Fighting machine

“ The working machines carry guns, and fight when they have to, but the single-seater fighting machines are out for fight all the time, out to destroy enemy fighters, or to put out of action any enemy working machine they can come across. ”

“ But the struggle for supremacy in the air which must then ensue will call imperatively for something more powerful and efficient, a specialised and heavily-armed fighting-machine in fact. It is this type, the fighting machine of the future, that the author proposes to make the subject of present study, discussing primarily the factors upon which its armament and its usage, or tactical employment, depend. It may be taken that for the period during which the tactical scout is playing the double rôle of reconnaissance-machine and fighting-machine the main general considerations will apply. ”

“ The ideal fighting machine is of course one that will outperform every enemy machine in every variety of movement. And there are several kinds of performances that are almost equally valuable in combat fighting. A swift speed is essential. A rapid climb, the ability to dive directly down without overstraining the structure or ripping off the fabric by too sudden an alteration of direction; a high ceiling, which necessitates high engine power and perfect carburetion; quick maneuverability—all these characteristics if combined would make an ideal fighting machine. ”

“ This machine is also of the tractor type, carrying a pilot and an observer, and has a maximum speed of 40-50 miles per hour. If required it can further be fitted with an automatic gun for defence and attack. The third craft is essentially a fighting machine. Owing to the introduction of the machine-gun which is fixed in the prow, with the marksman immediately behind it, the screw is placed at the rear. ”

“ The others agreed that it was about the best description that could be given of these massive fighting machines, equipped with guns and men, that could travel with their own power practically anywhere, across shell holes, over trenches, through barbed wire—the most human piece of war mechanism that had yet made its appearance on the battlefield. ”

“ It may therefore be anticipated that the trend of design in the fighting machine will not be in the direction of very heavy units analogous to the battleship, but rather in the construction of machines of moderate size and weight, with the maximum possible rate of fire. ”

“ Machine guns can be employed in any country which is practicable for infantry, and when once they are unlimbered they must be able to surmount considerable obstacles. In action they offer no greater target than riflemen, fighting under like conditions, and they can in proportion to their fire value support far greater losses than infantry. ”

“ In their order these titles were applied to heavy slow-moving machines used for taking photographs and directing artillery fire, more heavily armed machines of greater weight used in raids and bombing attacks, and the swift fighting machines, quick to rise high, and swift to manœuvre which would protect the former from the enemy, or drive away the enemy's observation machines as the case might be. ”

“ The more simple the method of operation, the more closely a machine approaches automatism; but even automatic machines are automatic only in so far as their internal mechanisms are concerned; and the fact of their being automatic does not eliminate the necessity for skill in using them. An automatic gun, for instance, no matter how perfectly automatically it discharges bullets, may be fired at an advancing enemy skilfully or unskilfully, effectively or ineffectively. ”

“ When machine guns have been skilfully employed, their action has been infinitely more effective than that of field artillery, more especially when they fire at infantry ranges.” The following is an example of their actual use in this way. “The Japanese,” says a Russian eye-witness of the fighting round Mukden, “brought up during the night dozens of machine guns with hundreds of thousands of cartridges to their front line of skirmishers, from 400 to 500 yards from our positions, and entrenched them there. ”

“ The following extract from an article in The Times newspaper of August 23rd, 1905, by their special correspondent with the Japanese Army in Manchuria, shows the necessity for machine guns by emphasising the danger of training cavalry to fight as infantry.
“The prime value of cavalry lies in its mobility. As an actual fighting unit in battle a body of cavalry is much inferior to an equal body of infantry. ”

“ Para. 188.—The range and striking effect of the machine gun is identical with that of the infantry rifle. The rapid succession of shots and the narrow concentration of the cone of dispersion, together with the possibilities of uniting several guns on a limited front, render it feasible for machine guns to obtain rapidly a decisive success in certain positions, and even at long ranges to inflict heavy losses in a short [199] time on large and deep targets. Machine guns, however, are of small use to a commander fighting a protracted rifle-fire engagement. ”

“ Machine gun batteries accomplish the principal objects which cavalry expects to attain by the assignment of infantry, [301] viz., relief from fighting on foot, great fire power, and mobility. Even in reconnaissance duty, machine guns will be employed to break down the resistance of the enemy in occupied localities and to augment the resistance of their own force in such places. During an advance, machine guns should go into position at an early moment in order to cover as effectively as possible the approach and the deployment for attack. ”

“ If it happens again, the fighter must go on, fighting against the time when the loss of oil will endanger his operating efficiency.
Sometimes the machines strike each other with such deadly impact, they dent the inner frame-work of the body, putting strains on a section of wiring or electrical tubing. Then the damaged machine must fight defensively to protect its weakened section. The offender will work out elaborate punch-patterns to trick the defender into somehow thinking he understands the aim of each pattern of punches and where the final concentration will be. ”

“ Machines,” as if they were conflicting ideals, whereas in reality neither opposition nor comparison is possible. We should not fall into the absurdity of comparing man with a locomotive or a sculptor with his tools, and mechanical weapons are but the instruments of man’s brain and spirit. The reactionary who opposes the inevitable course of evolution forgets that the question of muscle-force versus machine-force was settled away back in the Stone Age when the prehistoric fighting man discovered that a flint-axe [68] was a more potent weapon than his bare fist. ”

