Firepower

“ The attack was a little late, as we heard after from prisoners—perhaps the Night Bombers, and their upsetting of road and rail transport timetables with high-explosive bombs and showering machine-guns, had some word in that lateness—and our fire caught it in the act of deploying. And when such a weight of guns as was massed on that front catches solid battalions on the roads, or troops close-packed in trenches, the Lord ha' mercy on the men they catch. ”

“ Artillery are required to open long-range fire on the enemy's columns and so to cause delay by deployment; and to concentrate upon them while in, or emerging from, a defile. Infantry and Machine-gun Platoons are required for prolonged fire-fights and local counter-attacks, during which sudden bursts of machine and Lewis-gun fire will do the greatest execution. Engineers provide sappers for the creation of obstacles and traps, and for the demolition of bridges and viaducts. Mechanical Transport may be required to add to the mobility of the infantry. ”

“ It is the Pioneers who pave the way, doing what previous artillery bombardment may have failed to do in cutting wire entanglements, etc.; theirs is the necessary preliminary work, in which, much of the time, they are open targets for the enemy fire.
And then come the engineers, bridging streams, cutting and blasting away earthen and concrete obstructions, filling in shell holes, levelling roads—making ready for the great attack in which every branch of the service on land will participate; infantry, cavalry, light artillery, tanks, trucks, ambulances, field hospitals, everything. ”

“ It grows louder. It is the engines of the enemy’s planes. Suddenly Hell is torn loose. The anti-aircraft guns or Archies, as the British call them, have opened fire from the ground. The planes return the compliment with bombs and machine guns. A boiler factory in your head would not be nearly so bad for your ears as the cracking and shrieking that takes place. As suddenly as it [30] started it ceases. All is quiet. We go about our duties or sleep, as the case may be, until the next raid occurs. ”

“ The object to be attained is to install the machine guns in conditions such that if the enemy penetrates our first line, by aid of his bombardment or asphyxiating gas, his infantry, as it advances, comes under the fire of machine guns echeloned previously in depth, under whose fire it must stop. It is not a matter of sweeping a wide sector, but of giving over certain strips of ground flanking fire which will cut down surely the enemy's waves when they push forward. ”

“ This consists in flying all over the shop, and protecting our machines which are doing fire control, or photo, or reconnaissance work, or other special jobs; the ‘protection’ consists partly in drawing the fire of the ‘Archies’ (i.e. the regular anti-aircraft shrapnel quick-firing guns) and ‘Crumps’ (i.e. Howitzers which fire high-explosive shells from 5 to 8-inch) and partly in keeping off Hun machines from being too inquisitive as to the doings of our aeroplanes and the movements of troops on our side of the trenches. ”

“ We were, however, sufficiently in the picture to have guns constantly firing around us and aeroplanes flying overhead, and could watch our friends being shelled in the front line and the daily anti-aeroplane shoots, both by our own and by the enemy's "Archies." Here we were able to carry out a certain amount of training, and to organize the battalion upon the lines of the new "normal formation," giving the platoon commander control over each kind of weapon with which the infantry are armed—rifle, bayonet, bomb, rifle-bomb and Lewis gun. ”

“ Over their heads the great shells shrieked and rushed, round them crackled a spattering rifle fire, the occasional hammering of a machine gun, the rolling crash and whirr of bursting shells and flying splinters. Wide out to right and left of them, far to their front and rear the roar of battle ran, long-thundering and unbroken, in a deafening chorus of bellowing guns, the vibrating rattle of rifles and machine guns, the sharp detonations and reports of shells and bombs and grenades. ”

“ That he may not place his batteries too soon, nor too much exposed; that he may cover his front and his flanks, by taking advantage of the ground; and that he may not venture too far out of the protection of the troops, unless some very decided effect is to be obtained thereby.
The guns must be so placed as to produce a cross fire upon the position of the enemy, and upon all the ground which he must pass over in an attack. ”

“ All day long the big guns boom. By night the rifles and machine-guns take up the tale. One is frequently aroused from slumber, especially towards dawn, by a perfect tornado of firing. The machine-guns make a noise like a giant tearing calico. Periodically, too, as already stated, we are subjected to an hour's intimidation in the shape of bombardment. Shrapnel bursts over our heads; shells explode in the streets, especially in open spaces, or where two important streets cross. (With modern artillery you can shell a town quite methodically by map and compass.) ”

“ There are heavy, slower-flying day “bombers,” and—silent this morning but waiting patiently for the curtain of night to descend,—enormous night bombing machines, the fiercest and hugest of all the great birds of the flying force. To-night, under cover of darkness these machines will speed upon their way, far over the enemy's lines. They carry fuel for a journey of many hours' duration, and heavy bombs which they will drop upon railway junctions, ammunition factories, staff headquarters and important positions deep in the territory of the Hun. ”

“ Our big war birds, moving in spirals, flew up to meet them and, if possible, put them to flight. We could see, high in air, little puffs of smoke of gun fire; sometimes hear the chatter of machine-guns, and even the buzz of their propellers and sharp report of rifles, which showed that they were “out a-gunning.”
Sweeping around in curved lines, circling upward, darting downward, the combating planes fought with daring temerity, a wonderful battle in the air. We saw one plane, struck by a bomb, fall fluttering downward a thousand feet, right itself, and escape over the lines. ”

“ Armament.—The guns for arming the place should be placed in position or in store within the works before the beginning of hostilities. There should be mounted in commanding positions a sufficient number of high-power guns to hold the enemy’s first works at a distance and to fire upon his camps, etc., if placed too near. In addition to these, a full supply of light guns, including machine and rapid-fire guns, should be at all times equipped and supplied for immediate use in meeting an assault or surprise. ”

