Machine gun company

“ Probably it was a machine-gun emplacement to prevent any attempt at attack from that side. But as there must be no obstacle in the way of our next advance, the major, after talking with the colonel, sent for Lieutenant Delpos, who was in charge of the section in that sector and asked him what he thought of the work.
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “If they’ve brought two or three machine guns it will be humanly impossible even to try to advance. It all depends on the importance of the work. ”

“ That night an order came from the commanding officer:
“Two companies of machine guns will go with the utmost haste to Hill 174, northwest of Herbècourt, [142] to stop the enemy which is trying to outflank our right.” ”

“ In the middle nearly on a level with the surrounding ground is a sort of pedestal for the machine gun. The barrel scarcely reaches beyond the hole and it is absolutely invisible at a short distance. The men have proceeded to make a camouflage which resembles the character of the terrain with wickerwork covered by dirt and grass. The many inventions with which they have increased the weight of the machine guns—the shield, sights and periscope—are in their [60] places. The men disdain these additions a little and even neglect to use them unless forced to do so. ”

“ When, however, concealment and protection from fire exist, it may sometimes be advisable to bring machine guns into action at decisive range. If a sufficiently large target be offered and the range be known, the concentration and rapidity of their fire will enable guns to be employed, with considerable effect, at long ranges. Machine guns should seldom engage artillery at long rifle range, for in such circumstances superiority of fire will always rest with the latter if the machines are located. ”

“ Coming next to the more personal equipment of the soldier, we find the necessity confronting the Ordnance Department to manufacture shoulder rifles by the million and cartridges for them by the billion. The great war brought the machine gun into its own, requiring in the United States the manufacture of these complicated and expensive weapons by the tens of thousands, including the one-man automatic rifle, itself an arm of a deadly and effective type. ”

“ Within effective range, however, machine guns, if concealed, should inflict considerable loss on hostile artillery. Engagements with their lines of skirmishers should be avoided, for the risk of disclosing the position of the guns and the heavy expenditure of ammunition involved will rarely be justified by results. Since the gun is not well adapted for keeping up protracted fire, it may be often expedient to withdraw it from action, move it elsewhere, or hold it in reserve for a more favourable opportunity. ”

“ The seizure of ground likely to be of use to the main body—particularly artillery positions—must be the first consideration of machine guns with the advanced-guard infantry, once the infantry are in action. That they can hold these unsupported is certain. “There never has been and cannot be such a thing as a successful attack on a line of machine guns in a favourable position in action, until the machine guns have been well battered by artillery fire,” says Lieutenant Parker in his book Tactical Organisation and Uses of Machine Guns in the Field. ”

“ The selection of the positions for machine guns in permanent works belongs to the art of the engineer, and there is little that can be said of their tactical employment. Fire should be reserved until the attack has reached close range, and then only opened when the target is large and vulnerable. Guns must be concealed by every possible device and all the loopholes must be blinded. By night all guns should be mounted and trained to sweep ground by which the enemy must approach ”

“ The machine gun, on the other hand, is unaffected by even 50 per cent. of loss, while it can suffer 80 per cent. of loss without diminishing its fire effect, though such a loss would of course cause it to lose its mobility and seriously affect the morale of the gunners. A machine-gun detachment consists of from 16 to 24 men, but only two of them actually work the gun, and one man alone can fire the gun once it is in action, the second man merely assisting him with the ammunition, etc., but he is not absolutely necessary to the firing of the gun. ”

“ The difference between the machine-gun fire and rifle fire is something like the difference between hitting a tin can with a stone or with a stream of water. It is no easy matter to score a hit with the stone; but any one can train a garden hose on the can, because he can see where the water is striking and move his hose accordingly until he covers the desired spot. In the same way, with the machine-gun, it is much easier to train the stream of bullets upon the mark, and, having once found the mark, to hold the aim. That is one reason why the destruction of a machine-gun is so tremendous ”

“ The old, smooth-bore field-guns of the enemy would be completely disabled before they could be brought within cannon-shot of the ten thousand. As soon as the enemy came within rifle range, the ten thousand would open on them with their thousand automatic machine-guns and magazine-rifles. As an automatic machine-gun fires at the rate of 600 shots a minute, a thousand would fire at the rate of 600,000 shots a minute. The magazine shoulder-rifles would fire aimed shots at the rate of twenty-five a minute, and the quick-firing field-guns would each fire shrapnel at the rate of forty a minute. ”

“ On the other hand, when these principles were neglected or ignored, the machine guns merely wasted ammunition and were impotent to affect the situation. The lesson to be learned is this: that machine guns are only useful when their tactical handling is thoroughly understood, and then their effect is more decisive than that of any other arm. ”

