326 COMMENDED Essay, 1896. 
be found at the present moment with the seal of official authority upon 
it as a basis of discussion. With these few words of preface he will 
enter on his task. 
That ammunition supply is an excellent subject for consideration 
now-a-days is most apparent. Men have of late years been so absorbed 
in the study of how to hit, that the equally important duty of how to 
supply has had perhaps less attention paid to it than it deserves. A 
battery in action, it should be remembered, is in the position of a 
struggling tradesman living on his capital. The greater efforts he 
makes to cope with the competition round him, the shorter time can he 
hold out. If success, even though it be already in sight, come not 
quickly, he may collapse from inanition, and, if he have no reserve fund 
to dip into, triumphant though he may have been up to a certain point, 
he must in due course of time find himself in the position of a clock run 
down, a steamer without coal, or a lamp without oil. At “ordinary 
fire”? with the 12-pr., as we shall presently see, one ammunition box 
will feed one gun for about half-an-hour, and each gun has six boxes 
to callupon behind it. In three hours therefore—even under the normal 
conditions of the opening of a fight—the guns will have shot their last 
bolt. 
Yet on the eventful 16th of August, 1870, some of the German 
batteries were in action the best part of twelve hours; one battery 
alone fired 1164 shells, and several others got rid of more than 1000 
rounds. At Gravelotte, two days later, the consumption of ammunition 
was almost equally great, and the battery most heavily engaged ex- 
pended very nearly 1000 projectiles. | Now in our service each 12-pr. 
battery carries with it but 600 shell. It has, it is true, some case shot 
besides, but these, being useful only on particular and more or less 
exceptional occasions, may be left out of consideration. For ammuni- 
tion beyond the amount just named, it must look to the Divisional 
Ammunition Column, which forms its first reserve, and which is toiling 
along weary miles of road behind it. If communication, rapid and 
effective, be not established and kept up between reserve and fighting 
line, the guns, ere the battle is half developed, may have to play the 
part of targets in place of engines of destruction. It is as necessary to 
practise officers and men in their duties connected with the renewal of 
ammunition to the pieces they fight, as it is to instruct them in the art 
of shooting straight or of manoeuvring. 
If arrangements are judiciously made and there be no mishaps, the 
wagons, which constitute the reservoir—or at any rate enough of them 
to tide over the difficulty— should arrive ere the guns have exhausted 
the stock they have with them, and there should be no break in the 
continuity of fire. The Ammunition Column should then be able to 
provide enough rounds for any battle for which artillery, judging by 
past experience, may be engaged. Jor an average expenditure of 1000 
rounds per battery, although in 1870 it may have been exceeded in a 
few exceptional and isolated cases, is a sufficient estimate for what we 
may be called upon to face. 
Battles, however, occasionally last for two days, and have even been 
protracted over several. 
