COAST. I ARTILLERY JOURNAL, - Air Defense Artillery

448 THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL
may become a procession of pomp, creaking boots and jingling spurs,
stimy noticing some of the bait the wily sergeants have prepared in
order to detract attention from things they haven't found time to attend
to. It is indeed easy to forget the mission and just make an inspection.
In recent years the General and Special situations have taken their
place in our tactical inspection, paralleling mobile army problems.
Sometimes however, it is the form without the substance, quite artificial
and without influence on action taken, which, for Captain X, is still,
"Fire ten rounds and report." There are reasons for this situation and
it might be well to consider some of them.
Due to lack of mobility, the tactics of fixed armament is simpler if
not different from that of mobile forces. In fact, there is a tendency
to work on war game lines, look the hypothetical ship up in Jane,
consult penetration data, and by a few rules determine the kind of
ammunition, number of rounds, target in column or line, and consider
a tactical problem solved. A technical problem and a tactical problem
are not the same, nor can Coast Artillery tactics be limited to the correct
application of a few formal battle orders and searchlight orders.
There are so many inspections and such continuous duty with
summer camps, and other routine and special duties that it is not
strange if a tactical inspection is considered just one more thing to get
through with. Another handicap possible is the war game, an excellent
thing in its place and within limits but like vocational training not 'now
so much in vogue as at one time. It may have obscured the bay for
some who played it too long and have led to a routine conception of
Coast Artillery tactics. I believe, however, our problem presents a
more fundamental difficulty.
.What are the basic and fundamental principles of Coast Artillery
tactics? We have the positive system of Harbor Defense, it is true, and
are giving fixed defense tactical problems at the schools, but as I see
it, we have not entirely caught step with the rest of the Army, which is
not strange, as we did not have the experience of combat in our harbor
forts during the war. Further, all Coast Artillery officers have not yet
been indoctrinated with the ideas so far established.
In our insular possessions where full strength garrisons are present
and in the larger defenses in the Continental Lnited States, inspections
are conducted in a practical and satisfactory manner, but the Harbor
Defense that now has one battery where formerly there were many times
that number is quite likely to fall far short of a profitable tactical
inspection.
Keeping in mind the object of a tactical inspection, it appears that
the only way a Harbor Defense Commander can determine the fitness