GENERAL ORDERS,

No. 12.

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WAR DEPARTMENT,

WASHINGTON, April 20, 1912.

I..General Orders, No. 46, War Department, April 3, 1911, relating to instructions pertaining to the training of Field Artillery, is rescinded.

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II. The instructions herein prescribed relative to the training of Field Artillery are supplemental to those contained in General Orders, No. 4, War Department, January 7, 1911, and General Orders, No. 7, War Department, January 11, 1911.

Post commanders will require all officers of Field Artillery commands serving at their posts to study these instruction orders, and recite on their subject-matter as part of the annual program of instruction. These recitations will be conducted by the senior Field Artillery officer on duty with such commands. No officer who is not conversant with the provisions of these orders will be allowed to direct or conduct the fire of any unit at service practice, and such officer will be reported upon as directed in paragraph 26 of this order.

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BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR:

LEONARD WOOD,

Major General, Chief of Staff.

OFFICIAL:

W. P. HALL,

The Adjutant General.

INSTRUCTION OF FIELD ARTILLERY.

1. Field Artillery instruction or drill will take place daily except on Sundays, holidays, or on those days when ceremonies or other work is prescribed by post, department, or higher authority, but organizations will not be excused from drill on Friday in order to prepare for the Saturday inspection prescribed in paragraph 283, Army Regulations. Tactical instruction and the training of men shall have precedence over cere monies and ordinary routine work of posts and garrisons.

2. Officers and men must give sufficient hours daily to their military work to accomplish the training and instruction needed for the thorough efficiency of their organization. Keeping barracks, stables, gun sheds, and other buildings occupied by men and horses, and the grounds in the vicinity clean and properly policed, and such necessary inspection of clothing, arms, and preparation of meals as will keep commanding officers at all times thoroughly informed of existing conditions, are part of the daily work.

3. Throughout the year all Field Artillery troops will have such garrison and field training as may be prescribed under the provisions of paragraph 246, Army Regulations, as amended by paragraph 2, General Orders, No. 87, War Department, 1911.

The division of time between garrison and field training will be prescribed by departmental commanders, under the provisions of paragraph 7, General Orders, No. 7, War Department, 1911.

4. Garrison training will include gymnastics and outdoor athletics, first aid, the details of tent pitching, ceremonies, guard duty, equitation and horse training, draft exercise, the hygienic care of the person, of buildings and grounds, care of harness and matériel (Paragraph I, Circular No. 23, War Department, 1910, and Handbook of 3-inch Field Artillery Matériel, 1911), swimming, to include swimming with arms and equipment under proper precautions as to safety, exercises in leaving the post with a part or all of the command equipped for prolonged service in the field, instruction in The Battery Dismounted, The Cannoneer, The Gun Squad, The

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Firing Battery and The Driver, and such instruction in The Battery Mounted, The Battalion Mounted, and The Regiment Mounted as can be profitably had on ground available for the purpose in garrison. During this period officers will also be instructed in the preparation of firing data and the conduct of fire, using the indoor terrain or an outdoor reduced range. (See General Orders, No. 183, War Department, 1909.)

5. Field training will include pistol and subcaliber practice, service practice, practice marches, camping, the reconnaissance, selection and occupation of positions, terrain rides, night operations, road sketching, individual cooking, and, in general, exercises of every kind calculated to prepare officers and enlisted men for their actual duties in war. In each case of the reconnaissance, selection and occupation of positions, the commanding officer of a unit, or his immediate senior who may be supervising the instruction, will assume for practical solution a definite tactical problem, in which the Field Artillery unit will be considered as the appropriate part of a larger command, including other arms of the service, and these problems will be varied so as to present, as far as possible, every probable case involving Field Artillery in action.

6. The main objective of Field Artillery training and instruction is pointed out in paragraph 1 of the Drill Regulations. In preparing the annual scheme of instruction and in carrying it out, this objective must always be kept in mind. The details of instruction enumerated in the two preceding paragraphs must be blended into a well-balanced whole, to the end that the individual and the organization may be prepared for all the requirements of active service. The value of the organization is to be determined, not by the time devoted to instruction, but by its capacity for meeting the requirements of service.

7. Under paragraph 203, Army Regulations, post commanders are responsible for the discipline, drill, and instruction of their commands, to which all garrison duties will be made subservient. To this end they will take such measures as will insure the attendance of the maximum number of offi cers and enlisted men of Field Artillery at all prescribed drills and exercises, and they will not excuse any officer or enlisted man from such attendance in order to perform post administrative duties or to do other work, unless such officer or enlisted man is proficient in his duties as prescribed in this order.