WI more 'Continental' BEF in 1914?

This is the artillery strength of the British and Indian Armies on 4th August 1914 - Source Martin Farndale's history of the Royal Artillery

554 batteries and companies (290 regular and 264 territorial) as follows:
Regular Army
Royal Horse Artillery
26 batteries equipped with the 13-pounder Q.F. Gun Mk I​
Royal Field Artillery
153 batteries
3/4 equipped with the 18-pounder Q.F. Gun Mk I
1/4 equipped with the 4.5-inch Q.F. Howitzer Mk I​
Royal Garrison Artillery
12 heavy batteries equipped with the 60-pounder B.L. Gun Mk I
3 siege batteries equipped with the 6-inch 30-cwt B.L. Howitzer
9 mountain batteries
87 coast artillery companies​
Territorial Army
Royal Horse Artillery
14 batteries​
Royal Field Artillery
151 batteries
3/4 equipped with the 15-pounder B.L. Gun
1/4 equipped with the 5-inch B.L. Howitzer​
Royal Garrison Artillery
20 heavy batteries
3 mountain batteries
76 coast artillery companies
According to him the performances of the guns were:
6,500 yards and up to 20 rounds per minute for the 18pdr, but this could be increased to 7,800 yards by digging in the pole trail
6,600 yards firing a 35-pound shell for the 4.5-inch howitzer
10,300 yards for the 60-pounder
5,200 yards for the 6-inch 30-cwt B.L.

The 15-pounder B.L., was inferior to the 18-pounder in rate of fire and shell power, but with the same maximum range and with the even older 5-inch B.L. howitzer.​
Farndale's information (which should be 100% accurate as it's an official history) doesn't quite match the number of batteries provided for in the 1914-15 Army Estimates, which are as follows:

Royal Horse Artillery 25 batteries (Farndale had 26) as follows:
13 Batteries At Home (6 Higher and 7 Lower Establishments)
1 Battery Egypt
11 Batteries India

All batteries had six 13-pounder guns​

Royal Field Artillery 147 Batteries (Farndale has 153) as follows:
99 Batteries at Home
54 Higher Establishment for Expeditionary Force (including 18 Howitzer batteries)
15 Lower Establishment​
12 Reserve Batteries for training recruits
3 Batteries in South Africa
45 Batteries in India (including 3 Howitzer batteries)​
That makes a total of 135 service batteries (including 21 howitzer batteries) and 12 reserve batteries. Farndale only said that a quarter of the field brigades were equipped with howitzers and I extrapolated that to mean that a quarter of all RFA batteries were equipped with them instead of only 21 out of 147.
Of the 102 Batteries (excluding India), 84 have the 18-pr, Q.F., and 18 the new 4.5-inch Q.F. Howitzer. Each battery had 6 guns (only 4 horsed in lower establishment and depot batteries).
I think that means that the lower establishment and reserve batteries had 6 guns but only enough horses to move 4 of them.

Royal Garrison Artillery
Mountain Division 9 Batteries
1 Battery in Egypt
8 Batteries in India​
Garrison Companies
At Home
6 Heavy Batteries
3 Siege Companies
34 Garrison Companies​
Colonies and Egypt
28 Garrison Companies​
India
6 Heavy Batteries
21 Garrison Companies​

That's a grand total of 12 heavy batteries, 3 siege companies and 83 garrison companies (98 units). However, Farndale says there 87 garrison companies.
Two Brigades of three Heavy Batteries each were formed (out of other units) in 1903-04 and 1094-05. Each battery had four 60-pr. B.L. guns
As there weren't enough 60-pounder guns to go around 12 heavy batteries the 6 heavy batteries in India must have been equipped with something else. Furthermore Farndale only explicitly wrote that the 6 heavy batteries in the BEF were armed with the 60-pounder and I assumed that the 6 in India were also armed with the weapon.
The number of Siege Companies was reduced in Estimates, 1906-07, from 4 to 3, but the Establishment of the 3 was raised. Two of the companies have eight 6-inch howitzers each, and one has four 9.45-inch howitzers.
 
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I think that it might be a typo in the book. This is because on Page 2 he writes that there were six siege batteries, not the 3 that were mentioned in the appendix. He also wrote that sixteen 9.2" B.L. howitzers were on order to replace the 6" howitzers.

Apparently the British deployed 4 siege batteries to France on 17 September 1914, another on 27 September and a 6th on 14 October. Then there was a 4 month gap between the next deployment on 16 February 1915, followed a stead increase in batteries deployed throughout 1915.

