This is not the place to enter into technical details, and I will only mention some points which appear especially important.
The Bz shell _(Granatschuss)_ should be withdrawn as unsuitable, and its use should not form part of the training. It requires, in order to attain its specific effect against rifle-pits, such accurate aiming as is very seldom possible in actual warfare.
No very great value should be attached to firing with shrapnel. It seems to be retained in France and to have shown satisfactory results with us; but care must be taken not to apply the experiences of the shooting-range directly to serious warfare. No doubt its use, if successful, promises rapid results, but it may easily lead, especially in the "mass" battle, to great errors in calculation. In any case, practice with Az shot is more trustworthy, and is of the first importance.
The Az fire must be reserved principally for the last stages of an offensive engagement, as was lately laid down in the regulations.
Care must be taken generally not to go too far in refinements and complications of strategy and devices. Only the simplest methods can be successfully applied in battle; this fact must never be forgotten.
The important point in the general training of the artillery is that text-book pedantries--for example, in the reports on shooting--should be relegated more than hitherto to the background, and that tactics should be given a more prominent position. In this way only can the artillery do really good service in action; but the technique of shooting must not be neglected in the reports. That would mean rejecting the good and the evil together, and the tendency to abolish such reports as inconvenient must be distinctly opposed.
Under this head, attention must be called to the independent manoeuvres of artillery regiments and brigades in the country, which entail large expenditure, and, in fact, do more harm than good. They must, in my opinion, be abandoned or at least considerably modified, since their possible use is not in proportion to their cost and their drawbacks. They lead to pronounced tactics of position _(Stellungstaktik)_ which are impracticable in war; and the most important lesson in actual war--the timely employment of artillery within a defined space and for a definite object without any previous reconnoitring of the country in search of suitable positions for the batteries--can never be learnt on these manoeuvres. They could be made more instructive if the tactical limits were marked by troops; but the chief defect in these manoeuvres--viz., that the artillery is regarded as the decisive arm--cannot be thus remedied. The usual result is that favourable artillery positions are searched for, and that they are then adhered to under some tactical pretence.