An economic downturn occurred shortly after this however, and this, coupled with the increased costs of maintaining the volunteer force, affected the government's ability to provide funding for training. In early 1893, a force from the Plantagenet Rifles, a volunteer infantry unit, were trained as gunners to assist the permanent force of South Australian artillery that had were manning the fort at Albany. Due to improvements in the economic circumstances of the colonies after the depression in the early 1890s, eight new artillery pieces, 9-pounder RMLs, were purchased in 1894; although these were technically obsolescent, they were nevertheless an improvement on the two 12-pounder Armstrong guns that they replaced. In 1896, the colony's artillery consisted of eight 9-pounders of the RML type and two 12-pounder RBL guns.