SILVER MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1896. 318 
So far as the strength and mobility for going across country is con- 
cerned, nothing could be better than artillery-ammunition wagons and 
small-arm-ammunition carts, but the carrying capacity of both of these 
is far less than the ammunition-and-store wagon. 
As regards mobility, then, Royal Artillery wagons and small-arm- 
ammunition carts are desirable. As regards capacity, and hence, the 
length of column on line of march, the ammunition-and-store wagon is 
far preferable. 
The composition of the Columns, then, must be a compromise on the 
basis that only such number of the more mobile carriages should be 
allotted as will suffice to keep up a flow of ammunition from the 
Column, which will not be far off the road, to the fighting line. 
As the battalion carts of the infantry and the wagons of the 
batteries are also available for this purpose, the mobile carriages in 
the Column need not be very many. 
When artillery and infantry are deployed for action it is evident, 
Cavalry 
Ammunition 
that save in very exceptional circumstances, they will not be very far Columns, 
from the roads along which they have advanced, and along which the 
Ammunition Columns will move and form up close to, the small pro- 
portion only of the mobile carriages having to move across country. 
The case of a cavalry brigade or division, however, is different. 
They will frequently move and manceuvre for days in directions away 
from, and often at right angles to, the roads by which the army is 
advancing, and their Ammunition Columns must be able to follow 
them without difficulty and perhaps move up for some distance ata 
fairly rapid{fpace. It would, therefore, seem necessary that all the 
carriages of a cavalry column should be of the mobile order, save those 
actually carrying the tents and stores. This will be the artillery- 
ammunition wagons for the Royal Horse Artillery battery ammunition, 
the small-arm-ammunition carts for the cavalry. 
Looking to the nature of carriages for the Park sections, as the 
Park is never intended to move off the roads, the capacious ammunition 
and store wagons are evidently the most suitable for all sorts of 
ammunition or stores. The section, too, which supplies the Cavalry 
Ammunition Columns would never require, as those columns do, to 
move off the road and should consist of the ammunition and store 
wagon. 
Thus the organization of the Park sections will be of the simplest, 
only differing in the number of carriages required for each. 
REPLACEMENT or ARTILLERY MATERIAL. 
With regard to the replacement of wheels, shafts and similar stores, 
it is desirable to find out what loss might be expected, let us say, in a 
series of actions or in a march of considerable difficulty. We must 
bear in mind that batteries have with them enough spare stores, 
wheels, etc. for immediate use, that the Columns should only make 
good these spare stores as the batteries use them and that it only 
would be required to do so after one or, at most, two general engage- 
ments before being supplied again from its Park. 
Sumilarly, the Park would not be required to fill up a Column with 
Wagons for 
the Park, 
