FIELD ARTILLERY FIRE. 
199 
of the battery are always loaded. If anything like indepen¬ 
dent fire begins it generally commences with a straggling 
salvo, after which the men, knowing that all the guns of the 
battery are empty, and that the enemy is close upon them, be¬ 
come hurried, and hurry soon degenerates in confusion. It is 
this feeling of uneasiness that has led the Germans to veto the 
firing of salvos, which would otherwise be very effective, under 
such circumstances. 
If the Battery Commander wishes to keep the fire entirely 
in his own hands, rather than delegate it to the sectional 
officers, then salvos of half batteries would give a steady and 
effective fire and the men would feel that, there being always 
some guns loaded, they would never be in a quite defenceless 
state. 
b. It is very much too slow. This arises from several causes— 
1. For want of a timely warning to ^ Prepare for case ” it is not 
brought up from the limbers in time, and it often happens at practice 
that there is none carried on the gun. The command “ Prepare for 
. ” is not thoroughly understood, it will be discussed later 
on in Chapter X. 
2. Although it is so laid down in the drill-book, it is difficult to make 
the men understand that there is no time for running up the gun after 
each round, indeed it requires very stringent orders to prevent them 
doing so, as they have been taught to do so under every other circum¬ 
stance, and it is moments such as those when case shot fire is resorted 
to that the mechanical phase of a maff s training is most apparent. 
3. The gun-layers are much too long over the laying. This arises 
from the fact that, at practice, the object is merely a small moving 
target, three or four feet across, whereas, on service, the front of the 
target would probably greatly exceed that of the battery. The eleva¬ 
tion that it is necessary to give is merely approximate and no time 
should be lost in setting and clamping a tangent scale. Abroad a 
usual custom is for the gun-layer to put either one or two fingers, as 
ordered, on the head of the tangent scale, which is at zero, and lay 
over them and the foresight; this approximation to the elevation is 
quite sufficient, accuracy of direction is of no moment and the pro¬ 
cedure is much more rapid. The elevation as given in the range table 
is that suitable for ground of average hardness when certain of the 
bullets will ricochet, on soft ground double the amount of elevation 
should be given. 
It must be remembered that when all the case shot of a battery are 
expended it is no longer possible, with B.L. guns, to revert to the old 
muzzle-loading expedient of using reversed shrapnel, but very fair 
effect may be got by using time shrapnel with the fuze set just beyond 
zero; the shell will then burst just clear of the muzzle. 
In order to prevent the waste of time in accurate laying in case shot 
fire, it is not a bad plan, at practice and. drill, to cause the section 
