DEFENCE NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 86, 4 January 1908, Page 10

DEFENCE NOTES.

Secretaries of: Volunteer Corps and Riflo Clubs are invited: to contribute items of interest for insertion ■in this column. ;• . . , ■

(By Echelon.)

Tlie D. Battery of Field Artillery, Captain A. J. Pqtherick commanding; proceeds to tho;Hutt Park Racecourse for their sixteen days' annual instructional course to-day. Tlio syllabus of instruction is n very comprehensive ono, and includes signalling, range-tak-ing, panoramic and fiold_ sketching, gunnery, riding, driving, and artillery practice. Previous encampments havo been very successful, and. some good shooting should bo dono this year;

; .Major. Johnston, late Director of Artillery in thq;Dominion, is now attached to No. 38 Company'; Royal Garrison Artillery at Ply--mouth.-.; ;V.' : 1 '

The new short rifle with which the New Zealand troops are eventually to be armed has 'a greater recoil, greater velocity, and greater report on firing than the long LeeSnfield rifle at present in use.

Additional interest is; being taken- this year in. the field artillery shooting throughout the -Dominion from the fact that a silver challenge cup has been presented by Mrs;' S. A. . Rhodes, of Wellington, for competition among the various field batteries. The cup will.be awarded to the battery obtaining the'highest figure of morit.

Sir Charles Ross, the inventor of tho Ross rifle," has for some years been experimenting with.' a,;new bullet which will fly. straighte'r thaw' those now in use, and with greater velocity; ;"He has been enabled-to carry the scheme'.'of-tho subject a.step-'furthor.'by. securing a! 2000 feet velocity jtrith a.,cartridge that'will not wear the rifle out quickly. Two years ago ho succeeded in getting up to 2700 feet .and over, and successful/ trials have since been made • with the : bullet in Europe and India, It is now being largely manufactured in Canada, and also for sporting rifles. Various Powers are testing tho cartridge, arid at 1000 yards' range 53, degrees less elevation are : required' than with 'the British service arm!,. . .

According to "La France Militairo" it; is not altogether correct to speak of tho Swiss : as a "nation of marksmen," for LieutenantC6lohel'Heer, of the 28th Regiment.of Swiss Infantry, reports that,in 1906 ho discovered that more than half his men-who,-wero called, up'fo'r training failed oyery-second-shot;-.:to hrt -a 'target four feet ill diameter at 300yards. •; : . ; ...' ' •