Manning 
Exercises. 
Obstacles to 
Instruction, 
378 COMMENDED ESSAY, 1895. 
work quickly, should be treated as an experiment, and the programme 
should be so arranged that the conclusions come to may not be confused 
by too many variable factors. Thus, if it is desired to test the personnel, 
the conduct of the gun must be beyond suspicion, or means taken, such 
as clmometer readings, and careful air-spacing to make sure that its 
shortcomings are not put down to the layers or to range-takers. Again, 
it is obvious that to bring home the errors made at practice with cer- 
tainty to the individuals who have caused them, means must be taken of 
registering what each man’s contribution has been to the sum total of 
the operations performed, hence the necessity for a great deal, which 
could never by any possibility be done in battle. 
It must always be remembered that practice is a costly thing, and 
that there is no excuse for throwing away ammunition for the sake of 
apparent smartness. 
Nor ought practice ever to be carried out with a higher nature of 
gun than the requirements of the occasion demand. If, for instance it 
be only desired to exhibit the service method of ranging upon a fired 
target without the help ofa range-finder, why make use of a 9-in. gun 
when a 38-pr. quick-firing would do just as well? 
Manning exercises, besides being useful to show the completeness or 
otherwise of the manning tables, are an excellent mode of instruction in 
the combined duties of specialists and non-specialists. 
It may be now and again a good thing to man an entire Fire Com- 
mand both by day and night; on which occasion the Fire Commander 
and his under-study should take the opportunity of making themselves 
thoroughly at home in their command posts. As a rule, however, the 
manning of a Battery Command or even of a single group will answer 
all purposes of instruction, and it will be by no means necessary that 
every non-specialist should be present. The detail may often with ad- 
vantage be limited to the officers, specialists, and the Gun Captains 
and layers of each gun, a few men being told off to run the guns up 
and back, when occasion required. 
All mannings for exercise should include the use of two or three 
moving targets (fast steam launches from choice) which are quite as 
useful when friction tubes only are employed as when actual practice 
is carried out. If, with each gun, an umpire looks over the left hand 
sight set without deflection, while the layer works on the right, he can 
by making an allowance for the time of flight, and looking along the 
sight at the expiration of such time after the tube has been fired, sce 
exactly where the shot was due to strike, and thus judge the effect of 
the imaginary round. 
In this exercise, the action of wind cannot be considered, and the 
precision of the range-finding must be independently tested, but all the 
other stages of gunnery which lhe between the Range Group Com- 
mander and the gun layer can be thoroughly overhauled. In manning 
exercises, a8 well asin actual practice, the presence of selected instructors 
as umpires will be found advantageous, especially when the Militia and 
Volunteers are employed. 
At the present time, the means of training are ample, but there are 
sundry obstacles to the best use being made of them. 