Given that we know the British had ~80 6" 30 cwt howitzers in August 1914 and the 9.2" doing acceptance trials my guess is those 6 1914 batteries were 5 batteries of 6" cwt and a single battery of 9.2" howitzers.

I'd also hazard a guess that the increase in siege batteries in 1915 was when the makeshift howitzers started to come online, like the 8" howitzers made from bored out 6" guns.

Some more information of the organisation of the Royal Artillery from Martin Fandale.
  • Three was no corps artillery as such. At Corps Headquarters the Brigadier-General, Royal Artillery (BGRA) was an advisor not a commander. At Army level there were six siege batteries Royal Garrison Artillery each of four 6-inch howitzers. These were clumsy out of date weapons but sixteen of the new 9.2-inch B.L. howitzers had been ordered to replace them just before the declaration of war.
That's from the chapter on the artillery on the artillery of the BEF in August 1914. In the appendix on the growth of the Royal Artillery from 1914 to 1918 he wrote that there were 3 siege batteries in August 1914.

Quote from the Army Estimates 1914-15.
The number of Siege Companies was reduced in Estimates, 1906-07, from 4 to 3, but the Establishment of the 3 was raised. Two of the companies have eight 6-inch howitzers each, and one has four 9.45-inch howitzers.
As the Army Estimates says companies of 8 guns and Farndale says batteries of 4 guns it is possible that each company of 8 guns was divided into 2 batteries of 4 guns.

Or on mobilisation the 3 siege companies were disbanded and replaced by 6 siege batteries with their equipment and personnel.
That would equate to 48 guns, Wiki says that there were only 41 guns in 1914 and 13 were in India and Canada. I've read elsewhere that only the first 6 BEF divisions had a 60 pdr battery, other divisions didn't, this would account for 24 of these guns.

Perhaps some 60 pdr batteries were less than 4 guns?
I made what turned out to be a false assumption. This is a quote from the Army Estimates 1914-15.
Two Brigades of three Heavy Batteries each were formed (out of other units) in 1903-04 and 1094-05. Each battery had four 60-pr. B.L. guns
The two brigades of 3 heavy batteries are the 6 heavy batteries in the UK. As there weren't enough 60-pounder guns to go around 12 heavy batteries the 6 heavy batteries in India must have been equipped with something else. Furthermore Farndale only explicitly wrote that the 6 heavy batteries in the BEF were armed with the 60-pounder and I assumed that the 6 in India were also armed with the weapon.
 
According to notes I made from Military Operations, France and Belgium 1914 the remaining Regular Army formations after the embarkation of the 6th Division were:
3 Household Cavalry regiments (less a service squadron from each)
7 RHA batteries (presumably the 7 Lower establishment batteries)
5 infantry battalions​

My notes don't mention the 15 lower establishment RFA batteries that weren't part of the original BEF. However, 9 of them (and 5 of the remaining RHA batteries) were used to form part of the divisional artillery of the 7th and 8th divisions as follows. (Source Order of Battle of Divisions - Part I Regular Divisions).

The 7th Division was assembled at Lyndhurst between 31st August and 4th October 1914. It embarked at Southampton on the 4th and 5th October 1914 and began disembarkation at Zeebrugge on 6th October. The division moved to Bruges on 7th October and reached Ghent on the 9th October.

Its 12 infantry battalions consisted of
3 remaining unallotted regular battalions left in England and 9 battalions brought back from overseas stations, viz.
1 Guernsey
2 Gibraltar
2 Malta
1 Cairo
1 Natal
2 Transvaal​

The mounted troops consisted of an existing yeomanry regiment as well as a cyclist company formed on mobilisation.

The field artillery was made up of:
1 RHA Brigade (XIV) of 2 batteries still left at home
1 RFA Brigade (XXXV) still left at home
1 RFA Brigade (XXII) from the Transvaal​

The 2 heavy batteries were new units formed at Woolwich after the outbreak of war.

The 2 field engineer companies were withdrawn from Chatham and Pretoria. 3 of the Army Service Corps companies came from Gibraltar, Malta and Pretoria while the fourth company was a new formation.

The 8th Division was assembled on Baddesley Common (near Southampton) between 2nd October and 30th October 1914. The division embarked at Southampton on the 4th and 5th November, and disembarked at Harvre on the 6th and 7th; it began entraining for the Front on the 8th November, and completed its assembly around Merville by the 12th.

