552 ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF ARTILLERY IN CUBA. 
Finally this mortar would be of great use to assist mountain guns 
when the enemy gives battle from an entrenched position or from be- 
hind a stockade, &c. Moreover this was done in the previous war 
with the 8°™ §.B. Coehorn mortar. 
The author concludes with the following summing up :— 
(1.) Mountain artillery could accompany the troops destined to 
operate in mountainous and broken ground, which is fairly 
open. 
(2.) When the enemy fights entrenched or behind stockades and 
natural cover the 9° mortar might be used for indirect 
fire as an auxiliary to the gun. 
(3.) The above-named mortar, firing at high angles, could also be 
used to expel the enemy from the dense cover of the 
thickets, and in case of guns being unable from the nature 
of the ground, exuberance of vegetation, &c. to be of 
service, mortars could take their place. 
(4.) Ifthe nature of the ground be considered so bad that 
artillery is deemed useless, and if at the same time 
it is thought that war rockets would be valuable, then 
these might be adopted and fired at high angles to search 
the cover under which the enemy is taking refuge. 
(5.) The war rockets would also be useful in the open in cases 
when, for various reasons, the artillery cannot be got up. 
The rockets would be fired at low angles to skim along 
the ground and would be specially valuable against 
cavalry. 
In another paper on the same subject in the Memorial for August 
1895, Lieut.-Colonel Gabriel Vidal makes further suggestions which 
are briefly as follows :— 
(1.) He has noticed in the reports of the war that the rebels 
are in the habit of attacking isolated posts which are 
garrisoned by small bodies of loyal troops, and in the 
event of not being able to take these posts by assault, they 
attempt to starve or burn out the defenders. 
As a rule the defenders are only armed with small-arms, and 
though doubtless the breech-loader or, still better, the 
repeating rifle is the first necessity, nevertheless, in the 
absence of quick-firing or machine guns, the author is of 
opinion that hand-grenades should be supplied to all these 
small works andthat the soldiers should be instructed in 
their manipulation for use at close quarters. He therefore 
proceeds to describe the hand-grenade as used in the 
French army, which weighs 1 kilogramme (2:2 lbs.) and 
which is ignited by means of a fuze fitted with a friction 
tube. He recommends as an improvement on the French 
