Gun crew

“ Every member of the crew must know his duties so well as to make his motion automatic; the direction to turn the various handwheels, milled heads, and gears to obtain the desired result, and he must always do these things in the same way. The effect of small differences in laying may be graphically shown the gun crew by firing sub-caliber ammunition at a small arms steel target which rings a bell when a bull’s-eye is made. ”

“ Other hands had been trained in serving the gun, so that the places of any disabled in action could be replaced. The service at the Parrot was not all that was required of the men forming the gun crew, for each was also a first or second boarder, a pumpman, or something else, and to each number one or two weapons were assigned, as musket and pike, sword and pistol, battle-axe. When the order to board the enemy was given, every man knew his station and his proper officer. ”

“ Loading must be performed expeditiously, and, though the pneumatic recoil of the modern field-gun renders it far less liable to shift in action, the sights must be correctly aligned after each shot. A gun crew must work swiftly and without confusion, and peace training is devoted to attaining that quickness and thorough efficiency which renders a battery formidable in war. ”

“ Then, indeed, is the blood of the newspaper man stirred by the scenes about him. The decks throb with the rush of hurrying feet as the men hasten to their stations. The gun crews are casting loose the great guns, the murderous rapid-fire cannon and the secondary batteries. Some are hastily donning equipments, others filling sponge-buckets and still others stripping themselves of all superfluous clothing, laying bare their brawny forms. ”

“ On the modern battleships the function of the great guns is the penetration of the enemy's armor, either at the waterline belt or on the turrets and gun positions, while that of the rapid-firers is the destruction of the unarmored parts or the disabling of the guns not armor protected. The six, three, and one-pounders direct their rain of shots at the turret portholes, gun shields, or unprotected parts of the ship, having also an eye to torpedo-boats, while from the fighting tops, the Gatlings rain a thousand shots a minute on any of the crew in exposed positions. ”

“ Don't make a false step, for you may hinder some one who has just one thing to do in the shortest possible time!
The charge is now home, the gun captain whisks the breech block into place, the primer is attached and then the captain slaps the pointer on the back or cries ready. All this time the gun is being trained, the range and deflection have been changed, and instantly there is a roar, a blinding flash. The members of the crew close to the gun move just far enough back to escape the recoil, like a prizefighter when he throws his head back and escapes a blow by the fraction of an inch. ”

“ In obedience to the command to fire, the crew speeded to their respective guns, jammed back the levers and the missiles started on their journey of destruction. The shell from our gun in front of which the Sergeant was working killed him before he knew what had happened and, as luck or the devil would have it, the shell was a premature; it exploded at the point of the muzzle and its 365 shrapnel pellets, each traveling at the rate of 2200 feet per second muzzle velocity, and which when exploded assume the shape of a gigantic fan, shot death and destruction into the kiltie battalion in front. ”

“ He sat down on a deck chair, cursing and wiping the sweat off his face.
We still had to be careful. There were plenty of firearms aboard that ship, rifles, grenades, and what not. I kept our riflemen at the rail, ready to cover our boarding party and to shoot down anyone who went near the five-inch gun. Still with the idea of keeping the men on the steamer overawed, I sent my eight strongest men as the boarding crew under the command of my giant prize officer. They had been among the strongest men in Germany. ”

“ They are the boys who weave the “curtain of fire” which you read about in the French official bulletins as checking an infantry charge; which demolish the barbed-wire entanglements to let an infantry charge get into a trench. If a general wants a shower of bullets over any part of the German line he has only to call up the eighteen-pounders and it is sent as promptly as the pressure of a button brings a pitcher of iced water to a room in a first-class hotel. A veteran eighteen-pounder crew in action is a poem in precision and speed of movement. The gun itself seems to possess intelligence. ”

“ The ammunition wagons are installed and opened; the belts are ready; the gun layer, the loader, and the crew are at their stations.
The lieutenant makes the rounds of each section, inspecting the guns, testing the mechanism, trying the weight of the munitions, taking account of everything and looking each man in the face.
“We are the last company organized,” he says. “You know that the machine gunners should be the flower of the army; don’t forget it. It is our first engagement. Try to show that we’re there a little.” ”

“ In the last of May a crew of first classmen from each company will go out into the bay and will fire at a regulation target with the 'Nevada's' six-pounder guns under the regular target practice conditions. Each company six-pounder crew may practice as much as it can find time to with the six-pounder gun in the armory gun shed. ”

“ Guns’ crews always man, and powder boys always supply adjacent guns, when clearing for action, or when fighting both sides.
Note.—With a crew of 11 men, and upwards, and both sides manned, No. 2 is always to attend the train tackle.
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When casualties occur at the guns, those holding the highest numbers, or those last placed, will be the first to move to fill up the vacancies, excepting that where both captains are removed, the officer will name the most fitting person to become No. 1, filling up the vacancy as above. For instance; if there should be 13 men at the gun, and Nos. ”

“ On their own immediate front the attack slackened, and died away, but along the line a little the Sergeant’s group could see a swarm of men charging in. The Sergeant immediately ordered the machine-gun and every rifle to take the attackers in enfilade. For the next few minutes every man shot as fast as he could load and pull trigger, and the captured machine-gun banged and spat a steady stream of fire. The Sergeant helped until he saw the attack dying out again, its remnants fading into the smoke haze. ”

“ Reading descriptions of them would be stale business for people at home who read magazines—the little dirt burrows roofed with withes and leaves, where machine guns' crews squatted behind guns whose muzzles aimed out across the debatable territory; the observation posts, where the lads on duty grumbled at the narrow range of vision provided by the periscopes and much preferred to risk their lives peeping over the parapets; the tiny rifle pits, each harbouring a couple of youngsters; the gun steps, or scarps, on which men squatted to do sniper work and to try for hostile snipers across the way ”

