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Royal Regiment of Artillery
The
RA was active throughout the Boer War. The total strength of the Royal
Artillery during the Boer War was 20,590:
RHA - 10 Batteries
RFA
- 25 Batteries including 6 Howitzer Batteries
RGA - 2 Mountain Batteries and 15
companies
Pompom section
Ammunition Columns
Artillery depots
Militia Artillery (4 companies)
Volunteer Artillery: City Imperial
Volunteer Battery; Elswick Battery
A
testament to their involvement comes from the 8 VCs they received:
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Ammunition Column. These are representative types of the
men who are concerned in the transport and distribution of
ammunition. They are the sergeant-major, the gunner, the trumpeter,
the sergeant, and the driver, and all are armed with revolvers, and
certain of them with swords and rifles. There are two classes of
ammunition columns. The first is attached to every division, as well
as to the Corps Artillery and to the corps troops attached to the
Army Corps, and brings up the ammunition reserve for all arms, the
ammunition waggons feeding the batteries, and the small-arm carts
supplying the infantry, while there are reserve waggons and carts
for both. The other class of ammunition columns forms the ammunition
parks, which consist of three sections, and are intended for the
supply of the whole Army Corps and the cavalry brigades.
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These guns form part of the siege train sent out to South Africa
under command of Lieutenant Colonel Perrott, and are engines of
enormous destructive power. The howitzer is an old weapon newly
introduced with far higher qualities than it ever possessed before.
There are several calibres of the siege howitzer, that depicted
being the 6-in. breech-loader, weighing 30-cwt., and when limbered
up scaling nearly 4.5 tons in draught. The gun fires lyddite
shrapnel, the shell complete weighing nearly 70-lb, and having a
range of something like 10 miles. The breech mechanism is analogous
to that of the field gun, with am interrupted screw, and buffers are
provided to take the recoil. A vast amount of material accompanies a
siege battery, ammunition being supplied to the extent of 500 rounds
per gun, and the work of transport becomes therefore one of great
difficulty. But it is in the hands of officers and men who
thoroughly competent to undertake it. a siege train is, of course,
the artillery formed for the reduction of fortified places. Such a
train has nearly always to be organised specially for its particular
purpose, and it rarely has any existence in peace-time. Thus when
the war broke out the work of organising the siege train began, and
the new siege material supplied was soon afloat, and reached South
Africa in charge of a highly-trained force of experienced officers
and men.
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Siege train officers. In all about 32 officers, and over
1,1oo men, drawn chiefly from Portsmouth, Plymouth, Exeter, and
Devonport, are with the siege train in South Africa. They know the
work thoroughly, and are all under command of Lieutenant-Colonel
Perrott, who is represented in the picture, with Captain and
Adjutant Currie, and
Captain De Brett, DSO, on his left, and Major Allen, Major
Nicholls, and Captain Strange on his right. These are the principal
officers to whom the highly-important duties of the siege train are
assigned, but the full exercise of their activity and experience
will come later on in the war, when the time arrives for crushing
the final opposition of the Boers. Meanwhile, however, the officers
of the siege train have been very well employed.
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Siege train NCOs. These excellent men, who are seen
wearing the khaki uniform for South Africa, are among the most
experienced gunners in the British Army. They belong to the garrison
branch of the Artillery, by which the whole of the siege train is
provided, the companies now in South Africa being the 15th, 16th,
and 36th of the Southern Division. A siege park consists of what are
known as "heavy," "middle," or "light" artillery sections; but the
composition of these is varied according to circumstances, and great
changes have been introduced through the production of the new siege
material, consisting of 4 in., 5-in., and 6-in. breech-loading
howitzers of enormous power and range.
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Howitzer siege park. We have heard so much about the
effects of lyddite, pictured sometimes by the vivid pens of
correspondents, that full reports upon the operations of the
howitzers, and particularly of the siege train when it is carried up
to Pretoria, will be regarded with the very greatest interest.
Lyddite is a high explosive of great destructive force, with a
picric acid base, and is named from Lydd in Kent, the headquarters
of our fortress artillery. The nature of siege work calls for a gun
of special character, chiefly in regard to construction, and the
features of the breech mechanism of the 6-in. are admirably seen,
both open and closed, in the picture. The howitzer is designed to
fire with a remarkably high elevation, discharging its shell with a
comparatively low muzzle velocity through a great curve, and thus
giving a descending fire upon the positions attacked. It is
therefore able to search out and destroy positions which are
invisible, and quite beyond the range of field guns.
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