“ In dealing with machine-gun tactics in small wars, it is obviously impossible to treat with all the situations that may be met with or to attempt to lay down definite rules for their use under all the varying conditions of country, race, and arms before mentioned. It will therefore be sufficient for our purpose to show how machine guns may be used generally in warfare in uncivilised countries, and then to take a single typical campaign to illustrate their employment.
“Against an enemy who fights outside stockades, machine guns are very efficacious ”

“ 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. ”

“ Machine guns should as a rule only open fire upon targets which are sufficiently large and dense to promise an adequate return for the ammunition expended. Special circumstances may, however, warrant the opening of fire upon less favourable targets. When a machine-gun commander has decided to open fire, the ammunition necessary to secure the results sought should be expended without hesitation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT
Various attempts have been made to mount machine guns on aeroplanes, but the operator, in his narrow seat, has hardly space to point a machine gun in any direction except straight to his front. The American Curtis machine gun exhibited at Olympia is the most efficient form yet produced, but at present the airman seems to prefer an automatic rifle. Even in the early days of the war, Sir John French was able to report that British airmen had disposed of no less than five of the enemy’s aircraft with this weapon. ”

“ All officers are enthusiastic about machine guns. All agree that their chief rôle is defence, even at night, and they are extremely useful in attack. During the battle of Mukden machine guns were used very much in the attack by the Japanese, but it seems that the casualties of the machine-gun detachments were very heavy indeed ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a position affording concealment is not available, one should be selected which from the nature of its background will be difficult for the enemy to locate. As the opportunities for the effective action of machine guns will often be very brief, and as the guns will usually be employed singly, the non-commissioned officer in charge of each gun will, as a rule, have to act on his own initiative in choosing the objective, judging the range, and in deciding when to open fire. As a general rule, machine guns are best adapted for action at effective ranges ”

“ If machine guns are to engage artillery, the sleighs must be brought as near as possible to it. The rapidity of movement of machine guns due to their being horsed will enable them to start the action from a flank, and thus produce a sensible increase of effect. Scattering the fire from all the machine guns along the entire line of a battery is as useless as it is purposeless. ”

“ The machine gun cannot yet be regarded as a separate “arm” in our service, nevertheless it possesses a power peculiar to itself; and until this power is studied and thoroughly understood, the principles that should govern its employment in the field cannot be grasped, and consequently its effective use is dependent on chance or accident, and for every success scored a dozen failures will occur, any one of which may be fatal. ”

“ Machine guns, by reason of their concentrated fire and shallow beaten zone, are peculiarly suited for compelling troops to deploy at long range. They are also suited for quickly taking up a defensive position, and, when mobile, can instantly cease fire and move off in a few moments with considerable rapidity.
Their power for suddenly developing an intense fire will enable them quickly to overwhelm an enemy caught “emerging from a defile or difficult country.” It would appear therefore that the machine guns are far more fitted than infantry to perform the duties of a rear guard as quoted above. ”

“ In minor operations where every available rifle is required with the fighting force, machine guns will be found invaluable to replace infantry. Their exact position with the convoy must depend upon its composition and length and the number of guns available. The principle of having a machine gun, or where possible a section, at the head and another at the rear end of the line of wagons or pack animals is sound, as these are the vital points, and an attack on the centre can be met by a cross fire from these positions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here, again, machine guns will be most useful in defending the bivouac after dark if trained by daylight to sweep approaches, while [173] the morale effect of its accurate fire in the dark will be considerable. There are many instances from our wars on the North-West Frontier where machine guns might have been used profitably in covering the retreat; but to be successfully employed in such cases, they must be far more mobile and better trained for rapid-fire practice than they have been in the past. ”

“ But not until fighting began in World War I was it generally realized what an important role the machine gun was to play in modern tactics. For procurement of machine guns between 1898 and 1916, Congress appropriated an annual average of only $150,000--barely enough to provide four weapons for each Regular regiment and a few for the National Guard. Although Congress in 1916 finally voted $12 million for machine gun procurement, the War Department held up expenditure of the funds until 1917, while a board tried to decide which type of weapon was best suited to the needs of the Army. ”

“ One of the first things we discovered was that while all the small-arms ammunition issued was made pursuant to uniform specifications, furnished by the War Office, a large percentage of it was manufactured in new, hastily equipped factories, by partially trained workmen, and while it was apparently near enough to the standard to pass the tests exacted by the inspectors, only an extremely small proportion would function properly in machine guns or other automatic arms. ”

“ The United States, starting almost from the zero point, developed in little more than a year a machine-gun production greater than that of any other country in the world, although some of those countries had been fighting a desperate war for three years and building machine guns to the limit of their capacity. ”