Even on the range or on the maneuver field what does this fire amount to?
In fire at command, on the range, all the men in the two ranks come to the firing position simultaneously, everybody is perfectly quiet. Men in the front rank consequently are not deranged by their neighbors. Men in the second rank are in the same situation. The first rank being set and motionless they can aim through the openings without more annoyance than those in the first rank.
Fire being executed at command, simultaneously, no weapon is deranged at the moment of firing by the movements of the men. All conditions are entirely favorable to this kind of fire. Also as the fire is ordered with skill and coolness by an officer who has perfectly aligned his men (a thing rare even on the drill ground) it gives percentage results greater than that of fire at will executed with the minutest precautions, results that are sometimes astonishing.
But fire at command, from the extreme coolness that it demands of all, of the officer certainly more than of the soldier, is impracticable before the enemy except under exceptional circumstances of picked officers, picked men, ground, distance, safety, etc. Even in maneuvers its execution is farcical. There is not an organization in which the soldiers do not hurry the command to fire in that the officers are so afraid that their men will anticipate the command that they give it as rapidly as possible, while the pieces are hardly in firing position, often while they are still in motion.
The prescription that the command to fire be not given until about three seconds after coming to the firing position may give good results in the face of range targets. But it is not wise to believe that men will wait thus for long in the face of the enemy.
It is useless to speak of the use of the sight-leaf before the enemy, in fire attempted by the same officers and men who are so utterly lacking, even on the maneuver ground. We have seen a firing instructor, an officer of coolness and assurance, who on the range had fired trial shots every day for a month, after this month of daily practice fire four trial shots at a six hundred meter range with the sight leaf at point blank.