Gun pit

“ If it became necessary to resort to the expedient of blowing up the gun, it would be done by placing a shell in the breech of the chamber, the breech closed, another shell inside the muzzle, the lanyard fastened to the firing lever and strung out of the front pit door for a distance of 25 or 30 feet to a large tree standing at our rear, fastened to the tree, and when retreating pull it from there, blowing the gun and the gun pit into as many pieces. ”

“ The size of the pit should be just enough to allow the gun trail to move round on any arc of training when the gun muzzle is run out over the front face or parapet, and to allow three feet more over and above this for the recoil of the gun in the drag-shoes, so as not to fetch the trail up sharp on recoiling. ”

“ The angles were so graduated that no shadow was cast by the sun, and the color blended so well with the surroundings that no human trace was visible on the hillside from a distance.
As fast as the camouflage could be “woven” and put in place to shield them from observance by the enemy planes that whirred overhead in the bright afternoons, the gun pits were dug. Platforms and “circulaires” were installed as each pit was dug. The guns of the second platoon were brought from Lunéville on the evening of March 7, and caissons of ammunitions followed during the night. ”

“ When machine guns are used for the defence of villages or farms, they should be placed outside the village or farm buildings well clear of the walls. The salient angle will usually be the most suitable place, a good field of fire being the chief object. The guns should be placed so as to flank one side of the village, and must be most carefully concealed, a pit being usually the best form of cover. Walls should as a rule be avoided, as they are very easily destroyed by artillery fire and always afford a conspicuous target. ”

“ For if they cannot be placed on elevated ground, they can be sunk in it; and my experience is that a gun sunk in a pit is the most difficult of all marks for an artillerist to hit. In fact, I do not think it can be done, except by a chance shot, and chance shots do not win, or lose, fortresses. ”

“ A pit they could leap out of, and from a noose they could free themselves by cutting the rope by their sharp teeth!
At length the field-cornet resorted to a plan—much practised by the boers of Southern Africa for ridding their farms of these and similar “vermin.” It was the “gun-trap.”
Now there are several ways of constructing a gun-trap. Of course a gun is the principal part of the mechanism, and the trigger pulled by a string is the main point of the contrivance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The rising sound of the reports told plainly of the swinging muzzle, and officers and men dropped flat in the mud and waited till the sweeping bullets had passed over their heads. Men may work on and 'chance it' against rifle fire alone, but the sweep of a machine-gun is beyond chance, and very near to the certainty of sudden death to all in the circle of its swing. ”

“ Tanks, infantry, and guns were hidden in the woods. New gun-pits were camouflaged. There was no movement on the roads or in the villages. Our guns fired a few customary rounds every day and night, and the enemy replied. There was nothing unusual.
But at night the roads were blocked with transport. Guns and more guns arrived, from field-guns to enormous howitzers, that had rumbled down all the way from the Salient. Streams of lorries were bringing up ammunition, petrol, rations; and whole brigades of infantry, marching across the open171 country, had disappeared by dawn into the woods. ”

“ Those at the front strove madly to retreat from the fire-spitting guns in their very faces, and those in the rear pressed as madly forward to the attack. The bullets from the big 45:90's drove through half a dozen men at a shot, and the passageway, gorged with surging, helpless men, became a shambles. The rifles, pumped without aim into the mass, withered it away like a machine gun, and against that steady stream of death no man could advance. ”

“ He turned to Pete, who sat immovable, hatred in his narrow eyes.
“I see you have a rifle on your saddle. I happen to have one with me. You take your gun and get down behind that log I saw out here by the road as we came up. That gives you an advantage. I’ll lie out in the open a couple hundred yards away, say.
“When these boys give the word, we shoot. Start advancing whenever you feel like it. We keep on shooting till one has enough, or”—he shrugged his shoulders—“somebody gets hurt.”
“For God’s sake, Henry!” burst out the larger khaki-clad man. “That’s murder! Think of your family.” ”

“ We had left our cast-iron beak in the side of the Cumberland. Like the wasp, we could sting but once, leaving it in the wound.
Our smoke-stack was riddled, our flag was shot down several times, and was finally secured to a rent in the stack. On our gun-deck the men were fighting like demons. There was no thought or time for the wounded and dying as they tugged away at their guns, training and sighting their pieces while the orders rang out, "Sponge, load, fire!"
"The muzzle of our gun has been shot away," cried one of the gunners. ”

“ The stun-pistol was in his hand—his instinctive reaction to anything unusual—and pointed into the shining mist when it vanished and a man appeared in front of him; a man in the baggy green combat-uniform that he himself had worn fifty years before; a man with a heavy automatic pistol in his hand. The gun was pointed directly at him.
The Guide aimed quickly and pressed the trigger of the ultrasonic stunner. The pistol dropped soundlessly on the thick-piled rug; the man in uniform slumped in an inert heap. ”

“ When the man in blue was a hundred yards from the pit, he shot him dead. The rifle was still lifting from the recoil when he sprang to his feet, turned, and ran. Before he was twenty feet away, the place where he had been exploded; the force of the blast almost knocked him down, and steam blew past and ahead of him. Ignoring his pack and ice-staff, he ran on, calling to Brave to follow. The dog obeyed instantly; more negatron-blasts were thundering and blazing and steaming on the crest of the ridge. ”