The 12 infantry battalions had all been brought back from various overseas stations, viz:-
3 India
1 South Africa
1 Aden
3 Egypt
3 Malta
1 Bermuda​

The mounted troops consisted of an existing yeomanry regiment and a cyclist company, which was formed on mobilisation.

The field artillery was made up by one Horse Artillery Bde. (3 batteries) and the 2 Field Artillery Bdes., which still remained at home.

The heavy batteries were new units formed at Woolwich after the outbreak of War, and the field engineer companies came from Cairo and Gibraltar. One of the four A.S.C. Companies came from Cairo and the other 3 were new formations.

However

It would have been relatively cheap for the 7 RHA and 15 RFA batteries maintained at the lower establishment IOTL at the higher establishment ITTL and sent them to France with the BEF in August 1914.

Initially only 5 RHA batteries went to France (4 with the Cavalry Division and one with the 5th Independent Cavalry Brigade) IOTL. ITTL I thought they could be organised into 4 brigades of 12 batteries. Of these 9 would have been assigned to the Cavalry division (9 batteries for 12 cavalry regiments) and 3 to the independent brigade (one battery per regiment). That would double the firepower of the horse artillery in France in the early part of the war.

The 15 field batteries (organised into 5 brigades) would be under GHQ BEF with the siege batteries and used to reinforce the divisions as required.
 
This might be the wrong place to raise this and I have no wish to derail the OP's thread and sniping may have little impact on the 1914 battles in Belgium but perhaps does highlight a difference between German and British doctrine and training.
While visiting the local library I chanced on "Sniping in France 1914 -1918 by Major H.Hesketh Pritchard". How plausible is it that with a P.O.D in 1901/02 loses to Boer sharpshooters the author or someone else could establish a scouting and sniping school for the British Army?
The author describes both the lack of telescopic sights (and the lack of training and care of the few available making their use worse than if they hadn't been there). Laments the fact that Germans had 20000 sights with clear instructions and an NCO responsible for their care. He explains how even the "British" obsession with neat flat trench parapets (sand bags well flattened with spade) to their trenches made life much easier for the German sniper than his British 1915 counterpart looking back at an apparently haphazard uneven trench front. He gives emphasis to his view of the problem with a report of 18 men lost in a single day from one battalion.
He details that one of the problems he faced was that there was no position on the establishment for a sniping officer. He is at pain to point out the need for good snipers isn't a product of trench warfare and that their usefulness remains in attack and more open warfare.
Is their scope for an earlier introduction of training as part of the Haldane reforms and would it have an impact.
(Again apologies if this is not appropriate for the thread, also if anyone can comment on the book's reliability as a source it would be helpful)
Dave.
 
How much difference would it make if each Corps had 2 x 4 gun 60pdr batteries, rather than the division having them? I imagine they'd get more 'work' because the Corps would be firing all them in support of whichever division was engaged, whereas under divisional control when the division is not engaged those 4 guns aren't being fired.
 
How much difference would it make if each Corps had 2 x 4 gun 60pdr batteries, rather than the division having them? I imagine they'd get more 'work' because the Corps would be firing all them in support of whichever division was engaged, whereas under divisional control when the division is not engaged those 4 guns aren't being fired.
I was going to suggest converting the 15 lower establishment 18-pdr batteries that were in the home army but not part of the original BEF and bringing home the 3 batteries from South Africa a year earlier and converting them into 18 batteries of 60-pdrs or 9.2" howitzers or the best mix of both.

That would give the BEF an initial mix of 30 heavy and siege batteries instead of 12. Converting 18 existing field batteries to heavy and siege batteries has the advantage that it's much cheaper than forming new ones and there are fewer problems with recruiting the extra soldiers.
 
I was going to suggest converting the 15 lower establishment 18-pdr batteries that were in the home army but not part of the original BEF and bringing home the 3 batteries from South Africa a year earlier and converting them into 18 batteries of 60-pdrs or 9.2" howitzers or the best mix of both.

That would give the BEF an initial mix of 30 heavy and siege batteries instead of 12. Converting 18 existing field batteries to heavy and siege batteries has the advantage that it's much cheaper than forming new ones and there are fewer problems with recruiting the extra soldiers.

Firstly, the guns weren't available and given the political capital being expended to reorganise the Regulars and Territorials I doubt there's much left over to push for more money to get more guns to convert field batteries into siege batteries.

