Expenditure 
of Ammuni- 
tion and 
duration of 
battles, 
Ammunition 
Columns and 
Parks 
generally, 
Experience 
gained by 
experiments, 
Facts as re- 
gards supply 
294, GOLD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1896. 
The fact that a gun may fire 160 to 180 rounds in a single day’s 
fighting shows that if the gun and wagon taken into action can only 
carry 110 rounds, the supply is insufficient. Although the average 
expenditure may be taken at a much lower figure, say 30 to 50 rounds 
for each day’s fighting, a fear has sprung up that the battles of the 
future will not always be fought out in one day, and that an action 
which is temporarily stopped by nightfall may be resumed on the 
following morning. Whether this is a fear which will be found to be 
grounded or not is another question, we personally believe that men 
are either victorious or beaten in one day, and that nightfall will, in 
99 cases out of 100, tell sufficiently on the nerves of the men to make 
the two or three days’ battle less likely with arms of precision than it 
was in days of less dangerous weapons, and we rather doubt the ex- 
perience of the citizen wars of America being true lines to go upon, 
and battles such as the Lisaine cannot be considered typical from any 
point of view. Be this as it may, it will be an evident advantage to 
an army to always have ammunition to hand. With satisfactory Am- 
munition Columns no one could find any sufficient reason for Bazaine 
not continuing his retreat on Verdun on the 17th August, 1870. 
Ammunition Columns and Parks, which are the latest additions to 
modern armies, have now become an integral part of our army on paper 
and as far as carts, harness and stores are concerned a certain number 
of Ammunition Columns exist in substance. The Parks appear to be 
still purely paper organizations, and as such even are not very complete 
in mobilization details. 
We have had some experimental practice with an Ammunition 
Column with borrowed horses and men at Aldershot, and have tested 
a battery at Okehampton as to its capabilities for firing away a certain 
amount of ammunition in a day, that ammunition being brought up, 
as it would be from the rear, by a portion of an Ammunition Column. 
Both these experiments were satisfactory as far as they went, but they 
tell us very little of what would happen in war as regards the large 
question we are now treating. 
There are some things which are established facts, and the two 
important ones for our purpose are that an infantry soldier will fire 
more rounds than he can carry into action, namely 100, in a very short 
time, and that a gun may fire more than 110 rounds in an action. It 
is obviously most essential that fire effect should never be lost by 
troops well placed or in danger, from the fact of wanting ammunition. 
The infantry soldier is in some respects better off than the gun, because 
he has a regimental reserve of 85 rounds per man carried regimentally, 
but his expenditure in exposed positions is almost without limit. The 
supply of the infantry soldier in the fighting line is, however, not our 
business. Itisa task that has baffled many deep-thinking soldiers, 
it is at present arranged for regimentally, and must of necessity be 
done in this manner. The Ammunition Column only comes in as a 
supply to the regimental reserve in every case, for in the artillery the 
wagons may be treated as a Ist reserve to the gun and limber, although 
they often may be emptied first. 
