The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-11
HEAVY ARTILLERY DRILLS
TT IS NOT EASY TO LEARN TO HAN-
 DIE THE BIC GUNS.

Many Things for the Heavy ArtiIleryman
 to Study, and Great Deal of Hard Work
 Besides--why it Requires Long Service
 to Acquire Proficiency-Lack of Modern
 Guns.
 Fifteen seasoned soldiers from each battery of the five standing artillery regiments are to be distributed among the batteries of the two new regiments of artillery now being organized in ac- cordance with the permission granted by congress early this week. The sea- soned soldiers are to leaven the new regiments and make artillerymen of the recruits.
 The old timers thus assigned will no doubt be able to convert the two regi- ments of recruits quickly into emer- gency artillerymen-that is, they will teach them at once the mechanical operations of serving the big guns by the numbers, in order that the new men may not be entirely useless when they are needed to serve the pieces. But an artilleryman, as the soldier of big ordnance is trained in the army of the United States, cannot be made in emergency time. An artillery recruit can be rapidly fashioned into an auto matic carrier of ammunition, and in the course of a few drills, if he is quicl1-witted, he can master the duties demanded by his one particular num- Der on a big guns crew; but it takes years of alertness and attention and considerable study besides for the | cleverest recruit to become a good heavy artilleryman in the American army. As to the light artilleryman, he is born, not made Light artillery soldering, as it is considered in the United States army, is largely a mat | ter of horsemanship, and the light l artillerymen are picked for their natu- | ral skill and aptness with horses. The | light artilleryman's drills are many | and his duties are heavy, but he is | consoled for this in the reflection that l he belongs to the crack branch in the whole military outfit. Foreign militia | ry critics of eminence have unhesita- | tingly pronounced the ten batteries of | light artillery of the army-of the Uni 1 ter States to be unsurpassable in the world for horsemanship and rapid and scientific handling of the pieces. But while the American light artilleryman has got to be as nimble as an acrobat and an absolute master of horseman- ship. he does not have to use his head nearly so much as his "In bar, heave," comrade in the heavy artillery ranks. Just now the heavy artillery branch is | the most pertinent to set forth the fact that some military critics, both of this country and Europe, have for many years maintained that too much work and too many drills are saddled upon the American heavy artillery man. It is commonly known among | military men that by the time an | American artilIeryman in the heavy branch has put in 8 three-year enlist ment he has picked up only a smatter- | ing of the many duties and drills that are imposed upon him as the heavy artillery service is at present organ iZed. If all artillerymen who put in one enlistment in the heavy branch | would take on again in that branch, the heavy artillery force of the United States army would be on a par with any in the world. But men in the heavy artillery have of late years been getting enough of it in one enlistment, and when they enlist again great many of them join the "doughboys' in the infantry regiments, for the sake of the comparatively easy lone sol dier, one gum duty therein.
 In the first place, the United States heavy artilleryman has got to become as good an infantryman as his swad
 dies in the infantry regiments. He is subject to call at any time for de- tached infantry duty, in case of riot for example, and he has therefore to acquire the same proficiency in hand ling a rifle as the doughboy. The heavy artilleryman receives any amount of infantry drill in squad, pla- toon, battery and battalion, and it is a fact that the heavy artillery soldiers in the regular army handle themselves quite as well in infantry formation as the regular infantrymen.
 Up to within very few years ago the heavy artillery branch of the Uni- ted States army was handicapped by the lack of modern big guns upon | which to drill. Even at the present time many artillerymen in the heavy batteries have had no opportunity to drill upon modern breech-loading ri- fes. The old fifteen-inch guns are, of course, muzzle loaders, and there is about as much difference between 8 | muzzle-loading and a breech-loading great gun as there is between a bicy- cle and locomotive. The drills upon the two pieces are entirely different.
 The heavy artillery officers of course, | have been trained on the modern breech-loaders at West Point, but owing to the lack of such guns in for tified heavy artillery posts, they have had little chance to hand over their knowledge of such guns to the enlist ed men. In most of the heavy artil- lery posts there are two or three con- verted eight-inch rifes-that is, old time eleven-inch smooth-bores re- shrunk about modern rifling-but these guns are all muzzle-loaders, and of no more use for drilling purposes than the fifteen-inch smoothbores
 Even the drills on these out-of-date pieces of ordnance are not easy for the recruit to get the hang of. It re-