Secondly, what happened to these 15 lower establishment 18pdr batteries? Were they the divisional artillery of the 7th and 8th divisions? Were they deployed to France before November 1914 to be used in the mobile phase of the war? If so, then its not appropriate to convert field artillery batteries into heavy artillery batteries.
 
Firstly, the guns weren't available and given the political capital being expended to reorganise the Regulars and Territorials I doubt there's much left over to push for more money to get more guns to convert field batteries into siege batteries.

Secondly, what happened to these 15 lower establishment 18pdr batteries? Were they the divisional artillery of the 7th and 8th divisions? Were they deployed to France before November 1914 to be used in the mobile phase of the war? If so, then its not appropriate to convert field artillery batteries into heavy artillery batteries.
In reverse order.

If you've read Post 43 you will know that some of the 7 lower establishment 13pdr batteries, some of the 15 lower establishment 18pdr batteries and the 3 field batteries from South Africa were used to form the field artillery of the 7th and 8th Divisions. I suspect that the remainder formed part of the divisional artilleries of the 27th to 29th Divisions which were also formed from regular infantry battalions brought back from overseas, but I haven't had time to check.

My initial suggestion (in Post 43) was that they be brought up to the higher establishment and be used as early versions of the later Army Field Brigades so that they could be transferred to the 7th and 8th Divisions. Having them converted to heavy or siege batteries (well before 1914) means that they won't be available to for the 7th and 8th Divisions when they form, but as you will also know from Post 43 their heavy batteries were new units. Therefore some of the deficiency can be made up by forming more new field batteries and fewer new heavy and siege batteries.

To answer the first part. This is a quote from my PDFs of the Army Estimates 1913-14 and 1914-15.
Two Brigades of three Heavy Batteries each were formed (out of other units) in 1903-04 and 1094-05. Each battery had four 60-pr. B.L. guns.
So instead of converting 15 field batteries from the six 15pdrs to six 18pdrs in the 1900s the Army converts them to four 60pdr heavy batteries instead. It might be harder to bring the 3 field batteries in South Africa home sooner and convert them to heavy batteries, but not too difficult. It's certainly cheaper than my original suggestion of doubling the number of regular heavy and siege batteries (while keeping the same number of regular field batteries) and equipping the TF to the same standard as the Regular Army.
 
So far the Special Reserve hasn't been mentioned.

The SR was created by converting the Militia at the same time as the Territorial Force was created from the Volunteers and Yeomanry.

It's job was to bring the Regular Army to its war establishment, relieve regular army units on some overseas stations and provide a pool of replacements to keep the army up to strength while recruiting and training was put on a war footing.

In addition to providing draughts of men to bring existing units up to strength it also formed complete units, which included some mounted regiments transferred from the Yeomanry (which IIRC provided the divisional cavalry squadrons for the 6 infantry divisions). After the war the Special Reserve became the Supplementary Reserve and among other things formed HAA regiments for the AA Brigades of the BEF.

ITTL some SR corps and army artillery batteries could be formed. They would have the advantage of being cheaper to maintain in peacetime than regular batteries.
 
Firstly, the guns weren't available and given the political capital being expended to reorganise the Regulars and Territorials I doubt there's much left over to push for more money to get more guns to convert field batteries into siege batteries.
I can't remember where I read this so it may be a case of false memory syndrome, but here goes anyway...

IIRC the reason for the neglect of corps and army artillery by the British Army before World War One wasn't financial, but doctrinal. That is it was thought that the next war would be a war of movement and the heavier guns could not be moved quickly enough. That might account for the tardy arrival of the siege batteries IOTL.
 
I can't remember where I read this so it may be a case of false memory syndrome, but here goes anyway...

IIRC the reason for the neglect of corps and army artillery by the British Army before World War One wasn't financial, but doctrinal. That is it was thought that the next war would be a war of movement and the heavier guns could not be moved quickly enough. That might account for the tardy arrival of the siege batteries IOTL.

I think that might be the case, but if Britain does stand up permanent Corps in peacetime does that necessarily mean they will buy more 60pdrs or other guns? They might simply add a battery of 6" 30cwt howitzers to the pair of 60pdr batteries and have a brigade of Corps artillery, I believe there are enough 6" batteries for that without having to buy and man more guns.

Or perhaps with Corps artillery being a pair of 60pdr batteries stripped from OTL divisions the 3 siege batteries could deploy as Army level artillery and perhaps not be actually used until September or October. In any case I think that there are enough artillery batteries in existence for the BEF to have Corps and still allow the politicians to deny the Army more guns and units.

