I speak of these various points for the benefit of those who may use a telescope such as the Winchester, where the reticules may be changed at will. On many telescopes there is no choice, as the reticule is etched on the lens, this has some advantages of its own, at that – no danger of your cross-wires breaking. At any rate, I was issued a telescope fitted with cross-hairs, and although they were much thinner than many other types of reticule, there were many times when they blocked out the target at which I wanted to shoot. So, after many trials and much tribulation (I don’t know what that word means, but it sounds all right) I resorted to the expedient of establishing my “aiming point” right in the upper, right-hand corner of the cross-hairs, the inside angle. Not the center cross at all. And it worked – which was the only thing we cared about in those days. Theories and theoretical reasoning are all right when you have plenty of time to kill and nobody is shooting at you, but when you get up against the active game of warfare, it is the common, everyday, practical things that count.
The very best thing I ever struck along this line was a German telescopic sight which we took from a prisoner – a machine gunner – which had nothing but an amber-colored pyramid in the lower sector. Apparently, the aiming point was the apex of the pyramid, which was located in the exact center of the field. You could hold over, or anywhere on the target and nothing would be blocked out. It looked mighty good to me, but I never had a chance to try it. Things were popping too fast around that sector in those days to take time out for any experimenting, so I turned it in to “ordnance” and had their promise that it would be fitted with a mounting for use on one of our guns, but it never materialized and I soon forgot all about it.
All the dope I have written so far has been based upon my own personal experiences during the years 1915-1918, using such telescopic sights as were available at that time. Since then, many qualified riflemen have asked me if I did not consider the newer and better designed rifle telescopes to have overcome all of the troubles and faults of the earlier sights such as we used. It is a bit difficult for me to discuss the merits of these telescopic sights of today, because, as Will Rogers would say “All I know is what I read in the papers.”
Well, that is not exactly accurate. I have used some of them since the war, but the last time was about 1930 and a lot of improvements have been made since then and all I know about those improved ’scopes is what I have read in the various sporting magazines. However, knowing most of the men who have written up these newer ’scopes I feel safe in taking their word for it that the telescopic rifle sight has finally and definitely arrived and is suitable for all-around use – even on running game and in thick woods.
That this was far from the case in 1915 – or even in 1918 – is well known to all and sundry who had anything to do with the ’scopes of that period. The ones we then had were as temperamental as a movie actress and had to be babied to about the same extent. We had the Winchester 5-A available, and it was I think, about the best at that time, but just the same they caused us plenty of worry during the time we used them at the Small Arms Firing School at Camp Perry. That was the only type we had there, but prior to that time I had experimented with several others that had been brought out by our Ordnance Department, and during my term of sniping in Flanders I had used the Warner & Swasey prismatic sight of which I have spoken so frequently throughout this story – and found it at least as good as any other I had seen up to that time.
Now I have always contended that, in addition to the ’scope sight, a man should have iron sights on his rifle and ready for use at any time, and I am not going to back out from that statement now, even though the telescope sights are every bit as good as they are cracked up to be. I don’t care how good and dependable they are; they are and always will be rather delicate instruments to be hauled and dragged about a battlefield and it is a certainty that they will, at times, become disabled through rough usage.
When this happens, the rifleman will need something to fall back on and if his rear sight has been removed to make a place for the ’scope mounting, he is going to be S.O.L., that’s all. For this reason alone, I favor a sight that is offset so as to permit the use of either the ’scope or those iron sights at any time. Theoretically, according to our experts, there is less chance for error if the ’scope is mounted directly over the bore of the rifle. Now, will some of those experts explain to me how it makes any difference whether the sight is two-and-a-half inches above, or to one side, or even under the bore? Do they know of any man who can hold within that limit at any range from two hundred yards up? I don’t.
