Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

field artillery is concerned, may be briefly summarized as (a) employment of great masses of guns; (b) forward position of guns in the order of march, in order to bring them into action as quickly as possible; (c) the so-called "artillery duel," in which the assailant subdues the enemy's artillery fire; and (d) when this is achieved, and not before, the thorough preparation of all infantry attacks by artillery bombardment. This theory of field artillery action has not, even with the almost revolutionary improvements of the present period, entirely lost its value, and it may be studied in detail in the well-known work of von Schell, _Taktik der Feldartillerie_ (1877), later translated into English by Major-General Sir A.E. Turner (_Tactics of Field Artillery_, 1900). In one important matter, however, the precepts of Schell and his contemporaries no longer hold good. "It is absolutely necessary that the object of the infantry's attack should be cannonaded before it advances. To accomplish this, sufficient time should be given to the artillery, and on no account should the infantry be ordered to advance until the fire of the guns has produced the desired effect." This, the direct outcome of the slaughter at St Privat, represents the best possibilities of breech-loading guns with common shell--no more than a slow disintegration of the enemy's power of resistance by a thorough and lengthy "artillery preparation." Against troops sheltered behind works (as in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78) the common shell usually failed to give satisfactory results, if for no other reason, because the "preparation" consumed an inordinate time, and in any case the hostile artillery had first of all to be subdued in the artillery duel.