The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Battery at Close Quarters, by Henry M. Neil

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Title: A Battery at Close Quarters
A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion,
October 6, 1909

Author: Henry M. Neil

Release Date: January 23, 2010 [EBook #31048]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_A Battery at Close Quarters_

_A Paper_

READ BEFORE THE OHIO COMMANDERY
OF THE LOYAL LEGION

October 6, 1909

BY
HENRY M. NEIL
Captain Twenty-second Ohio Battery

COLUMBUS, OHIO
1909

THE CHAMPLIN PRESS
COLUMBUS, OHIO

A BATTERY AT CLOSE QUARTERS.

BEING THE STORY OF THE ELEVENTH OHIO BATTERY AT IUKA AND CORINTH.

During the Civil War artillery projectiles were divided as to structure
into _solid_, _hollow_ and _case shot_. The solid shot were intended to
batter down walls or heavy obstructions. Hollow projectiles, called
shell and shrapnel, were for use against animate objects; to set fire to
buildings and destroy lighter obstructions. Under the head of case shot
we had grape and canister. Grape shot is no longer used; being
superseded by the machine gun. Canister is simply a sheet iron case
filled with bullets and is effective only at very short ranges.

The foremost European military writer, Hohenloe, states that in the
Franco-Prussian war, the batteries of the Prussian Guard expended about
twenty-five thousand shells and one canister, and that this one canister
was broken in transport.

In the official reports of the recent Russo-Japanese War we find that
the Arisaka gun, which was the Japanese field piece, has a range of
6,600 meters. The Russian field pieces were said to give good results at
8,000 meters, or five miles. The Japanese, and later the Russians, made
a great feature of indirect fire. Having located a mass of the enemy,
probably beyond two ranges of hills, they would st