ARTILLERY IN COAST DEFENCE. 
309 
The “group details ” consist for each group of a Group Officer and the 
detachments for the guns of the group, and one or more dial numbers. 
Each detachment must, of course, include a N.-C. officer as gun 
Captain, and at least one trained layer. 
Lastly comes the “ ammunition detail ” under the Ammunition 
Officer. 
The manner of drawing this out depends on the mode of supply to 
the guns. Guns may be supplied from expense stores and magazines, 
these being filled up from time to time from the main magazine and 
shell store. In this case from one to four men will be required in 
each store, &c., according to the number of guns to be supplied and 
the weight of the ammunioion to be handled. One man should be 
specially told off to have charge of the supply of tubes and fuzes 
where these are kept in expense shell stores. At least one man must 
be posted at the top and bottom of each lift, who will send and 
receive all messages from the gun floor; and, if the lifts are some 
distance from the stores, a sufficient number of men must be at the 
bottom to ensure a constant supply of ammunition. In some cases 
guns may be supplied direct from the main magazine and shell store. 
More men may then be required as the guns will be further from the 
stores or lifts, but the actual number will vary greatly with the nature 
of the work. 
In either method of supply where one lift has to serve many guns, 
it will be difficult to arrange for an equally rapid delivery to all of 
them, and this would be fatal to rapid fire; since groups are usually 
fired by salvos the slowest loading guns would delay the others. To 
obviate this, temporary depots are established on the gun floor, out of 
danger of chance shots, where a few shell can be stored. (Fide 
Manual of Garrison Artillery, Vol. I., page 50, “For precautions to 
be observed to minimise risk of explosion.”) Depots for cartridges 
may sometimes have to be similarly established. These depots must 
be kept filled from the lifts or main stores by men detailed from the 
ammunition detail. With guns whose cartridges are brought up in 
zinc cylinders, a few men must be told off to collect and stack them 
out of the way of the working of the guns. The responsibility of 
the ammunition detail extends as far as the delivery at the depots or 
at the head of the lifts, the service thence to the guns being carried 
out by the gun detachments. A N.-C. officer should be told off to 
superintend the filling up of depots from lifts, as the Ammunition 
Officer, being on the magazine floor, will not be able to do so. 
If any men of the companies told off to man the work are available 
after these details are completed they will form the reserve and be 
placed under the orders of the Sub-Commander. They will be em¬ 
ployed in bringing up spare stores as required, in replenishing expense 
magazines and stores from main store, &c., if necessary, and from 
their number casualties among the details will be replaced. 
If a long bombardment is expected, arrangements would have to be 
made and noted on the manning detail for relieving at least a part of 
the details at stated intervals. 
To enable every man to know and recognise his post, and to facili- 
