remarked: “Like a good chauffeur, the Japanese machine gunner knows all the peculiarities of the weapon he fires and can tell almost by instinct when anything is going wrong.” It is almost superfluous to say that the men of the machine-gun detachment must never be changed or taken for any other work. Nothing has been said of the necessity for training the detachment in the all-important duties of scouting, range-taking, and horsemastership during this period, but of course they are vital to ultimate success and must not be neglected. Range practices will follow, and the peculiarities of the gun and its fire effect must be carefully taught during this period. The use of traversing and sweeping fire, combined sights, and observation of fire and the use of deliberate fire in imitation of rifle fire should be perfected during range practice, so that they may be carried out under service conditions during the field practices which follow. The tactical training should commence as soon as the field practices have been completed. The course for this should be carefully mapped out beforehand and should be based upon the principles given in Chapter II. and in the chapter dealing with the arm to which the section belongs, and should culminate in divisional manœuvres. This course might follow the following headings: (1) Drill over rough country. (2) Selecting a position. (3) Selecting alternate positions. (4) Taking up a position. (5) Screening guns. (6) Making artificial cover. (7) Mutual support (movement and fire). (8) Indirect fire. (9) A battery working on a wide front in mutual support. No drill for a battery has been authorised yet (1909), but the simple formations of a troop as laid down in _Cavalry Training_ will be found admirably suited for a battery of machine guns on pack-horses with mounted detachment. The writer is fully aware of the condition under which machine guns are officered and manned at present, and that a great error has been made in estimating the time required to train the detachments. The Germans, who have studied the question of machine guns with a thoroughness far greater than that of any other nation, have made them a separate arm of their service, under trained and permanent gunners, and they evidently consider that only specialists can attain the necessary efficiency. However this may be, it is certain that the officer, whether commanding a section or the batteries of a Division, must be a specialist and a highly trained one. An officer commanding a company of Russian machine guns in the Russo-Japanese War, writing his experiences to the _Nouskin Invalid_, says: “I have spent three years in studying machine guns, and consider myself proficient in their use, but I have always been convinced that the requisite skill and knowledge cannot be acquired in a shorter time.”