THE MEAGRENESS OF ARTILLERY RESULTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIV, Issue 37, 13 February 1900, Page 2

THE MEAGRENESS OF ARTILLERY RESULTS.

y " They fired shell at us for a whole week and killed one Kaffir and two dogs." Such was the wording of a heliograph message from Ladysmith to London Daily Mail on December 11th. Considering that some of the Boer shells hurled into the beleaguered town bave been estimated at a value of £48 a-pioce, the paucity 1 of execution actually effected borders on the ridiculous. But, as a matter of fact, it is no new thing this meagreness of result-:— in the way of killed and wounded — from artillery fire. The proportion of oases m which artillery men, m the excitement of battle, are able to burst shells m exactly the right position to t do much exeoution, is notoriously very small, even at so close a range as that of one mile. A writer m the San Francisco Argonaut, who has been amusing himself with making f sundry calculations as to artillery results, has come to the conclusion that at a distance of two miles or 1 more the risk to the men m a moving skirmish line is hardly entitled to the

classification of "extra hazardous" n by the insurance underwriters. In- J deed, the execution of artillery m - battle is, as a rule, greatly over- t rated. During the American Civil ■* War, out of 245,790 shot wounds, r 14,023 were caused by artillery, viz., *■ 850 by solid shot, 12,520 by fragments of shells, etc., and 1,158 by grape and canister. The recent im- I provements m small arms bave given them a useful range about as great as the cannon. By the "useful range" is meant, not the greatest distance to which a projectile can be thrown so as to do at an expense of, c say, a couple of pounds, damage of t say, five shillings to the enemy, but y the distance at which the shot can be i made effective against small groups <~ of single individuals. As an i example of the ineffectiveness ( of artillery fire against troops 1 spread out m individual groups, it may be noted that just before the T celebrated charge of Pickett's cavalry i at the famous American battle of Gettysburg, the Confederates opened upon the Union line with about 150 ' pieces of artillery, which was im- ] mediately responded to by an equal j number on the side of the Norther- ' ners. And, yet, m spite of this ' seemingly terrible outburst of artillery fire, it is estimated that among : the 20,995 Union and Confederate wounded left on the battlefield, there were only 204 wounds caused by artillery. During the present South African campaign artillery has been used with effect, but judging by what we read, it is the rifle and not the big gun that has been responsible for the heaviest list of casualties