272 
FIELD ARTILLERY FIRE. 
portion of the enemy's line (in the case of a side wind this 
will not be obscured by smoke) and gradually silence each 
portion of his line in succession. 
This plan presents the great disadvantage that while we are 
so engaging a small portion of the enemy's line the remainder 
is able to carry on its practice almost under peace conditions, 
while ours cannot fail to be seriously disturbed by the fire 
thus delivered. 
b. In the case of the wind blowing straight from the enemy 
towards us his smoke will drift in our direction in a vast cloud 
which will entirely veil the whole of his front and there will 
be no indication how far in rear of that veil his batteries are 
posted. Our only chance is to find the range of the edge of 
the cloud nearest to us; this will probably have to be done by 
salvos of batteries as single rounds would be quite lost in the 
smoke. Having found the range of the edge of the cloud a 
salvo of time shrapnel should be fired for that range; the 
elevation is then raised 100 yards with fuze to correspond 
and another salvo is fired, and so on until the ground behind 
the curtain of smoke is swept to the depth of 500 to 600 
yards. The process is then reversed until we return to the 
original elevation and fuze. This sweeping backwards and 
forwards must be continued until a cessation or slackening of 
the enemy's fire tells us that we have got his range, and it is 
for the purpose of making this disturbance in the enemy's fire 
more apparent that salvos, otherwise so rigorously tabooed, 
are fired. 
This method of attack being the only one ever suggested 
for the attack of an enemy concealed either behind smoke or 
more material cover which is not accessible to us and there¬ 
fore against whom observation is impracticable, is worth 
study. 
Difficulties arising from the number of projectiles.—Our own. When a 
number of shell are falling about the same spot at the same time 
during ranging, the Commander of any particular battery will be 
very puzzled to distinguish his own from those of other batteries. 
To minimise this difficulty must be one of the special cares of the 
Officer Commanding the Brigade Division. 
a. By carefully pointing out the portion of the target upon which 
each battery of his command is to fire and, without interfering 
too much with the Battery Commanders, seeing that their 
respective ranging points do not clash with one another. 
b. If the target is a small one and he intends to bring several 
batteries to bear upon it, by only ranging with the same 
number of batteries as he can select ranging points on the 
target. The others accept the range when found and join in 
the fire. It is evident that these latter batteries can verify 
the range for themselves by a few rounds, for the original 
batteries have already passed to time shrapnel fire and their 
shell bursting in the air cannot be confounded with those 
.bursting on the ground. 