“ In trench warfare they did well—though the fire-step had to be raised to let them see over the top—and in one raid captured a German machine-gun which I saw in their hands, and hauled it back (a heavier weight than ours) like ants struggling with a stick of straw. In actual battle they were hardly strong enough and could not carry all that burden of fighting-kit—steel helmet, rifle, hand-grenades, shovels, empty sand-bags—with which other troops went into action. ”

“ In spite of the technical progress that has made of armies great machines, more weight than ever before is laid on quick judgment, on good shooting, on physical bravery and endurance. I know that an idea quite contrary to this prevails, that many consider war reduced to the art of setting off the greatest quantities of explosives within a given time. ”

“ But the strongest element in it was the faith in our weapon—the machine necessary to supplement the other machines of war, in order to break the stalemate produced by the great German weapon, the machine-gun—our mobile offensive answer to the immobile defensive man-killer. ”

“ Yet the ball to which the general alluded was the discharging of a fiendish war machine toward an unsuspecting and harmless city alive with sleeping people, and the emotion of the inventor was due to the fact that he had devised and completed the most atrocious engine of death ever conceived by the mind of man—the Relay Gun. ”

“ In the excitement of the moment the best infantry may fire unsteadily; but machine guns can be absolutely trusted to commit destructive havoc in the hostile throng, provided that their mechanism does not go out of order. ”

“ Their power of all-round traversing and their great effect against deep targets make machine guns specially suitable for position on a flank, whence they can bring enfilade fire to bear. A position in the firing line is rarely suitable, as the fire of the guns may be masked and the enemy’s fire drawn on the firing line. ”

“ And when, on the other hand, he or his comrade swooped down to within a few hundred feet of the earth, in order to co-operate in attack with infantry or Tanks, again intelligence came into play, inventing a special armoured machine for the protection of the new tactics. ”

“ Each force was equal, and could not ally itself with any other, for the machines could not lie or state other than their thoughts, and each wanted supreme power. They developed new weapons, weapons whose strength lay in their number. One by one the machine brains had gone down to defeat, the men of that ship helping to disturb the balance of forces by ever so little, yet always enough to throw one side down to defeat, yet always remaining in hiding. At last there remained but one machine-brain, and its weakened force necessitated its return to the devastated planet. ”

“ In the cases where the infantry of the advanced guard forms the main guard, the battery of machine guns should march with the foremost body of troops and should never march in rear, where they are useless, and where, if on a road, they can only be moved up with difficulty. ”

“ The trouble with us is that we have not, and never have had, any machine gunners in the United States Army. By this I mean men skilled in machine gunnery as applied to present-day warfare. The evolution of machine-gun tactics is, perhaps, (p. 095) the most outstanding feature of the whole war. From being, as it was considered four years ago, merely an emergency weapon or, as the text-book writers were pleased to call it, "a weapon of opportunity," it has become the most important single weapon in use in any army, not even excepting the artillery. ”

“ The machine guns will rapidly and boldly [257] move to a favourable position to pursue the enemy with their fire and to make their infantry powerless to attempt a counter-attack. The energetic action of the machine guns after the position has been carried will force the enemy to scatter.
Art. 70.—In the offensive in case of failures: The machine guns will sacrifice themselves, if necessary, to cover their infantry. They will break down the morale of hostile troops by riddling them with fire without care for their own losses, and will thus facilitate the retreat of their own infantry. ”

“ The introduction of modern breech-loading rifled guns, howitzers and mortars, rapid-fire and machine guns, and magazine small arms has brought with it the need of a higher grade of mechanical skill and improved machinery for making the ordinary repairs. This imposes upon both attack and defence the necessity for providing machine shops and tools fitted for work of this kind, with the steam power required to drive them. ”

“ When machine guns get a really good target at close range, the result is little short of annihilation, and the morale effect of such a heavy loss, totally unexpected and inflicted in a few moments, takes the life out of the pursuit more completely than even a long stand. ”

“ Should their own attack fail, or should that of the enemy succeed, artillery and machine guns must endeavour to cover the retirement, and, disregarding the hostile artillery, must turn their fire into pursuing riflemen. ”

“ In the pursuit machine guns will be especially effective against the flanks and rear of the retiring enemy. Again, in covering a retirement and checking the enemy’s pursuit, machine guns with cavalry and artillery will delay the enemy’s advance and enable their own infantry to break away. ”

“ Having machine guns in position against him, it might be advisable to choose the latter course, because machine guns are less effective against a skirmishing line of attackers, while his own machine guns are more effective if they can gain the flank or rear of the enemy’s position and thus enfilade them, and any movement of mounted troops to [72] repulse the turning movement, or take their attackers in flank, will afford the machine guns an opportunity for decisive fire action. ”

“ Nothing deranges the perfect operation of the terrific machine. They will dash into the midst of the fight, where the shells are spreading wild havoc and the deadly rifle balls patter like rain, without a thought of their surroundings, and open their volcano on the enemy without making a blunder or missing a motion. ”

“ Machine guns may also be held as a reserve of fire to check the advance of hostile reinforcements, to meet turning movements, or to prepare and cover the counter-attack. When their retirement is not likely to be compromised, machine guns may be utilised in positions in front of the main line to delay the enemy’s advance. ”

“ It is in this matter of careful reconnaissance, of selecting ground and occupying or watching all neighbouring cover, that the successful use of machine guns in enclosed country mainly depends. The enemy is obliged by the nature of the country to move in close formation to pass defiles, roads, gaps, or to avoid crops, woods, and villages, and it is the intelligent anticipation of where this will occur that gives the machine gun its chance for decisive action. ”