The real question is how do the Battles of Mons, Le Cateau and Marne go with Corps and Army artillery?
 
I think that might be the case, but if Britain does stand up permanent Corps in peacetime does that necessarily mean they will buy more 60pdrs or other guns? They might simply add a battery of 6" 30cwt howitzers to the pair of 60pdr batteries and have a brigade of Corps artillery, I believe there are enough 6" batteries for that without having to buy and man more guns.

Or perhaps with Corps artillery being a pair of 60pdr batteries stripped from OTL divisions the 3 siege batteries could deploy as Army level artillery and perhaps not be actually used until September or October. In any case I think that there are enough artillery batteries in existence for the BEF to have Corps and still allow the politicians to deny the Army more guns and units.

The real question is how do the Battles of Mons, Le Cateau and Marne go with Corps and Army artillery?
I don't know.

I was suggesting 16 heavy and siege guns per regular infantry division instead of 8 because IIRC that was the scale in the German Army.

Earlier in the thread I suggested that the Army buy enough Hornsby tractors before World War One to tow the heavy and siege guns on the scale I was proposing. That was partially as I thought they would be faster than horses and reduce the need for the army to find extra horses to tow them in 1914. (They would have other advantages like only consuming fuel when they were working, when horses needed feeding continuously, reducing the forage requirement and they didn't die of diseases like horses.)

Furthermore according to Farndale a shortage of horses prevented the heavy and siege batteries from training as intensively as the field artillery in peacetime so that they weren't trained to as high a standard as the field artillery in August 1914. Bringing caterpillar tractors in sooner, might allow the heavy and siege batteries to be trained to a higher standard.

Finally if a means was found for the heavy and siege batteries to keep up with the rest of the army then new artillery pieces in these classes would have been developed sooner. Therefore the 9.2in howitzer would have equipped at least the regular siege batteries by August 1914 instead of having just completed its acceptance trials. The 6in 260cwt howitzer might also be developed sooner.
 
I thought German and British divisions has almost identical numbers of field guns and light howitzers, but the British division had the battery of 60pdr whereas the German Corps had 2 batteries of 150mm howitzers, so looked at from the higher level they're more or less equivalent.

However I don't think throwing more money/resources at Britain's 'problems' in this area with solve them, they'll just give the BEF more stuff to use at less-than-best-effect. The test of battle showed that machine guns belonged to a special Corps, concentrated and controlled at Brigade level and that heavier artillery belonged at the Army (Corps?) level, I think getting this right before the war is more important than having more guns and more support for the guns.
 
I thought German and British divisions has almost identical numbers of field guns and light howitzers, but the British division had the battery of 60pdr whereas the German Corps had 2 batteries of 150mm howitzers, so looked at from the higher level they're more or less equivalent.

However I don't think throwing more money/resources at Britain's 'problems' in this area with solve them, they'll just give the BEF more stuff to use at less-than-best-effect. The test of battle showed that machine guns belonged to a special Corps, concentrated and controlled at Brigade level and that heavier artillery belonged at the Army (Corps?) level, I think getting this right before the war is more important than having more guns and more support for the guns.
Although I wrote that the number of heavier artillery pieces per division would be doubled from 8 to 16 the 60pdrs wouldn't be part of the divisions themselves, but would be moved up to corps or GHQ BEF level. The doubled siege batteries would be kept at GHQ BEF level or moved down to corps level depending upon what pre-war exercises indicated was best.

All of what I'm suggesting (apart from developing a field gun-howitzer instead of the OTL 18pdr gun and 4.5" howitzer) is what the British Army actually did in World War One IOTL. I'm just bringing them forward a few years.

For example my suggestion that the lower establishment field batteries that were initially left behind IOTL should be sent to France in August 1914 but employed at corps or army level is effectively the army field brigade concept developed during the Great War brought forward to before it.
 
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For example my suggestion that the lower establishment field batteries that were initially left behind IOTL should be sent to France in August 1914 but employed at corps or army level is effectively the army field brigade concept developed during the Great War brought forward to before it.

If the 15 lower establishment batteries were sent to France with the original BEF as Corps/Army artillery what would the 7th and 8th divisions use as divisional artillery? You might have already written it, but I get lost at times.

I'm trying to think of what could be foreseen prior to the war itself; the German and French had Corps and their Corps had artillery and the German Corps artillery used 150mm howitzers, so I don't think its too much of a stretch for the British to establish Corps and have a pair of 60pdrs as Corps artillery.

