COMMENDED ESSAY, 1892 . 
645 
ing thus been acquired. Miniature targets on a scale of half-an-inch 
to a foot and placed at the other side of the barrack-square may well 
be made to thoroughly represent objects as they would appear in nature 
at medium ranges. Simple arrangements of springs released by a 
string may bring into view previously invisible targets, and men may 
be told off to represent targets moving on the battery and started at a 
signal from the Instructing Officer. 
The variety of problems that may be set—all needing to be dif¬ 
ferently treated—is almost infinite. Targets may be prone, standing, 
or on horseback; halted or moving at a walk ; trot or gallop; shallow 
or deep ; ranged with shrapnel or common. Distribution of fire should 
be also practised, rules being laid down for the more ordinary cases, 
such as infantry in firing line or blocked in a defile, artillery in equal, 
inferior, or superior strength, etc., so that the command to “ distribute 
the fire” will usually be amply efficient without any additional explan¬ 
ation or order as to how it is to be done. 
The examples in the drill-book and the procedure of many Com¬ 
manding Officers at battery gun-drill are based on the assumption that 
but few ranging rounds will be insufficiently, and none incorrectly 
observed. This, with targets of ordinary difficulty, is more than can 
be counted on, the proportion being much nearer 10 per cent, incorrect, 
and 20 per cent, doubtful. The battery should, therefore, be prepared 
for the incidence of misleading rounds, and once the more simple cases 
are thoroughly understood the occurrence of one or more incorrectly 
observed rounds should be made a feature of every series. Once this 
has ceased to cause any difficulty yet another step in advance should 
be taken, and casualties should be ordered among the personnel as well 
as the execution of petty repairs in the middle of ranging. When, 
finally, these even produce but little interruption or confusion in the 
fire, there is fair ground that the Fire Discipline has reached a satis¬ 
factory pitch of excellence. 
This eminently satisfactory result will, however, even with great skill 
and care, be hardly reached before the end of May, and by this time the 
instruction of the battery mounted (i.e., the contents of Volume III. 
“ Field Artillery Drill,” less section five) should be practically complete. 
The time has, therefore, come for the second, or mounted portion of 
the Lieut.-Colonel's Annual Inspection, which precedes the portion of 
the year devoted to minor tactics, field days, and manoeuvres. From 
this date on, all parades of the arm by itself (save the smaller ones of 
specialists, 2nd class men, and recruits) should be brigade division 
ones, and these should take place not only on the drill-ground, but also 
occasionally iu the barrack-square, where Fire Discipline in brigade 
division should be practised on lines very similar to those advocated 
for the batteries, each parade ending with a short critique lasting only 
for ten minutes perhaps, but still long enough to point out errors and 
lapses and the means by which their recurrence should be avoided. 
The advancing wave of progress in this matter of Fire Discipline 
would seem for the present to have reached its high-water mark with 
the Majors, and “ their yearly improvement in ranging, observation of 
fire, and fire tactics generally, though tangible, is not so marked as the 
86 
