82 OKEHAMPTON, 1895. 
the first instructions for choice of position and formations when 
moving under fire will be found under this head. But until batteries 
became fairly adept in the mere dry bones of “target shooting” 
little good could accrue from practice in Brigade Division. Our 
present drill-book is practically silent as to the method of com- 
manding a Brigade Division in action, and wisely so, because three 
years ago there was really little known: but in that period great 
attention has been directed to this point, and no doubt the new edition 
will contain definite rules founded on the experience gained. If we 
are to fight by Brigade Divisions we must practice in them. The im- 
portance of much of the fire discipline is not appreciated at battery 
practice, and the great falling off in this respect at Brigade Division 
practice shows the urgent necessity for more of it. I look forward to 
seeing the greater part of service practice devoted to it. 
CoMPETITIVE. 
I turn now with some fear and trembling to the thorny sub- 
ject of competitive. We may dismiss without comment the years 
1888, 1889 and 1890 when the extraordinary system of individual 
shooting, from the evil results of which we are only just free, was 
flourishing. In 1891 Battery Competitive was introduced, and we may 
say that Competitive, as we understand it now, has been going five 
years. There is no doubt that we are immensely indebted to it for the 
great development of fire discipline in those years. If only it was con- 
ducted in service marching order we might also be indebted to it for 
the most thorough trial of our equipment as it will be on service. But 
it is no test of tactical efficiency, and, granted the good it has done in 
the past, we should honestly ask ourselves what is it doing now? 
There are, | know, those who think that like Frankenstein we 
have created a monster which has almost got beyond control. When 
we read of one camp that “In order to place the batteries on the same 
footing as those which fire a greater number of rounds the elementary 
and service practice was conducted with a view to the final test in the 
competitive ;” when we know, as we all do here, how much of the 
practice of the twenty-five batteries at Shoeburyness was sacrificed to 
competitive, we may well ask ourselves very seriously whether, granted 
all its good work in-the past, competitive now does more to advance 
than to retard the great object of “ training for service ; ”’ whether in 
fact it has not done its work. 
ORGANIZATION. 
Such a review as I have attempted would be incomplete without a 
few words as to what, for want of a better word, I have called 
“ organization.” In the first years of the period I have selected, 
the position of the Commandant at Okehampton was both local 
and temporary. He had no official. position outside Okehampton, 
and directly the camp closed he officially ceased to exist. While, on 
the other hand, at the School of Gunnery, where the instructions for 
practice, the hand-books and the gunnery portion of the drill-book were 
