SILVER MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY, 1895. 349 
out. One of the points already advocated is that the training should 
be on the basis of making the Battery Command the unit. If this is 
done, so far as the men are concerned, when they are trained to their 
duties in this command, they are trained to all that is required of them. 
Such Commands work much more independently of one another in 
Garrison Artillery work than in other Military operations, and their 
combined action consists merely in the direction by one mind of their 
independent actions to one definite object. The grouping of Battery 
Commands under a Fire Commander, so far as it adds to, or alters the 
duties of such Commands, affects only the Officers. If the men know 
their duties connected with the Battery Command, and can work their 
guns efficiently they will do so equally well, whether their guns form a 
separate command, or are being fought under the direction of a superior 
officer as parts of a larger Command; therefore to train the Garri- 
son to work the ‘Chain of Command” smoothly and efficiently, all 
that is required is to train the various officers to take up rapidly and 
intelligently their positions, and duties, when the chain extends from 
the Section Commander down to the Gun Group Commander. It is 
only to this extent then that the training together of the various units 
of the Artillery garrison is necessary or desirable. 
As far as the R.A. are concerned opportunities can generally be 
found in the ordinary course of training for instruction in these duties. 
Militia officers too have an opportunity of being exercised in the 
duties and working of a Fire Command when called out for their train- 
ing, particularly if this takes place as it should whenever possible at 
the Forts which they will be called upon to man in time of war. 
Volunteer Officers are generally placed at a great disadvantage in 
this respect for as has been pointed out their instruction is not as 
complete as it should be, and often they have but few opportunities of 
becoming practically acquainted with their duties. It might however 
surely be arranged that once or twice a year such portions of the 
Artillery Garrison of a Home Fortress as is represented by the R.A. 
Companies therein stationed, and the Volunteers available at short 
notice should be brought together to work the different Forts to which 
they are allotted under the conditions most resembling Service condi- 
tions: but for this to be of practical benefit such an assembling should 
include practice from all the guns manned wherever possible, even if 
only two or three rounds are fired from each gun. This means an 
expenditure of ammunition and consequent expense for which it is 
always difficult to obtain sanction. But such a combined fire-action 
might be arranged, if the present allotment of ammunition to Station 
practice were utilized for this purpose. At present it can hardly be 
claimed that this ammunition is used to the best purposes, indeed it 
seems often to be fired away simply because it has to be expended, and 
it would therefore surely be much better to utilize it to test to some 
extent the value of the chain of command in each fortress, and to dis- 
cover where the weak links lie. Moreover, on the distribution of the 
Garrison advocated here, this ammunition, or at any rate as much of it 
as belongs to the guns that are to be manned by the Volunteers, should 
Royal Artil- 
lJery. 
Militia. 
Volunteers. 