Similarly with machine guns, the Germans concentrated their machine guns into a company for the infantry regiment, so its not too much of a stretch for the British to have their own machine gun company for their infantry brigades.
 
The two brigades of 3 heavy batteries are the 6 heavy batteries in the UK. As there weren't enough 60-pounder guns to go around 12 heavy batteries the 6 heavy batteries in India must have been equipped with something else. Furthermore Farndale only explicitly wrote that the 6 heavy batteries in the BEF were armed with the 60-pounder and I assumed that the 6 in India were also armed with the weapon.

Wiki says that of the 41 60pdrs built by August 1914 some 13 were in Canada and India, so I assume at least one battery was 60pdrs.

However the Indian Army had the unique 5.4" howitzer first fielded in 1895, this was developed from a 5" howitzer in order to fire a 60lb shell at local fortresses on the frontier. At least one battery of these guns was sent to East Africa. I assume that most of the 6 heavy batteries with the Indian Army would be equipped with these 5.4" howitzers.

BL_5.4_inch_Howitzer_and_Crew_East_Africa_WWI.jpg
 
Personnel and Horse Establishments of Artillery Batteries in 1914-15 Army Estimates
RHA Battery in Egypt - one of
177 all ranks
163 horses and mules​
RHA Battery at Home (Higher Establishment) - 6 of
175 all ranks (£5,908 Vote 1 cost)
135 horses and mules​
RHA Battery Home (Lower Establishment) - 7 of
119 all ranks (£4,259 Vote 1 cost)
86 horses and mules​
RFA Battery in South Africa (3)
132 all ranks
107 horses and mules​
RFA Battery at Home (Higher Establishment) - 72 of
158 all ranks (£4,891 Vote 1 cost)
75 horses and mules​
RFA Battery at Home (Lower Establishment) - 15 of
119 all ranks (£3,802 Vote 1 cost)
61 horses and mules​
RFA Reserve (i.e. training) Battery at Home - 6 of
83 all ranks (£3,079 Vote 1 cost)
43 horses and mules​
RGA Heavy Battery (British Establishment) - 6 of
144 all ranks
no horses and mules​
RGA Siege Company - 3 of
200 all ranks
one horse​
Vote 1 is the pay of the army. Unfortunately the estimates did not give the Vote 1 costs for the RGA batteries and companies.
 
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Vote 9. Armaments, Engineer Stores, and Aviation
ARMAMENTS AND ENGINEER STORES
A - ORDNANCE BOARD
B - RESEARCH DEPARTMENT
C - EXPERIMENTAL ESTABLISHMENT
D - ORDNANCE COLLEGE
E - ROYAL ARTILLERY AND ROYAL ENGINEER COMMITTEES
F - ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION, &c., AND ROYAL ENGINEER INSTITUTE
G - INSPECTION OF WARLIKE AND ENGINEER STORES
H - REWARDS TO INVENTORS
J - GUNS AND CARRIAGES
K - AMMUNITION
L - SMALL ARMS
M - TRANSPORT VEHICLES
N - MISCELLANEOUS ORDNANCE STORES
O - ENGINEER STORES
Deduct―
P - DEDUCT APPROPRIATIONS-IN-AID (CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING SUBHEADS)

NET TOTAL, ARMAMENTS AND ENGINEER STORES
£1,208,000 (£1,453,000 in 1913-14)
AVIATION
Q - ESTABLISHMENT AND WAGES OF ROYAL AIRCRAFT FACTORY
R - INSPECTION OF AERONAUTICAL STORES
S - AIRCRAFT, STORES AND MATERIALS
Deduct―
T - APPROPRIATIONS IN AID (AVIATION)

NET TOTAL, AVIATION
£524,000 (224,000 in 1913-14)​
TOTAL, VOTE 9
£1,732,000 (£1,677,000 in 1913-14)​

For the financial years 1905-06 to 1912-13 actual net expenditure on the British Army (excluding units on the Indian Establishment) was in the range of £27.0 million to £28.5 million. The net estimates for 1913-14 were £28.22 million and 1914-15 were £28.45 million.

Vote 9 (and its predecessors) was £2.4 million in 1905-06, £2.2 million in 1906-07, and then steadily declined to £1.3 million in 1909-10, before climbing up to £1.75 million in 1912-13. Doubling Vote 9 from 1905-06 should be more than enough to pay for all the improvements suggested so far.
 
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