TEACHING THE YOUNG IDEA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3717, 31 December 1912, Page 5

TEACHING THE YOUNG IDEA.

TRAINING FOR TERRITORIALS

THE H ILL-SIFF KEN LANDSCAPE TARGETS.

GISBORNE FIRST IN THE DOMINION. .

During the approaching year, the Territorials of Gisborne .need have no complaint that they are not receiving sufficient musketry training, for, as a ‘‘Gisborne Times’' reporter learned yesterday, Sergt.-Major Bishop has received, direct from Home,, a set of the latest Hill-Siffken landscape targets, the first of the kind to reach the Dominion. The targets were purchased from revenue obtained locally from different sources and from donations. The system of training by these targets is that advocated in the new British Musketry Regulations and in use at the School of Ylusketry at Hythe.

The targets are on varnished canvas and each one represents a typical country over which the men might have to work. The targets are capable of practical use at 30 or 25 yard ranges and will ultimately be erected on the stage c-f the. Gisborne Drill Hall, so that actual practice can be indulged in.. The targets in question deal with typical English landscapes, embracing well-defined features and clear, undulating country, and also typical Indian views. The targets are approximately 6ft by 4ft and are remarkable productions in that the colors and general outlay give each a fine distinction by the apparent distances of each varying greatly, so that different ranges can be imagined. METHOD OF INSTRUCTION.

The instructor will, of course, at first explain to his squad what each picture represents and then, taking each subject separately, thrash out thoroughly with liis pupils the various points in each which call for attention or explanation, bringing in all the features of the landscape. Next lie will give .an -example of what is required ancl then make the men describe any portion of the landscape or feature in it. In the case of target No. 1, for instance, the recruit, on being asked what he can see in or around a church, which is in the background, will probably answer: “I see the church, it has a tall spire, and a kind of minaret on the left end of the roof. Tq the right of the church are a few horsemen crossing a field. Farther to the right is a small. cottage, with a red roof and one set of chimneys, the lower part of the cottage,being white.” The recruit should then go on to describe the trees, color of the fields, any hedges which he could see. any folds in the ground, with their extent and the number of men who might be concealed there, and so on.

The instructor would then proceed each night to teach the methods of indicating targets, of discerning prominent objects, aiming at ground, practice in the use of field glasses, ground training and observation, sighting, etc., etc., and finally shooting practice.

AT 251*0S RANGE

In dealing with training on 25yd. ranges there are two ways in which the landscape target may be used on these ranges: (1) by shooting at any feature of the landscape; or (2) if it is desired to preserve the target, a screen may be made cf light framework the same size as the target, on which faint outline sheets may be fixed and placed above the target to receive the fire, with elevated sights. Th ese sheets may be placed at any height dependent on the elevations which can he used on the particular range; but if the height of the stopbutt- is sufficient, a screen 6ft. deep should be placed above the landscape. The “Ordinate” method is used to see by measurement whether the fire would have been effective or not. The heights above the aiming mark at which the shots should strike the screen with any elevation are shown by a tah’e provided for the various classes of rifle when the landscape is placed 25yds from the muzzles of the rifles. Hie shots should strike vertically above the aiming point unless deflection or aiming off for wind has been ordered, when they should strike 14 inches to right or left of the vertical for each division ordered to ho put on the wind-gauge.

NEED FOR LANDSCAPE TARGETS.

It is now some years since events in South Africa called attention to the necessity for --’reform in musketry training methods. The principal cause of the changed conditions of the battlefield was the introduction of smokeless powder, which has been adopted for military purposes a very few years before the war broke out. "With the introduction of smokeless powder came khaki’uniforms, more open formations, higher training in skirmishing and the use of ground, and greater dependence generally on concealment and hidden movement for producing surprise effect.

In South Africa our officers, perplexed by the invisibility of the enemy, unable to reply, to the heavy fire which met them during an advance, overwhelmed at times by attacks of ambushed enemies who rode away as soon as they were-,discovered, coined the expression: “the void of the battlefield.” The “void of the battlefield” is the first and greatest of all the difficulties which a private soldier with his unassisted eye, or even an officer with field glasses, has to meet in war.

For more than fifty years before the South African war, we had been straining -every nerve and spending money lavishly in bringing our rifles and ammunition to the highest pitch of accuracy in shooting, only to find on the battlefields of the veldt that our standards of accuracy were entirely false and misleading, and that our principal efforts in the -future must be directed—not towards minor improvements in manufacture which produce no results in war commensurate with the time and expense needed to develop such improvements in peace, hut towards the training of the officer and soldier, upon whose personal skill, under conditions similar to those of the battlefield, we must entirely depend for.-producing anything like adequate results for the amount of ammunition expended.

The rifle and ammunition have in fact altogether outstripped the. power

of the firers; and this serious state of affairs has been brought about by the use of artificial targets;and fifty years of training under easy conditions, specially designed to exclude all the real difficulties of the battlefield. The disproportion now existing between the powers of the rifle and the finer may- be realised from the fact that more than 1500 rounds were fired in South Africa for every casualty inflicted.

When we remember how greatly the accuracy of the rifle has increased in recent 3-ears, it is evident that this growing disproportion between ammunition expenditure and results is due chiefly to the increased ranges at which fighting takes place, greater dependence 011 extended formations and concealment, and failure of officers and soldiers to keep pace with these developments. When 1499 shots out*. of 1600 are ineffective, there should be little difficulty in discovering at least the principal causes of the waste. As a matter of fact there is no difficulty in arriving at a correct conclusion in this matter. In a recent lecture delivered at the Hythe School of Musketry, it was stated that in tests made to discover the error of regular soldiers in aiming at ordinary Service objectives according to directions given by officers and sergeants, 75 per cent, of the rifles were found to be directed at points in the landscape where no enemy existed. This leaves only 25 per cent, of shots fired at the longer ranges to be accounted for, and of those it is said at the School of Musketry that 60 per cent, at least are wasted through error in estimating the range. Of shots fired at shorter distances, say within 600 yards, the great majority are lost through omission to aim at all, and this omission is due.partly to the instinctive desire to keep the head down, but more often to inability to see any enemy to shoot at. Continental military autlioriteis consider that 4.40 -yards is the farthest distance at which prone -figures can he singled out for aiming; at Spion Kop our men could not see the Boers at 200 .yards, and prominent writers abroae have declared that 200 yards is the limit of distance at which accurate aim is a preponderant influence in battle. H

We may Yiot agree as to the amount of dependence to be placed on slow aim and scrupulous accuracy in aiming on the battlefield, but there can be no conflict of opinion as to the pressing necessity for educating the chief physical agent employed in shooting!—viz, the eye. The utmost keenness of eyesight is required by all ranks, in order that the fire unit commander may''see and indicate clearly the target to be fired at, and the men recognise the target thus described" _to them. The ability to see. recognise, and describe any target likely to be met with on service, is the keynote* to one of the most important lesson®' in a soldier’s training. i f% f•" \f