Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

102 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
course of theory and practice. Students who showed promise were designated for
advanced training. The advanced centers of learning were organized under a unified
system in 1904. 23
The School of Instruction for Cavalry and Light Artillery at Fort Riley had
reopened in September 1901 as the School of Application for Cavalry and Light
Artillery, which was misleading for artillery tactics were not taught. Even though
the faculty expanded the course of instruction to include field engineering, topography,
and tactics, the real purpose of the school was to teach equitation. Thus, to
more accurately reflect the mission, the name was changed in 1907 to the Mounted
Service School. 24 Field artillery units continued to assemble at various posts for
maneuvers, but no centralized school existed for instruction in modern tactical
methods except the institution at Fort Monroe, which became the Coast Artillery
School during the 1907 reorgani za tion. 25
In 1909, Capt. Dan T. Moore, an honors graduate from the School of Application
for Cavalry and Light Artillery in 1904, went to Europe to visit foreign field
artillery schools for a study of methods of gunnery and instruction. His impressions
of the German artillery school at Jüterbog greatly influenced the founding of the
School of Fire for Field Artillery at Fort Sill in 1911, with Captain Moore serving
as the first school commandant. In 1910, Moore had made a preparatory inspection
visit to the post, where much of the artillery force had been concentrated since
1905. The reservation was remote from the centers of population and industry; its
more than 50,000 acres provided the critical space for target practice; and its terrain
features offered excellent observation and tactical variations for training. The
purpose of the school was to give a practical and theoretical course in the principles
and methods of field artillery. 26
In 1913, the Field Artillery Board, which had been established at Fort Riley in
1902 to study and report on all subjects pertaining to field artillery, moved to Fort
Sill. 27 The establishment of the Field Artillery Association in June 1910 at Fort
Riley was another milestone for the new branch. In 1892, the Artillery School at
Fort Monroe had founded the Journal of the United States Artillery, but after the
reorganization of 1907 it had become devoted to items about coast artillery. As one
of its first accomplishments, the new association began its official publication Field
Artillery Journal in 1911. Cam paigning for approval of the magazine had begun
three years before by officers who thought that radical changes in the use of the arm
had occurred and that such changes were not readily appreciated due to the lack
23 WD GO 155, 27 Nov 1901; WD GO 115, 27 Jun 1904.
24 WD GO 60, 30 Apr 1901; WD GO 191, 13 Sep 1907; Nesmith, “Quiet Paradigm Change,” Ph.D.
diss., p. 307; Annual Reports of the War Department, 1907, 2:212; 4:124.
25 WD GO 178, 28 Aug 1907.
26 WD GO 72, 3 Jun 1911; WD GO 82, 17 Jun 1911; WD GO 60, 25 Jan 1902; WD GO 156, 26
Sep 1905; Morris Swett, “Forerunners of Sill,” Field Artillery Journal, November-December 1938, pp.
453–63; Riley Sunderland, History of the Field Artillery School, 1911–1942 (Fort Sill, Okla.: Field Artillery
School, 1942), pp. 28–30. The school was closed during the period troops were concentrated on the
Mexican border, but reopened in July 1917 to assist in training field artillerymen for World War I.
27 WD GO 58, 30 Sep 1913; G. B. McReynolds, “Notes on Some Random Activities of the Field
Artillery Board,” Field Artillery Journal, July 1942, pp. 505–10.