Gunnery

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery— / When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery,—

Originally, doubtless, that petty officer's function was the instruction of the men in the use of arms, sword, or cutlass. But very long ago, owing to the advance in gunnery, making hand-to-hand encounters less frequent, and giving to nitre and sulphur the preeminence over steel, that function ceased [...]

Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, / Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.

The 12th march company telephoned claiming that someone in the office had heard that they were waiting to do some shooting practice at moveable targets and that they would only leave after gunnery practice under front conditions.

Basically, the problem was actually the British had too many ships! The Grand Fleet wasn't half bad with its gunnery, but there was so many battleships throwing fire at the battlecruisers and battleships of the High Seas Fleet that it was actually very difficult to tell "Is that splash from us? Is that splash from that ship? Is that splash from a ship in another division? We don't know!", so a lot of incorrect estimates and measures were taken, which lead to an awful lot of waterspouts going up, but not anywhere near the number of hits that you would otherwise expect[…]