324 
FIELD ARTILLERY FIRE. 
fractions and star shell, except that the Corps Troops Ammunition 
Column actually carries 75 rounds per gun instead of 74. 
The systems to be brought under notice are :— 
1. —Direct supply from limbers, which are repacked from the 
wagons. 
Advantages .—Although this system is one that has been officially 
adopted in our service for many years, and still appears in the “ Artil¬ 
lery Drill-Book,” it is extremely difficult to point out any advantages 
attaching to it. Its retention doubtless arose from habits inculcated 
during a period when batteries on peace establishments were not 
supplied with wagons and officers preferred to depend in war on a 
system of service from the limbers which they had practised in peace. 
Disadvantages .—Are numerous. 
The gun teams, if not unhooked, are the more certainly exposed to 
those heavy losses, which, times out of number in modern warfare, 
have temporarily deprived whole Brigades of the power of movement; 
if unhooked the battery is not in a position to move on at the shortest 
possible notice. 
In the case of Horse Artillery acting with Cavalry the supply will 
generally have to be made from the limbers, but, as a rule, these bat¬ 
teries would not be subject to heavy fire, so the above remarks do not 
apply to them. 
There is a great waste of labour in the shifting of ammunition from 
wagons to limbers, for which purpose, if the supply in the limbers is 
not to run dangerously low, some of the wagons must be driven 
up to the limbers, close in rear of the fighting line, at least three 
times in the hour, and remain there some 10 minutes each time while 
the repacking goes on, thus needlessly exposing a large number of 
men and animals other than those in the actual fighting line. 
2. —Supply from wagons. 
Advantages .—The supply in the limbers is kept as a last reserve, to 
be resorted to on the exhaustion of other supplies, or when losses 
amoug teams render it no longer possible to supply from more retired 
echelons, the battery can thus never be without ammunition until 
every possible round with it has been fired. 
By first exhausting the ammunition in the wagons these can be sent 
off sooner to the Ammunition Columns than if the supply in the lim¬ 
bers were first exhausted and then replaced by that from the wagons. 
It permits the limbers and gun teams, in fact all teams, to take full 
advantage of any neighbouring cover within reasonable distance of 
the battery, or, at all events, to be withdrawn from the line of fire 
directed on the guns, and thus, by protecting the teams, preserves the 
power of moving forward at the shortest possible notice, and that, too, 
with at least the limbers full of ammunition for immediate use. 
The foregoing advantages' most decidedly claim a judgment in 
favour of a system of supply direct from the wagons. The only 
question that appears to excite any difference of opinion is :—Should 
the supply be made from two or three wagons brought up at the 
same time ? 
