274 
FIELi) ARTILLERY EIRE. 
Difficulties arising from the nature of the ground and the position of the 
enemy. Great inconvenience will be felt if the enemy’s guns or bat¬ 
teries be placed in echelon, as it will render the observation of some 
of the rounds very uncertain. Moreover, we shall not be able to 
distribute our fire without further corrections, and shall not be able to 
shift the fire from one portion of the target to another without further 
ranging. A good tactical coup-d y ceuil, a sportsman’s eye for country, 
and careful ranging are the only remedies for this. 
Marshy ground either in front or rear of the target often hinders 
observation by smothering the ranging shell; this difficulty can only 
be got over by the use of a comparatively large number of common 
shell and the very careful location of the target by firing two or more 
verifying series at different elevations within the short bracket. 
But the greatest difficulties arise when the enemy is posted in rear 
of a hollow into which our shell drop ; the smoke of the bursting 
shell rising and growing thinner as it rises the target is seen through 
it, and the round has the appearance of being over thus giving rise to 
serious errors. 
The accompanying sketch shows a section of the ground between 
MARS-LA-TOUR, August 18th, 1870. 
Scale, of Yards £0.000 
, , . 0 soo 1000 1500 sooo as on 
H- l - l - l I -1-H--1-j-1 
Horizontal scale of Section is double that of the Plan. 