In actual sniping – in war – the greatest difficulty is to locate your target through the sights. That is why I have been harping all throughout this book on the necessity of having a “great big” aperture in the rear sight, if using the iron sights, or a wide field of view with the ’scope. The observer (or your own observation) describes the “target” with reference to some conspicuous nearby object, and unless the fixer can see this object and a considerable amount of the surrounding territory, he will probably be unable to locate the said target at all when he looks through the sights. Enemy men do not expose themselves any more than is absolutely necessary when within easy sniping range. Not after a few of them have been bumped off, anyway. Whenever, as was the case with us when we first commenced our sniping campaign, they have not been shot at, they will probably be very careless, but it doesn’t take them very long to learn to keep well under cover. When we first started sniping and for several weeks afterwards, we had many good, open shots every day, but before I quit, about two months later, we had many days when we never saw hide nor hair of a German. When we did get a chance it was usually just at a bit of one of the little round caps which blended into the surrounding scenery so closely as to be well-nigh invisible. Often I have fired simply by noting, through the big spotting ’scope or my binoculars, certain conspicuous objects near the actual target and “holding off” with reference to them – not actually seeing the “bull’s-eye” at all through the sights – and sometimes was successful in hitting the right spot.
After all is said and done – that is another fine sounding phrase, or maybe it’s a song, I don’t remember which – there remains just one great big handicap to this business of turning out individual riflemen qualified to use all these new and intricate rifle telescopes and mountings, to estimate ranges, to build invisible sniping posts, to clean out enemy machine-gun nests and to otherwise allay, abate and “bump off” the enemy – there is still one great difficulty that is mighty hard to get around and I have long wondered what can be done about it.
The man who has been trained to do all these things turns out to be an invaluable sort of a chap to have around in the company; far, far better than the hundreds of others whom we have hurriedly thrown together in an attempt to form what will be our next wartime American Army. He stands out amongst the rest, being one of the few who knows what to do himself and also knows how to teach that to the others. That’s the rub of it right there. Result? These trained riflemen will seldom be permitted to keep on using that rifle, but will be promoted or commissioned and put in charge of more important work or details. For it is an acknowledged fact that the individual who has the brains and ability to learn to do what is required of the modern, individual rifleman is promptly going to be put where that ability is of supposedly more value – in some post of command.
What can be done about it? Well, the only thing I can see to do is to train and develop so damn many of these chaps that there just ain’t commissions enough to go around for all of them. Then we may be able to keep a few of them in the ranks – and using that rifle. Not that it is going to work any harm though, to have all that shooting ability and knowledge in the higher ranks – far from it.
Say – here is a thought. In these days of modern warfare we generally find opposing armies about evenly matched in numbers – at least amongst those units which come in actual contact in the field. Have you ever figu
red out what would happen if in our next war we can put an American Army in the field with its rifle users all sufficiently trained so they can each hit and kill one enemy soldier. Just ONE apiece now. THINK THAT OVER.
Chapter 18. The Emma Gees (Machine Guns)
UP TO the time of the outbreak of the World War the machine gun had received scant consideration – strange though it may seem in view of the fact that weapons of this character had been in use for some forty or fifty years. I do not know just when the first mitrailleuse was tried out, but I do know that Doctor Gatling had perfected his gun by the time I was old enough to notice such things, sometime in the early ’80’s, and that it had been used very effectively during the Spanish-American and the South-African wars.
For some reason or other, whoever wrote the first textbook on the subject injected the statement that: “Machine Guns are Weapons of Opportunity.” Just what he meant by that, I do not pretend to know, but the phrase seemed to suit other subsequent authors of such text-books; and the readers thereof, taking their cue from the book, probably figured that these guns were just some kind of a side-issue, anyway, hardly to be taken into serious consideration when it came to a real fight between soldiers – on horse or on foot.
But not so with our Cousin Heinie. He “catchem plenty savvy” on this M.G. business and when Germany went into this last big war she had an adequate number of better machine guns than any of the allied forces were able to devise and build during the whole four years of the conflict. Now, this may raise a howl from someone or other, but there are facts to back up that statement. We did not have, at any stage of the game, as many nor as good machine guns as had the Germans. By good guns, I wish it to be understood that I include the mountings as well as the shooting part of the guns. Those thoroughgoing Germans had figured out – sometime before 1914 – a lot of things that we never did catch up with. Of course we beat them; but it was not because we had better equipment – not by a long ways and then a long way more.
