6. If threatened by _artillery alone_, advance and kill off the men and
horses before they get into battery. When the pieces have got into
battery, lie down, if on exposed ground, till they limber up again, and
then recommence the fire.
7. A skirmisher, with the new rifled arms, ought, at five hundred yards,
to be _more than a match for a gun_; for, in men and horses, he has a
much larger target than the gun has in him.
Again, with the new rifle shells, he may be able to blow up a caisson.
8. Neither should a skirmisher have much to fear from a _single
horseman_. With his bayonet fixed, he would usually be able to defend
himself successfully against the trooper, whose sabre is the shorter
weapon of the two; more especially, if he will take care to keep on the
trooper's left, which is his exposed side.
9. Never lose your calmness. Your power consists, not in rapid firing,
but in the _accuracy of your aim_. Avoid all hurried and violent
movements; and never raise your gun till sure of a shot.
10. The aim, according to the Tactics, is made by bringing the gun down,
instead of raising it up. However little the soldier may be excited, he
will be apt to pull the trigger more or less too soon; that is, while
the muzzle is yet too elevated. This is the reason why infantry missiles
usually _fly too high_. The difficulty would not be obviated by causing
the aim to be made by raising the piece; for then the same disturbing
cause already mentioned, the soldier's excitement, would make the shots
fly as much too low, as they now fly too high.
Rapid firing is another cause of this incompleteness of aim. Infantry
firing is already too rapid to be effective; so that what is claimed for
the new breech-loading weapons as an advantage, that they increase the
rapidity of fire, furnishes, on the contrary, a strong objection to
them. The effectiveness of the fire of a sharp-shooter, especially, will
be usually in inverse, instead of direct proportion to the number of
shots he delivers in a given time.
In view of this, and of the tendency to pull the trigger before the
muzzle is sufficiently depressed, it has become an established maxim, to
"Aim low,
Fire slow"