“ The two machine-guns on the ’drome were trained and aimed in daylight to shower bullets exactly over the tip of the tongue of wood. A patent gadget invented by Guns allowed the gun-muzzles a certain amount of play up and down, play which careful calculation showed would pour a couple of streams of bullets across the end of the wood up and down a height extending to about a thousand feet, that is, 500 above and 500 below the level at which it was estimated the Huns usually flew on these night raids. ”

“ When used against breastworks of rails or logs of wood, guns should be fired with moderate or shattering charges; so as more surely to demolish them, and, at the same time, to increase the destructive effect of the fire by scattering the splinters.
In view of the frequent necessity of battering such defences, and of using a ricochet fire, which also requires small charges of powder, it would be an improvement in our artillery service to make a certain proportion of the ammunition in each gun limber to consist of cartridges of half the usual size. ”

“ The platoon stopped for a moment as if stunned. Then they advanced without increasing their pace. In their faces a machine-gun spat angrily, the bullets flying past like peevish wasps. Automatic rifles were manipulated in the middles [176] of the automatic rifle squad, and the loaders took their places at the sides of the men who were firing, jamming in one clip of cartridges after another. Rifle bullets fled past the advancing men with an infuriating zing. The Maxim machine-guns kept up a rolling rat-t-t-tat, coldly objective. ”

“ And bring with you a suit of butler's livery, or reasonable facsimile. I believe there will be a vacancy in the Fleming household tomorrow or the next day, and I want you ready to take over. And bring a small gun with you; something you can wear under said livery. That .357 Colt of yours is a little too conspicuous. You'll find a .380 Beretta in the top right-hand drawer of my office desk, with a box of ammunition and a couple of spare clips."
"Right. I'll be at Rosemont Inn at five thirty," Ritter promised. "And say, Tip was in, this morning, with a lot of dope on the Fleming estate. ”

“ But first a man, incased in an armored barricade, shoots a few extra heavy cartridges in each rifle, in order to make sure that no weakness has been caused by the various processes through which all the parts have passed. Then he turns it over to the crack shots. They fire half a dozen shots at a target, then look at the target through a telescope. Those men know that they can hit the bull's eye every time, so that if the shots are wide of the mark, either there is a defect in the gun or the sights are not true. ”

“ The machine gun had ceased to play on the track when it was cleared of the enemy. Now there were forty or fifty men trapped in the dark wedge-like area between the beam of the searchlight and the breastwork. They knew that if any of them dared to attempt a rush back they would be the target for innumerable bullets. One or two did rashly hazard a retreat, but as soon as they encroached upon the luminous band the gun's rattle scarcely gave them warning of the shots that fell among them almost instantaneously. The rest cowered in the darkness, waiting for death. ”

“ As one man drank he spun round and fell with a thud on his face. Machine-gun bullets were whipping up the earth. From Loos came a loud and constant rattle of machine-guns. Machine-guns were firing out of the broken windows of the houses and from the top of the “Tower Bridge,” those steel girders which rose three hundred feet high from the center of the village, and from slit trenches across the narrow streets. There were one hundred machine-guns in the cemetery to the southwest of the town, pouring out lead upon the Londoners who had to pass that place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After this battle we captured some damaged machine-guns; this was the firearm most dreaded by us. A large iron plate serves the purpose of a shield, through which aim is taken, and the trigger can be pulled while the gun is moving upward, downward, to the left, or to the right. More than six hundred bullets are pushed out automatically in one minute, as if a long, continuous rod of balls was being thrown out of the gun. It can also be made to sprinkle its shot as roads are watered with a hose. It can cover a larger or smaller space, or fire to a greater or less distance as the gunner wills. ”

“ As the Americans landed, some few dashing on and into a wide shelter or dugout lined with berths and concrete-floored, in which fifty men reposed or waited for night duty, the short, sharp, rapidly repeated bark of the ready pistols sounded almost like, though less regular than, a machine gun. ”

“ The death of comrades was too natural and common a thing to depress the men beyond what such occurrences necessarily did; but to lose a gun! It was like losing the old Colonel; it was worse: a gun was ranked as a brigadier; and the Cat was equal to a major-general. The other guns seemed lost without her; the Eagle especially, which generally went next to her, appeared to the men to have a lonely and subdued air. The battery was no longer the same: it seemed broken and depleted, shrunken to a mere section. It was worse than Cold Harbor, where over half the men were killed or wounded. ”

“ Here they rested for a few minutes, while the bullets continued to "fan" the hedge up which they had come and which led to the buildings.
The boy--"Bou" the other called him--worked his way along the ground to an old cherry tree and was about to lift up a sort of trap-door at its roots when the other stopped him.
"Never mind the gun," he said, "we'll just wait here until they do their morning strafe and then go into the buildings. I want to try for a few of them over on Piccadilly to-day and you can't use a machine gun for that. You'll simply have to be the observer, that's all." ”

“ One or two shells burst overhead and then the guns fall silent, are forgotten. The company on the right starts suddenly to its feet, dashes over the crest and down the slope. The rifle fire from the other ridge changes in character, welcomes them with rapid, violent claps. A couple of machine-guns strike into the din with a continued rapid and resonant hammering, nerve-racking in its persistency. Men in the running line throw up their arms or pitch forward here and there, but the company is lost to sight almost immediately on the rock-strewn hill-side. ”