Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1900-12-15
British and Boer Artillery.

A HOlander in the Free State Art1l-
1ery writes in the "Algemeen Handles
blad," of Amsterdam, an article in
which he compares the artillery work
of Boer and Briton during the war.
The good shooting of the artillery Che
says) depends first and foremost on
the excellent eyesight of the Beers,
who can distinguish friend from foe
at a great distance, and who very sell
dom make the mistake of firing on
positions where there is no enemy, a
mistake often made by the English
Then most Afrikanders are excellent
judges of distance and are extremely
quick at finding the correct range.
They have a marvellous eye for the ''lie
of the land" and can, so to speak,
feel the contour of the ground hid
den from them by an intervening hill,
and so follow the movements of an
enemy even when out of sight. In gen
eral artillery practice is easier here
than in Europe. The ground is drier
and dustier. Thus at Wepener 1 was
was firing at a trench which lay On
slope, on to which 1 looked from a
higher level. l could see every bullet
from my shrapnel which exploded
high in the air, strike the ground just
in front of and behind the parapet of
the trench, and after two shots could
be absolutely certain that l had the
range correctly. We have had as
abundant a supply of artillery as of
small-arm ammunition, and ammuni-
ton for the captured English guns
was very quickly turned out from the
TransvaaI. Thanks to this abundant
supply of ammunition, Transvaal or
Free State gun has often been able to
hold its own against whole English
battery, because such a battery, unless
an a fixed position, has never enough
ammunition to keep up quick fire, and
is thus much less effective than
single gun acting as quick f1rer. An
other reason for the superior effective
ness of our artillery lies in the fact
enormous superiority of the English
over the Beers A striking incident
occurred quite lately in fight on June
at Vechtkop, to the south of He'll
bron, where 5000 English, with eight
guns who were marching to Hebron,
were attacked by twelve Beers with
one gun. Lieutenant Strydam, the
commandant of the Free State Krupp
gun, shot with it from one position
with black powder, and from another
with smokeless powder, SO that the
English thought that there were at
least two guns opposed to them, of
which the first, which had fired black
powder, was soon silenced, and by
wel1-directed fire ION the empty posi-
tion) was kept out of action The
twelve Beers spread themselves over
a couple of ridges, and six of them adj
vanced close to the enemy, led by
Gen Botha (brother of the Command
ant GENERALLY, so that the enemy imag-
ined they had large force to deal
with. 1 am curious to see the report
made on this action by Lord Methuen,
who was, 1 am told, with the column,
more particularly because he was en-
tirely surprised by the Beers, whose
second shot landed right among the
eight guns and their teams, all unlim-
bered and at rest
Again, our Krupp shrapnel is bet
ter than the English. The latter is not
by any means well made, as / hope to
show in a later article. We have no
lyddite shells, chiefly because we did
not trust them. We could not obtain
from the government a gun with
which the experiment with lyddite.
with the quite probable result of de-
stroying the gun, and without trying
we did not care to send lyddite to the
front, with the chance of its bursting
a gun at the critical moment of fight
The faults which, in my opinion, are
possessed by the English lyddite shells
prefer to state when the war is over
Our artillery is more es<ctive than
the English because the English SOL
der is much more of lighting man.