Note 99 — Chapter VI · THE TRUCK CARRIAGE

In Lloyd and Hadcock’s Artillery an extract from a letter written in 1801 by Lord Nelson relative to a proposal to use gun-sights at sea is given. The letter is unfavourable to the invention on the ground that, as ships should always be at such close quarters with their enemies that missing becomes impossible, such appliances would be superfluous. But in this connection the observation is made that, with the degree of accuracy of guns up to the nineteenth century a rough “line of metal” aim was probably all that was justified, in the matter of sighting. In other words, with one element of the system (the gun) so very inaccurate, nothing was to be gained by increasing the accuracy of another element (the sight) to a disproportionate degree. With increasing accuracy of the gun, increasing accuracy of sight was called for.