Ordnance Survey

“ On becoming a commissioned officer he surveyed single-handed parts of Berkshire and Wiltshire for the ordnance survey. The corps being reduced in 1817, after the peace, he was on half-pay until 1824, when he was appointed assistant, and in 1830 chief military surveyor and draughtsman to the board of ordnance. ”

“ When the facts are taken into consideration, that the Ordnance Survey is a cadastral one, in other words, that one of its many objects is the measurement and definition of all existing boundaries, political, municipal, parochial or private, and a survey and valuation of property for assessments, that its maps are accepted in courts of law as authoritative on such questions, then the problem of the scales of publication is the most important one to be considered. ”

“ In some parts of the country the large landowners are doing their utmost to oppose the carrying on of the Ordnance Survey, because the effect of it would be to define and make public the extent of their property. ”

“ This information being all classified and arranged in proper descriptive books, forms a large collection of documents, which, being preserved with the records of the Survey, may be at any time referred to or published; and as there is scarcely any more fertile source of confusion than uncertainty of nomenclature, it may be hoped that, as the boundaries of the Ordnance Survey are recognised by several Acts of Parliament, the names now engraved on the authorized maps of that Survey may also become generally adopted in all legal and authentic papers. ”

“ The effort to extend the maps to a real survey, by this collection and publication of memoirs in connexion with it, had also its analogy in the Ordnance Survey, in which also the effort failed. Governments, like men, are apt to measure the value of a thing by its cost, instead of its results, by what produces it, instead of by what it will produce,—"will bring" (less wise in that respect than Sir Hudibras!) ”

“ The barony maps being on such a scale as shall keep them on a single sheet of paper, is similar to the practice of the recent Ordnance Survey, in which the County Index Maps were, in like manner, made on such scales as should bring each within a single sheet, for the obvious reason that if they were on such an uniform scale as should make any of them extend over more than one sheet, an index to the index would become neessary, and if the scale of the largest county were adopted for all, the smaller counties would be insignificantly small. ”

“ Petty saw clearly that a map alone is not a survey, though it is the indispensable basis of such a work, O'Flaherty's Description of West Connaught, recently edited for our Society by our learned colleague, Mr. Hardiman, has preserved for posterity the effort of Dr. Petty in this direction; while the Memoir of Templemore, and the numerous historical papers collected and preserved in the Office of the Ordnance Survey, will remain to show that similar efforts were made in connexion with the more modern work ”

“ Now, the topographical corps makes surveys for defences; the navy officers make charts along the coast; and the coast survey goes over the same place a third time. If the officers did this work, the army might get the military information, and the navy the hydrographical knowledge, which the interest of the country requires that each of these branches of the public defence should have; and this, at the expense of but one survey; for, at places where defences might be required, the survey could be done with the utmost minuteness. The officers of the army and navy need not clash. ”

“ As to the more technical services, the able personnel of the Ordnance Department in France has splendidly fulfilled its functions, both in procurement and in forwarding the immense quantities of ordnance required. The officers and men and the young women of the Signal Corps have performed their duties with a large conception of the problem, and with a devoted and patriotic spirit to which the perfection of our communications daily testifies. ”

“ The Ordnance Bureau, at the head of which is the chief of ordnance, has charge of all matters relating to the manufacture, purchase, storage, and issue of all ordnance, arms, and munitions of war. The management of the arsenals and armories is conducted under its orders.
The present building, still used for the War Department, is utterly inadequate to its necessities. Already its Bureaus are scattered in several transient resting-places. In a few years they will be again concentrated in the magnificent structure now going up, for the combined use of the State, War and Navy Departments. ”

“ The Ordnance Department has had to create organizations, build new plants, finance them and to design as well as to manufacture not only the weapons themselves, but thousands of tools, gauges, and jigs required for their manufacture. ”

“ A further purchase of at least 50,000 will be necessary for the coming year, unless the operations of the armories can be placed on a permanent footing by declaring all skilled mechanics engaged on them absolutely exempt from military duty, attaching them permanently to the Ordnance Department, and encouraging in every way the growth of this class of workmen. ”

“ A permanent select committee was formed, consisting of certain regimental and staff officers of artillery, at Dum-Dum and in the neighbourhood, to whom every question involving change in the matériel equipment of the department was to be submitted in the first instance, and their opinion was to be forwarded to assist Government in coming to a decision, and they were soon fully occupied with the important questions of windage, brass ordnance, and patterns of light field-carriages. ”

“ Impartial history will in due time do justice to all. The distinguished judgment, ability and zeal of our engineer officers of both corps, will then stand out in broad relief, and the providence and skill of our ordnance officers will also be conspicuous, and justly so, as they are not content with service under cover in the arsenals, preparing guns and ammunition, but they follow to the field their heavy ordnance, and under the fire of the enemy give practical proof of its excellence and power. ”

“ The projected army of 5,000,000 men required 11,000 trained officers to handle every phase of ordnance service. While a portion of this production would have to do with the manufacture of articles of a commercial type, such as automobiles, trucks, meat cans, mess equipment, and the like, yet the ratio of 97 to 11,000 gives an indication of the amount of ordnance knowledge possessed by the War Department at the outbreak of war as compared to what it would need to equip the first 5,000,000 men for battle. ”

“ If he shall discover any articles to be injured, or liable to injury from any cause, he will ask, in writing, for a survey to be held, to determine the amount, cause, or liability of any of the stores or equipments to damage or deterioration ”

