3rd-Line TF Companies/Batteries, RGA

[Hoplophile]

On 22 October, 1914, the Army Council approved a scheme for supplying trained men to siege batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). As in time of peace, recruits would be posted to coast defence companies at those fortresses that had the best facilities for training them. These recruits, whether New Army or Regular Army (enlisted for the war or for a set period of time) would then take the place of as many as one-third of the Regular Army gunners of an RGA coast defence company. This scheme was superimposed upon an earlier programme to replace up to a third of the Regular Army gunners in an RGA coast defence company with trained Territorial Force soldiers.

As the number of siege batteries grew, this scheme became unworkable. The demand for trained gunners clearly outstripped the ability of the coast defence companies to produce them. As a result, the RGA created a number of reserve brigades similar to those which had long served the needs of the Royal Field Artillery. For 1914 and 1915, however, the "trickle in, trickle out" system seems to have solved the problem of how best to staff newly formed siege batteries.

With this in mind, one wonders whether the RGA units - particularly heavy batteries - of the Territorial Force would have needed to form third-line (reserve) units in the manner of other Territorial Force units. Would it not have been easier for them to make use of something like the aforementioned system?