COMMENDED Essay, 1895. 371 
constituents of the garrison may indeed vary, but the duties which it 
will have to perform in time of war are pretty much the same, where- 
ever there is a water area to be guarded, and batteries to defend it. 
If, therefore, we consider broadly the typical requirements of a Coast 
Fortress, and can show how by a suitable training, in connection with 
a suitable organisation, it iy possible to provide for those requirements, 
we shall have done all that 1s necessary. 
Now the first point to note in this sequence is that in every fortress 
the character and position of the works and armament determine abso- 
lutly what the garrison owght to be, not only in numbers, but also in 
kind. 
To begin with, there must be a gun detachment to every gun that 
is to be worked, and a Gun Captain to every gun detachment. ‘I'o every 
group of guns, there must be a Gun Group Commander (as we now call 
him) to supervise the group in action, and make the group corrections 
according’ to the rules of gunnery. Tor every fort or collection of gun 
groups, there must be a superior officer in immediate command, and in 
every work there must be a subordinate staff of specialists to do the 
skilled service, and manipulate those adjuncts in gunnery with which 
we are all acquainted. Again, for every independent group of works 
covering a distinct water area, there must be an officer for general con- 
trol, whether we call him a Section C.R.A., as we did a little while 
ago, or a Fire Commander as we shall doin future. It is besides neces- 
sary to provide that every group of guns in action shall have the atten- 
tion of an officer (or qualified person doing officer’s work) whose business 
will be to maintain the fire of the group upon the hostile target. The 
methods employed we need not here describe ; suffice it to say that con- 
siderable presence of mind, considerable practice, and a large amount 
of technical information must be forthcoming in whoever undertakes 
this duty. 
Thus it happens that :—the number of guns determine the number 
of gun detachments, and the number of groups the number of Gun 
Group and Range Group Commanders. The number of the batteries, 
or collections of groups, determine the number of Battery Commanders, 
while the number of sets of batteries associated for separate command 
determines the number of Fire Commanders. 
It should be observed that these arrangements of the armament of a 
fortress into groups, batteries and fire commands are very seldom 
matters of choice. They are generally dictated by the imperative 
necessity of grouping guns together which are of the same nature and 
have similar areas of fire; of making battery commands wherever the 
groups are too far apart to be under the immediate control of a single 
officer, and of creating separate fire commands wherever the situation 
of the works is such that they cannot be conveniently associated for 
tactical employment. 
_ We are thus brought face to face with the fact that in every Coast 
Fortress there is always a normal Artillery Garrison, and if the actual 
Garrison differs from the normal one, either in quantity or quality, it 
Requirements 
of Coast 
Fortresses in 
general, 