“ The main duty of the Ordnance Services is forwarding ammunition to the front, where it is taken over by the Fighting Units, at places called the Refilling Points, which are generally about a day’s march in rear of the fighting line. One Auxiliary Transport Company of 100 wagons is allotted per Division for carrying ammunition to these points. To ensure an adequate supply at the front demands careful organization and good administration of the Ordnance Services, as ammunition is expended at uncertain dates, and in amounts which cannot be forecast. ”

“ To the first class belong all those, which provide for objects that require considerable time to be executed, and cannot, without great difficulty, be accomplished pending a war. Such are fortifications, building ships of war including steamers, accumulating materials for the same purpose, Navy Yards, providing a sufficient artillery, and other important objects of the ordnance department. It may be taken for granted, that Government has done, or will do all that is necessary and practicable in that respect. ”

“ We know that our eastern counties have been divided into districts by the Germans, and in each one or more secret agents are busily at work taking notes of food supplies, forage, blacksmiths' shops, motor-cars for transport, the destruction of telegraphs and telephones, positions for artillery, and the best mode of advance south to London. One may rest assured that the ordnance map is being very much amplified just now. ”

“ The "Special Report" of December 31st, No. 2, shows that 800 men must be added to our force of mechanics at the armories; and Report No. 3 shows that about 3,691 men liable to military duty, and about 2,245 slaves, are required for the whole operations of the Bureau. These are minimum figures. If these men and slaves can be permanently attached to this Bureau, and an adequate force be attached in the same manner to the Nitre and Mining Bureau, I will answer for the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores to the army. ”

“ ORDNANCE DEMOBILIZATION When the average man speaks of munitions, he means ordnance and, even more specifically, guns and ammunition. In this he is nearly half right. Technically, the word “munitions” includes army supplies of all sorts, even to candy and cigarettes, and in this sense the word is used in these volumes; but of the total war business transacted for the Army, the procurement of ordnance supplies constituted 42 per cent. Ordnance was by far the largest class of munitions. Four thousand American manufacturing plants worked on ordnance contracts during the war. ”

“ As a great naval, military, and colonial Power, with fleets, fortresses, and depôts all over the world, it seems apparent that, both in regard to efficiency and economy, unity of system is essential. Not only the great Duke of Wellington, but successive Master Generals of Ordnance, concurred in this view, and agreed that the Ordnance was an efficient department of the State, [107] and should hold the reserves of both services. ”

“ Their number is uncertain, and they are not subdivided, as their employment depends wholly upon the quality and quantity of artillery that are used. One man is attached to small field pieces, and two to those of larger calibre; so that instead of being distributed by companies, they are ordered upon duty according to the nature and number of the ordnance.
They have no other officer, besides the one already mentioned, attached to them, which officer is subordinate to the Bacha of the province, as their service does not require subaltern officers. ”

“ That such staff officer should be entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining the units in an efficient state as regarded arms, equipment, saddlery and clothing, and that, in order to successfully carry out these duties, 241 he should be permitted to draw all supplies necessary in bulk direct from the Ordnance Depots at Capetown. ”

“ March denied the request because the Army was to maintain training centers. Unlike the infantry, which incorporated the machine gun into the regiment, cavalry maintained separate machine gun squadrons of three troops each because of the perceived immobility of such weapons compared with other divisional arms. A headquarters for special troops was authorized, under which were placed the division headquarters troop, a signal troop, an ordnance maintenance company, and a veterinary company. ”

“ It is provided that each regiment of artillery should consist of 1 colonel, 1 lieutenant-colonel, 1 major, and 9 companies, with the usual company officers, 1 of which to be equipped as light artillery, and that there should be attached to each regiment of artillery 1 supernumerary captain to perform ordnance duty, thereby merging the regiment of artillery and Ordnance Department into these 4 regiments. ”

“ When an expedition against a fort is deemed absolutely necessary, and heavy ordnance cannot be obtained, a special reference is to be made to the chief of the staff by telegraph. If, however, the station be removed from the wire, the general officer commanding the division or station must, of course, exercise a discretionary power; but the commander-in-chief begs that it may be recollected, as a principle, that, except in cases of the most absolute necessity, forts are not to be attacked with light guns only.’ ”

“ There is the Ordnance Bureau, with all sorts of guns, rifles, muskets, carbines, pistols, swords, shells, rifled shot, fuses which the inventors have brought in. There are a great many bureaus, with immense piles of papers and volumes, containing experiments upon the strength of iron, the trials of cannon, guns, mortars, and powder. ”

“ There are no acting ordnance officers on duty in the field, and I learn on inquiry that the persons so designated are in reality merely employees of the Ordnance Bureau for the performance of ordnance duties in the field in the absence of legislation authorizing the appointment of officers. ”

“ The quotas of new regiments for the war, called for from the different States, are in rapid progress of organization. The whole body of our new levies and reënlisted men will probably be ready in the ranks within the next thirty days. But, in the meantime, it is exceedingly difficult to give an accurate statement of the number of our forces in the field. They may, in general terms, be stated at four hundred regiments of infantry, with a [Pg 358] proportionate force of cavalry and artillery, the details of which will be shown by the report of the Secretary of War. ”

“ Arrangements are to be made by the inspector-general of ordnance to insure the presence of a proportion of heavy guns, howitzers, mortars, and cohorns, at all stations where British regiments are quartered. Wherever there is a possibility of movable columns being organised, the necessary elephant and bullock draught should be maintained. ”

“ The brigade of an infantry sub-district comprises usually two line battalions, two militia battalions, the brigade depôt, rifle volunteer corps, and infantry of the army reserve. Of the line battalions one is generally at home and one abroad. In an artillery sub-district are comprised a proportion of the royal artillery and artillery of the militia, volunteers, and army reserve respectively. In like manner a cavalry sub-district includes the yeomanry and army reserve cavalry. ”