394 
FIELD ARTILLERY FIRE. 
the excitement of the fight. Such a story not only corrects the fault, 
but impresses the duty on the memory and commends itself to the 
intelligence more than a bald order, the reason for which may not 
always be apparent. 
Again, nothing is so wearisome and so unlike what would occur in 
the field as laying on a chalk mark on a blank wall. Service objects 
should always, when possible, be selected, and a regular story connected 
with each, thus, instead of merely telling a man to lay on a certain 
hedge, all the gun-layers should be called together and the hedge 
pointed out to them as actually screening an enemy and the whole 
business of the selection of a ranging point, of the ranging process 
and of the distribution of fire should be gone through. Houses may 
sometimes be selected in order to practice the layers in distribution of 
fire in height, and woods for practice of distribution in depth. To 
further engage their attention the Battery Commander should himself 
not know the range and length of fuze for the target, but this should 
be thought of by some other person, e.g., the Sergeant-Major, who, 
having decided on the range in his own mind, will tell the Battery 
Commander after every round what the result of the round was; the 
latter thus gets good practice in the routine of the ranging process, 
and will soon find that he can range his battery accurately and quickly 
without the aid of pencil and paper, he will thus be enabled to con¬ 
centrate his attention more on the observation of fire. If the result 
of each round is called out by this second person sufficiently loud for 
the gun-layers to hear, it will soon teach them what the principles of 
the ranging process are, they will thus be enabled to give intelligent 
assistance to the C.O. 
If it is impossible to select service objects from the barrack-square 
something may be done with the instructional target, which should be 
placed so that the central line is horizontal, the lower half of the target 
is then said to represent a hillside, half-a-dozen dots, some four inches 
apart, are made along the line, which represent the muzzles of six guns 
firing over the crest, a horizontal stroke half way down the hill repre¬ 
sents the enemy's main infantry position in shelter-trenches, and a few 
strokes near the top may represent a village upon which one of the 
enemy's flanks is resting. By these means distribution of fire and 
changes of target may be practised, and it is possible to arouse a 
certain amount of interest in the drill. If a small blank wall is avail¬ 
able and any officer is acquainted with the art of scene painting, even 
of the roughest, actions may be fought over every species of country 
in the course of a few weeks. The officers of some batteries have 
prepared small targets representing various bodies of troops of different 
arms, these placed 30 to 50 yards from a battery on the barrack-square 
represent service targets at various ranges and are invaluable for 
instruction in laying and in the application of fire to different forma¬ 
tions. Of course this barrack-square instruction is in addition to that 
given in the open field, but the method will be found to advance the 
education of the recruit much more rapidly than the old system of 
standing gun-drill practised usque ad nauseam. 
In doing this battery gun-drill too much attention should not be 
