67 
OKEHAMPTON, 1895, AND THE PROGRESS THERE 
IN RECENT YEARS. 
BY 
CAPTAIN J. HEADLAM, R.A. 
(A Lecture delivered at the Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, 7th October, 1895). 
COLONEL BR. D. E. LOCKHART, 
CoLONEL-ON-THE-STAFF CoMMANDING Royar Horsr anp FIeLp ARTILLERY WooLwicu 
IN THE CHAIR. 
SYNOPSIS: 
PART I. OKEHAMPTON, 1895. 
SratistTics.—Training for service the object of the practice. 
MAIN FEATURES OF THE YEAR’S PRACTICE. 
Advance towards service conditions. 
Rigid adherence to regulation methods. 
Increased use of surprise and moying targets. 
PoINTs MOST OFTEN NOTICED IN COMMANDANT’S CRITICISMS. 
Want of due estimation of the tactical situation. 
Time taken before a battery in action could move. 
Slackening of fire discipline where most required. 
Defective ammunition supply. 
Fizip Firine. 
PRESENCE OF OFFICERS FROM INDIA. 
PART II. REVIEW OF PROGRESS FROM 1888 TO 1895. 
REASONS FOR CHOICE OF PERIOD. PROGRESS SHOWN BY CONSIDERATION OF :— 
The state of training of batteries on arrival. 
Elementary Practice. 
Battery Service Practice. 
Brigade Division Practice. 
Competitive Practice. 
Organization. 
Tue CHairman—Gentlemen, I will ask Captain Headlam to give us 
his lecture. 
Caprain Heaptam—Colonel Lockhart and gentlemen :—Speaking 
here last year, Major Hughes drew attention to the growing difficulties 
of the Okehampton lecture. We must all, of course, rejoice at the 
absence of those changes which formally filled so many pages of each 
year’s Instructions for Practice, but I hope you will remember that 
with no departures from well known methods to chronicle the lecturer’s 
task is a difficult one. Fortunately for me General Chapman, at 
the Royal United Service Institution this spring, threw out the sug- 
gestion that ‘a comparison between the state of things some few years 
back and what we have now” would be interesting. I decided to attempt 
such a comparison, and, in consequence, I have divided my lecture to- 
day into two parts. 
In the first I shall endeavour to put before you the salient features 
of this year’s practice, in the second I shall attempt a necessarily brief 
review of the progress made in recent years. 
Parr I. 
It has for many years been the custom to give here the statistics of 
the year’s practice ; I have therefore made out asmall table giving the 
2. You, XXIII. 
