Should the artillery fire come from the front, column of route will often be a suitable formation. It affords but a small frontage of target, and facilitates use of the ground. If the artillery fire is expected from a flank, the adoption of a single-rank line will often commend itself. In any case, in the larger formations, distances and intervals must be adjusted so that one and the same burst of shrapnel will not strike two squadrons at once. As the Regulations do not touch on these points, I do not see how a proper understanding of them can be awakened and cultivated in the troops, imperative though this may be. As a rule it will be by no means sufficient to adopt formations for minimising the effect of artillery fire only in special cases where such fire is to be expected. The great range of modern guns, and their capabilities of indirect fire induced by improved means of observation, and the possibility of bringing fire to bear on large unseen targets with the aid of the map, make it absolutely necessary, when entering within possible effective range of artillery, to adopt formations which will offer no favourable mark. If this tends on the one hand, as already remarked, to a premature deployment, it forces us, on the other, to adopt formations which can cross country easily and afford no easy target for the artillery. I have already shown in a former work[50] how well the double column[51] answers this purpose, and in what a comprehensive manner the principle of independent squadron columns allows of elaboration, to procure for the cavalry the greatest imaginable freedom of movement. The Regulations do not agree with these views. They hold fast to the principle that deployment must always be in line, and not in a succession of lines, and that before this deployment the squadron columns hitherto employed will generally be replaced by some other formation. The above remain the chief formations for movement and deployment of the cavalry. The employment of the "regimental mass and brigade mass"[52] has been limited, but the Regulations give us nothing in their place. Nor, on the other hand, is the flexibility of the double column particularly emphasised; its use, indeed, is in a certain sense limited. I see such limitation in the fact that the trumpet-call "_Double column!_" has been abolished. As, on the other hand, the call "_Form regimental mass!_" has been retained, it does not appear as if the use of double column is to be further developed, or allowed to replace the regimental and brigade mass on the field of battle.