Page:Tactics (Balck 1915).djvu/354

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for infantry to direct its fire on the limbers and the reserve. And again, infantry should not let any opportunity pass to fire on artillery in motion or in the act of limbering or unlimbering within effective range. Guns moved by hand into positions from which direct laying can be employed for the purpose of warding off the infantry attack, offer particularly favorable targets. Infantry that is to capture artillery must approach its objective by means of irregular rushes made by small groups, and increase its fire to the utmost intensity when the limbers are brought up to the guns. The effect of artillery fire is small under 200 m., in the absence of canister.[1]

The disaster which overtook Trautmann's Battery at St. Hubert, during the battle of Gravelotte, demonstrates how difficult it is to unlimber on open ground when under effective infantry and artillery fire; but, if five limbers with their teams had not stampeded, perhaps it might have been possible after a while, for the battery to reopen fire. Hasse's Battery, also at St. Hubert, was rendered incapable of moving in a short time, but, in spite of the greatest difficulties, managed to continue its fire for about two hours, though with only a part of the guns. Gnügge's Battery managed to unlimber under cover of a garden wall at St. Hubert and to maintain itself there under enfilading infantry fire till the end of the battle. Trautmann's Battery lost 17 men and 37 horses; Hasse's Battery, 38 men and 77 horses; and Gnügge's Battery, 15 men and 40 horses.[2]

Unlimbering under uninterrupted hostile fire at short range will always produce conditions similar to those in Trautmann's Battery, and in the two British batteries of Colonel Long at Colenso.[3] These two batteries did not cease firing because they had suffered too heavily, but only because they had expended all their limber ammunition and the caissons were un-*

  1. The capture of the Smolenski Artillery Battalion on October 14th, 1904 (Shaho). Artilleristische Monatshefte for March, 1908.
  2. Hoffbauer, Deutsche Artillerie, III, p. 227.
  3. Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften, 32, p. 43.