GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1892 . 
497 
from beginning to end. Every temptation to interrupt the course 
should be steadily resisted. If hurried or pushed aside to make room 
for premature field days the work of preparation will be correspond¬ 
ingly checked. Drill comes before manoeuvre, and if a battery attempts 
the latter without being thoroughly grounded in the former defective 
Fire Discipline will certainly be the result. 
The Battery Commander requires 1 instruction in Fire Discipline as 
well as those under him. A battery may be well trained in Eire Dis¬ 
cipline on its own selected drill ground, and yet fail in manoeuvre 
through want of tactical experience on the part of its leader. This 
experience can only be gained by manoeuvres of two or more batteries 
together under their Lieut.-Colonel. It is very important that bat¬ 
teries should be exercised in these manoeuvres for at least a fortnight 
before they go to the practice ground. The artillery tactical exercises 
established by Sir Evelyn Wood at Aldershot may be taken as a type 
of the kind of instruction which is required. Batteries should be 
worked against one another as opposing forces or massed against a 
marked enemy for the attack and defence of artillery positions. The 
schemes should be set by the Lieut.-Colonel and the Battery Com¬ 
manders receive their orders from him as they would do on active 
service. At the conclusion of each day's work there should be a 
conference on the ground presided over by the Lieut.-Colonel, who 
would elicit information on doubtful points, and generally criticise the 
operations. The main object to be kept in view would be the tactical 
training of the Battery Commanders so that they might acquire the 
habit of rapidly executing superior orders while maintaining in their 
batteries the same correct Fire Discipline as when working alone. 
The battery would then be ready for the practice ground, where it 
applies under service conditions the instruction it has received at its 
station. If this instruction has been carried out on the right lines its 
application on the shooting range should require no greater effort than 
was exerted during the period of preparatory drill. Every individual 
will have been so perfectly trained as to be able to perform his part 
with unfailing regularity. Beyond this point discussion is not now 
invited. What may be the most practical system of field firing for 
testing Fire Discipline, by what means the fire of massed batteries 
can be best controlled by the superior Artillery Commander, what are 
the most approved manoeuvring formations for the attack and defence 
of artillery positions, how batteries should be brought into the fighting 
line—these and other cognate questions may well form the subject of 
future investigation, but they do not come within the limits which the 
Committee have assigned to the present inquiry. 
1 Colonel W. P. M. Hutchinson, Camp Commandant at Glenbeigh, writes as follows on this 
point:—“While there is no question that great credit is due to commanding officers for the 
satisfactory progress made by their batteries since last year, their own improvement in ranging, 
observation of fire, and fire tactics generally, though tangible, is not so eminently satisfactory as 
that which they have imparted to their commands. .... The time would seem to have 
come when it is imperative to give Battery Commanding Officers increased facilities for personal 
improvement.”—Report on the Annual Practice at Glenbeigh, 1391. 
Instruction 
of battery 
commanders. 
Application 
of training 
to the prac¬ 
tice ground. 