“ On certain mornings of the week certain drills are always gone through with. You know when it is ordinary quarters, when fire, collision and abandon ship practice is to be gone through with, when certain kinds of gun practice are tried out. You know just how often this and that division goes through with "pingpong" shooting, the work with what are known as Morris tubes, the kind of shooting that has superseded to a large extent the former sub-calibre practice on shipboard. ”

“ The hitherto motionless figures waiting at the battery spring into activity. Hands move nimbly at the training and elevating gear. Breech-blocks are thrown open, sights adjusted, the first and second captains take their places, the former with the firing lanyard in readiness for use at his gun; then there is silence again as the officer in charge of the division holds up one hand as a signal that all is prepared. Then comes the word to load.
In a twinkling the ammunition hoists are creaking with their burdens and boxes of shell appear on deck. ”

“ A host of new O.P.’s were erected, new roads and light railways constructed, while large working parties prepared fresh gun pits in advanced positions, and all were carefully camouflaged where they were exposed to enemy view. Every day new units arrived, and the country appeared to be overrun with troops. Most of the forward work had to be done during the night, and, as each position was completed, the guns were silently concentrated. ”

“ Before a charge, crawl up at night from shell-crater to shell-crater and locate the enemy's machine guns. Then, if your own guns and the trench mortars do not get them, go stalking with supplies of bombs and remember to throw yours before the machine gunner, who also has a stock for such emergencies, throws his. When a machine gun begins rattling into a company front in a charge the men drop for cover, while officers consider how to draw the devil's tusks. ”

“ Tirelessly the two lads work; their guns are next to each other. As they give their commands in sharp decisive voices, the contrast seems less striking. A shell comes in the gun-port and strikes down the captain of the younger lad's gun; the lock-string falls from his lifeless hand. Gently laying the dead man aside, he takes the lanyard. ”

“ Suddenly one of the machine guns ceases—it must have been concealed in the hedge close to the church; the gun squad serving it must have been found by the fire of our gunners; for presently there is noticeable in that quarter a foot race of red-trousered infantrymen. In the moaning of the shells there mingles the rattling of shrapnel. A whole group tumbles pell-mell; yonder one of them dashes madly this way and that, until a new load strikes him—they move like dolls in a miniature theatre; it is hard to realize at this distance that human lives are being crushed out here. ”

“ The number of duels each gun was in was carefully counted, every scar got in battle was treasured, and the men around their camp-fires, at their scanty messes, or on the march, bragged of them among themselves and avouched them as witnesses. New recruits coming in to fill the gaps made by the killed and disabled, readily fell in with the common mood and caught the spirit like a contagion. It was not an uncommon thing for a wheel to be smashed in by a shell, but if it happened to one gun oftener than to another there was envy. ”

“ It has a regular trace, bastion and curtain, with a dry ditch and drawbridge, well-made casemates and bomb-proofs, and a tolerable armament of columbiads, forty-two and thirty-two pounders, a few ten-inch mortars, and light guns in the external works at the salients. The store of ammunition seems ample. Some of the fuses are antiquated, and the gun-carriages are old-fashioned. The open parade and the unprotected gorges of the casemates would render the work extremely unpleasant under a shell fire, and the buildings and barracks inside are at present open to the influences of heat. ”

“ It is very clever, but we shall be more clever."
"That's right!" chimed in a chorus of fellow officers.
"We'll find the gun and destroy it—or all of them if they have more than one, as they probably have," went on the major.
He showed the boys where the shell had chambers for the time fuses to work, much as in a shrapnel shell, which can be set to go off so many minutes or so many seconds after it reaches its objective point.
"And so the great question is settled by the failure of this shell to explode," went on the major. ”

“ Kept well advanced and man-handled by their crews into good positions as close as possible behind the advancing Infantry, these guns were fought with great resolution, and were markedly successful in dealing with isolated machine-gun emplacements and strong-points where the enemy were making a successful stand against our riflemen, bombers and machine gunners. Firing over open sights and from behind hedges, brushwood, or any slight cover which could be made use of, the guns' crews necessarily took great risks and suffered comparatively severe casualties. ”

“ One of the enemy’s principal forms of amusement was to blow parts of our front parapet away and train a machine gun on the space left vacant, and snipe at any unsuspecting person who happened to pass along. On many occasions we were able to bring assistance to the harassed infantrymen, by spotting the offending snipers, and by, in turn, sniping at them with our “How.” till we finally silenced them.
At dusk the enemy invariably harassed all roads of communication, and dropped innumerable shells of large calibre into the stricken city ”

“ One does not see the little group of from three to nine men who work it in action; the ammunition hoist that feeds it; or the pile of live shell and cartridge that would lie beside it. These things take up space, and the more space you supply, the less will the gun be disconcerted by its own or a neighbour’s disaster. Our people do not like to work in crowds. They prefer, as we do ashore, to manage their own little shows alone. The effect of wounded men kicking and hiccoughing in a crowded secondary battery is bad for cool aiming ”

“ Halted at “company front,” that is, with the two ranks in long lines, the captain ordered us to load. At the command the men half turn to the right, but keep the rifle pointing forward and up; the rear rank men also come close to the front, so that the muzzles of their guns are in advance of the front rank men. Standing thus they open the breeches of their guns, thrust in the clips, shove the bolt handle forward and turn it down—and then somebody’s gun goes off! So you see why the rear rank men have their guns where no one will be hit, and why the captain stands off at one side. ”