FIELD ARTILLERY FIRE, 
135 
rapidity, from one target, or from one nature or rate of fire to another. 
All this is understood by the word fire-discipline. 
The Battery Commander being, so to speak, the motive power, it is 
of the first importance that all his orders should be conveyed intact to 
those portions of the machine that he wishes to set in motion. For this 
purpose the experience of many years has led foreign artillerists to 
formulate an axiom that : ALL ORDERS FROM THE BATTERY 
COMMANDER ARE TO BE REPEATED AND NOT INTER¬ 
PRETED. 
In the early days of the modern system of fire-discipline many 
schemes were propounded, some of which will be noticed in due course, 
that depended for their successful carrying out on the correct interpre¬ 
tation by the Sectional Officers of their Commaudera* orders. Some of 
these schemes worked out in a satisfactory manner on paper and on 
the drill ground, some even partially survived the more searching 
ordeal of the ranges, but all have failed when tried by the standard of 
active service. Sooner or later one of the interpreters makes a mistake 
or is replaced by a less skilled one and then the whole scheme falls to 
pieces, whereas when all orders from the Battery Commander are 
carefully repeated the mental strain upon the personnel is greatly 
reduced and the working of the battery remains most completely in 
the hands of its commander. 
The better to enable these orders, as given by the Battery Com¬ 
mander and repeated by the Sectional Officers, to be heard by all 
concerned, a system of silent drill has been introduced [vide “ In¬ 
structions for Practice, 1891 ”) which, by the supression of unnecessary 
noise, has had the effect of greatly improving the service of the guns 
and the rapidity with which orders are grasped and carried out; the 
reason for this being that all recipients have to be much more on the 
alert to catch a signal than they had formerly to be when they might 
trust to having their faculties stimulated by the voice of the com¬ 
mander. Should it ever be necessary to send an order, this applies 
especially to brigade practice, the best protection from mistakes is to 
send it in writing, but, as this is not always possible on service, it 
should be resorted to as seldom as possible and the message be sent 
verbally; it should be made a rule that every orderly, as well as every 
recipient of an order, should be educated to repeat the message 
“ verbatim,” thus only can mistakes be avoided. This habit of repeat¬ 
ing messages is a matter of education, and cannot be acquired on the 
spur of the moment. The correct delivery of messages can be best 
ensured if officers make it a rule only to send short messages, omitting 
all that is self evident or best left to the discretion of the recipient. 
It is perhaps needless to say that no system can succeed if orders, 
however correctly given and conveyed, are not punctually obeyed, and 
it was this point which produced some little friction when modern 
systems were first introduced into our service. It was hard to induce 
the old generation of gun-layers to give up what they considered their 
vested right, which was fostered by the late system of competitive 
practice, to observe the effect of the shooting and to modify sights and 
laying according to their own observation rather than submit unre- 
