The Naval Brigades, Part 4: Manning the Drags – The Second Boer War and lessons for the present

By Lt Jim Robson RN

Message from the Editor

The conclusion to the author’s four-part series on the RN’s Naval Brigades, examining here their conduct in the Second Boer War, 1899–1902. The author continues his comparative analysis with respect to the Army, which by the beginning of the 20th century had closed the gap with the RN in terms of professionalism and capability.
A 20 minute read.

Today the Royal Navy’s annual Field Gun Competition is a popular public event, forming the centrepiece of displays watched by hundreds and, in the case of Armed Forces Day, thousands of spectators. Such is the popularity of the event that television documentaries have been made charting the training of the RN’s Field Gun crews and their performance in competitions, with local newspapers in naval towns also running stories on the Associations of retired Field Gun Communities.1Devonport: Life inside the Royal Navy, (Quest, 2016); Edward Jennings, “The Devonport field gunners keeping memory of wo…

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The Attack on Inchon, September 1950
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Calculated Risk – an obvious concept