6. The movements of a battery in the field should be as rapid as possible; for, while moving, it is helpless and exposed.
Moreover, celerity of movement and accuracy of fire will often more than compensate for inferiority in the number of guns; as was the case at the battle of Palo Alto, in the Mexican War, where the enemy's guns outnumbered ours two to one.
1. When used to prepare for an attack of infantry or cavalry, artillery concentrates as much fire as possible on the point where the attack is to be made, in order to overcome the resistance there, and thus make success easy.
2. When there are several points on which our fire should be directed, we must not batter them all at once, but concentrate our whole fire on them in succession.
3. In attack, artillery should not be split up among different brigades or divisions; else no decisive result can be expected from it. Whole batteries, used together, will have a more telling effect than if scattered over the field in separate sections.
In no case should less than two pieces be used together; for, while one piece is being loaded, the piece and its gunners need the protection of another one ready to be discharged.
4. Pieces in support of an infantry column of attack should never be in its rear, but on its flanks, near its head, in which position it will best encourage the infantry. But if a battery have already a position from which it can afford to the attack effective assistance, it should remain in it; sending a few pieces to accompany the infantry, which always greatly values artillery support.
5. Powerful effects may be produced by the sudden assemblage of a great number of guns on some particular point. This was a favorite manœuvre of Napoleon; who, by his rapid concentration of immense batteries of light artillery on the important point, usually obtained the most decisive results. At Wagram, for instance, when Macdonald's column was ready to make its great charge on the Austrian centre, Napoleon suddenly massed one hundred guns in front of his own centre, and made it advance in double column at a trot, then deploy into line on the leading section, and concentrate its fire on the villages forming the keys to the enemy's position, in front of his right and left wings respectively; each battery opening its fire on arriving at half-range distance. The effect was overwhelming.
6. The nearer artillery delivers its fire, the more powerful, of course, are its effects. Horse artillery, in sufficient strength, attacking the enemy at short grape-shot distance, say within three hundred or four hundred yards, may lose half its pieces, but with the other half it will probably decide the battle at that point.