith. It is 
generally regarded as a great success (there are only 15 signals and not 27 as 
stated by him, for those in the instructions include those in the Drill Book). 
The value of the voice is no doubt very great and, by silent drill, it is hoped to 
preserve it unimpaired. At the end of a long day’s fight if the voice were 
exclusively used there would be little of it left, and it is incontestible that when 
at silent drill the Battery Commanders voice is heard it attracts immediate and 
fixed attention. Major Davidson’s remark about the shooting of the batteries at 
Glenbeigh is answered by Colonel Spragge’s remark that he notices that three 
out of the four prize winners at Okehampton came from single battery stations. 
All the batteries at Glenbeigh came from one or two-battery stations.* With 
#The following is an analysis of the practice from the point put forward by Colonel Spragge :— 
Station from which 
Total 
number of 
Prize qualified for. 
Not 
qualified 
the batteries came. 
batteries 
shooting. 
I. 
II. 
III. 
for a 
prize. 
1 battery. 
10 
4 
4 
1 
1 
2 battery. 
12 
4 
0 
2 
6 
3 battery. 
9 
1 
1 
1 
6 
More than 3 . 
15 
0 
2 
0 
13 
reference to Colonel Marshall’s remark about the Instructional Battery, I had no 
desire whatever to disparage the shooting of other batteries, but merely to point 
out the great advance that is made when the supply of ammunition is great. 
With regard to Captain Acland’s criticisms on the materiel , it was not my inten¬ 
tion to notice this point at all, because we have got to do the best we can with 
what is given us, but, as he has drawn attention to it, I should like to say a few 
words. With regard to fuzes, I believe that in the time and percussion small 
we have one of the best fuzes in Europe. (Loud and prolonged laughter.) 
Certainly as a manufactured article, but it is unfairly handicapped by the high 
velocity of the gun. (Hear, hear.) Let me give you an example. When the 
German gun was tried some two or three years ago at Shoeburyness, the German 
fuze completely beat ours in the smallness of its mean error; but when shell 
were made for the 12-pr. which took the German fuze, then that fuze was a failure 
as compared with our own, which clearly demonstrates that the gun and not the 
fuze was at fault, and that the inaccuracies are due to the high velocity given to 
the shell. With regard to the common shell, it is acknowledged that the effect 
obtained against earthworks by a powder burster of any field gun common shell 
is, comparatively speaking, worthless, and the idea has been abandoned of using 
it for this purpose. It is desired then to increase the man-killing properties of 
this shell, which are at present contemptible (it breaks, or rather tears, into three 
or four pieces only), and to substitute for it a ring or segment shell, but here 
again the high velocity of the gun leads us to an impasse. A shell to be fired with 
high velocity must be tough, otherwise it will break up in the bore and be more 
dangerous to friend than foe. Now a tough ring-shell is an anomaly, and if the 
segment shell have a tough envelope it is liable to hold the fragments together 
when the bursting charge acts. Still, there is the present state of the question— 
our present common shell is condemned in principle and we want a new one. 
The whole question of high muzzle velocity, as it acts and reacts on the ammuni¬ 
tion question, is a regular house-that-Jack-built. High muzzle velocity means a 
