Page:The history and achievements of the Fort Sheridan officers' training camps.djvu/215

 THE FIRST OFFICERS' TRAINING CAMP

��visible part. Many invisible parts, as of the breech block, were brought to view by an assistant to help in clarifying the explanation. The dismounting of the gun was explained and also such weird sounding terms as angle of site mil and corrector. The circle of eager listeners strained eyes and ears in an effort to catch every word. Queer names were scrawled in notebooks. At the end of the lecture heads whirled like a rotating band blown through a rifled tube.

The next two weeks each instructor went with his own battery at the allotted hour and, with the assistance of a few men of previous experience, continued in familiarizing the men with the nomenclature of all parts of the materiel — pieces, caissons and limbers — and took up preliminary w^ork in gun drill.

The arrival of the entire First Illinois Field Artillery with more 3-inch guns, relieved the situation tremendously. There w^as then equipment enough so that each of the four platoons of a battery could have separate periods at the guns every day. Cannoneer drill was practiced, then drill of the gun squad. The work culminated in the training of entire firing batteries, com- mands being given by executives and data set off and carried into effect at the guns.

An hour and a half a day w^as spent in lectures and conferences on the "Drill Regulations." Special attention w^as paid to Volume III, which w^as devoted to instruction in firingj The objects of this instruction as given in the "Regulations" are:

1 . To train the personnel in the mechanism of the methods of fire so that, at the word of command, fire of the desired nature may be de- livered with certainty and celerity. (Fire discipline.)

���STICK 'EM, BOYS!

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