“ But hard fighting was going on, and the line was getting badly hammered, so that every balloon which could get up was in the air, and every observer was hunting for hostile battery positions, directing the fire of our guns on to them, and doing all they could to lessen the shell-fire that was pouring down on our infantry in their scanty trenches. At times a swirl of mist or cloud came down and shut off the view altogether from the balloons ”

“ The view, from the air, of a heavy bombardment, or of an infantry attack under cover of barrage fires, is a truly terrible spectacle, and in the air one has a feeling of detachment which is not easily overcome.
Yet it must be overcome, as I have said, and cannot say too many times for the benefit [188] of any young airman who may read this journal. During an offensive the air swarms with planes. They are at all altitudes, from the lowest artillery réglage machines at a few hundreds of metres, to the highest avions de chasse at six thousand meters and above. ”

“ The passage overhead of German aeroplanes made nights uneasy. Darkness was lit by those huge flashes in the sky, which denoted explosions of our dumps of shells. The ground shook many times an hour with great concussions. Sometimes the crash of bombs and patter of machine-guns firing at our transport lasted till pale dawn appeared or its approach was heralded by the bombardment of our guns, whose voice pronounced the prologue of attack. ”

“ The fire perpendicular to the front will be employed generally on certain necessary points of passage as, bridges, roads, defiles, cuts, roadways, communicating trenches, etc., where the enemy is generally forced to take a deep formation with a narrow front, or where he is in massed formation. Inconspicuousness.—By reason of its small strength the machine gun section can utilize the smallest cover, and can consequently hide from the enemy; the machine gun therefore, more than the infantry, has the chance to act by surprise. The opening of the fire by surprise will be the rule ”

“ During these nine days of hard fighting you have progressed nine kilometers through powerful organized defenses, taken nearly 600 prisoners, 15 guns of different calibers, 20 minnewerfers, and nearly 150 machine guns, secured an enormous amount of engineering material, an important supply of artillery ammunition, brought down by your fire three enemy aeroplanes. ”

“ A slow bombardment may also precede the active cannonade which prepares for an assault, or the systematic artillery attack of a regular siege.
DEFENCE AGAINST BOMBARDMENT. 8. The defence against bombardment is frequently, from necessity, strictly passive, and consists in so disposing 11 the troops and materials as to protect them under bomb- and splinter-proofs, repairing damages to the latter and to magazines and parapets as occasion offers; saving the ammunition of the place by firing only such shots as promise to pay for themselves by the effect produced ”

“ Hostile aircraft flying high from the ground are dealt with by counter-attack by armed aeroplanes, but as aërial fighting requires space for manoeuvre hostile machines flying within 3,000 feet of the ground must be dealt with by machine gun, Lewis gun, or concentrated rifle fire, except in cases where it is essential to conceal from the enemy that a certain position or locality is occupied, and where the troops are so well hidden as to escape detection unless they open fire. ”

“ Later still have come enormous extension of the range of fire, both for infantry and artillery, the invention of new explosives and other engines of destruction, the effects of which are still matters of conjecture. Happily more than a generation has passed since British troops fought on a European battle-field: we have not yet tried long range artillery and machine guns, and cordite and melinite, and the other deadly things that end in -ite, except on a very small scale and against inferior races. ”

“ In order to strengthen our fire, at least in the most important parts of the chief theatre of war, it was necessary to create special Machine-gun Companies—so to speak, Machine-gun Sharp-shooters.’ Attention is also called in the German Commander’s authoritative Memoirs to the need of hand-mines, grenades, and all quick-loading weapons, and to the formation of storm troops. ”

“ And then somebody told him how he was helping his boys, what the work of the air services really meant, how the artillery observation, and photographing, and bombing, and directing the guns on to hostile batteries and machine-gun emplacements, and so on, all worked up to the one great end, to making the task easier for the infantry, to saving the lives of the men on the ground ”

“ Ask the gunners in the batteries of the April advance, as they work below the signalling planes; ask the infantry whom the gunners so marvellously protect, as to the truth of the prophecy!
"Our casualties are really light," writes an officer in reference to some of the hot fighting of the past month. Thanks, apparently, to the ever-growing precision of our artillery methods; which again depend on aeroplane and balloon information. So it is that the flying forms in the upper air become for the soldier below so many symbols of help and protection. He is restless when they are not there. ”

“ Zero time is 9 p.m., and exactly on the second hell breaks out. Guns in the rear roar out in fury. Trench mortars close at hand vomit forth their missiles of death, and even machine-guns and rifle batteries help to swell the crescendo of battle. The ranges are well known, and the guns do their work without harming our men, who are now crawling forward. ”

“ If the assaulting troops are held up by machine-gun fire they are to lie down and keep up a steady rifle fire, while Supports in the rear and on the flank try to work round the flanks and rear of the machine-gun nests which are holding up the Attack. Meanwhile, the commander of the battalion which is responsible for the Attack is to arrange for artillery and light trench-mortar support, and should protect his own flanks from machine-gun fire by means of smoke. ”

“ Cavalry, unless retained, as I think they should be, in the form of mounted machine-gunners, will, I think, disappear in European warfare, but infantry will remain, and it will be the object of aircraft to assist their advance by reconnaissance, ground attack, artillery and tank co-operation, and the destruction of the enemy's supplies and communications. In this connection ground tactics and air tactics must develop pari passu and commanders of Corps and Armies must work out during peace training the fullest schemes for the most intimate co-operation between air and land forces. ”

“ Enemy machine-guns at fairly close range throughout the day kept up continual bursts of fire, which made any movement a matter of great difficulty, while low-flying aeroplanes constantly machine-gunned the troops in their new positions. ”