I don’t know such a lot about all the various types of machine guns used during the war but I do know plenty about some of them. We (my outfit) went in with Colt guns – with the long-legged tripods and everything. Well, of course, the first thing we did was to saw off the legs of the tripods and bring them down to something like a decent level. Then, one of our mechanical geniuses devised a gadget by which the operator of the gun could flip the lever without reaching all the way around in front. Later on we had the Vickers-Maxim, with a much better mount, but never have I seen any machine gun that is as safe for shooting over the heads of advancing infantry as the Colt. In other words, it has less dispersion, vertically, than any gun I have seen – and that goes right down to this day of grace in 1932. That old Colt sure would hold elevations. I have often shot and seen fired by others bursts of as many as ten shots, at the thousand-yard target, where not a single bullet struck outside the limits of the bull’s-eye.
And, by the way, lest I forget it, there is another good argument for the Colt gun, and that is that it is air cooled. Say what you want to, the business of getting water where there ain’t any and keeping that old condenser and its hose and everything right with you and ready to hook up, when you are crawling through all the litter of a battlefield, is not so easy. And how that water does boil away! In spite of the most careful use of the condenser, it evaporates at a rapid rate and then the problem is how to replenish it. Even though the action may be literally on the bank of a river it may be an impossible task to go the few feet and back; and, often, on the soggy, rain-drenched fields of Flanders, where everything was simply soaked, not enough real water could be procured to fill the jacket. More than a few times the members of the gun crew have been called upon to “make water,” and there is a sort of grim humor in the fact that on such occasions few, if any, could produce the goods: no, not a drop. Another psychological or, possibly pathological, problem.
The German guns of the heavier type – I believe they were of the Maxim-Nordenfeldt persuasion – had mounts which included both elevating and traversing arcs, marked in degrees and minutes of angle. They also had spirit levels embedded in the frame, exactly as you will find on any surveyor’s transit. In addition, they had substantial shields which afforded considerable protection to the gunners and still more to the gun itself. Our mounts, even the Mark IV, which was the latest of which I have personal knowledge, lacked all these refinements and we had to make all our corrections by using a simple compass, held in the hand and with a clinometer or quadrant such as was used by the artillery. As to protection for the gun or gunners, there was none whatever.
A single stray bullet could – and often did – put the gunner out of action, but, of course, gunners, like lieutenants, are “expendable,” so that was not so serious, but if that bullet happened to hit anywhere in the breech mechanism of the gun, it was just too bad. Even if it only pierced the water jacket it would effectually put the gun out of action in a short time. With the German guns, it was impossible for a shot coming from the front to strike any part of the gun excepting a few inches of the muzzle. The only way to abate them by rifle fire was to gain a position on the flank or in their rear.
The Lewis gun is rated, in the United States Army, as a “Light Machine Gun” and I can offer no objection to that designation. We considered them – and called them – automatic rifles, but I am not inclined to quarrel with anyone who prefers to include them in the class of machine guns, proper. They are wonderfully effective weapons, whatever you call them, and we were mighty glad to get them for use with the advancing troops. This left the heavier types – the real machine guns – to the work of directing overhead and indirect fire on the lines of enemy communications while the men with the Lewis guns could advance with the infantry.
The only French machine guns I have ever seen were of the Hotchkiss type – chaut-chauts – using clips of, I think, thirty cartridges. Some of the lighter German guns, of the automatic-rifle family, were of similar construction, but they had, in addition to these, another one, called a “Parabellum.” This one had the barrel covered with a flanged, aluminum casing and an outside jacket of light metal, very much like the Lewis in some respects but longer and slimmer and with holes in this outside jacket. The rate of fire of these guns was above any others that I have ever seen.
As to the Browning, I must confess utter ignorance. So far as I have been able to learn, very few – if any – were used in actual warfare. In general appearance and construction, they closely resemble the various types of Maxims – either the Vickers-Maxim or the light Maxim-Nordenfeldt. Whether they possess any marked points of superiority over those guns, I do not know; and, unless they have stood the test of a long and strenuous campaign under modem war conditions, it is safe to say that nobody else knows. The true test of any materiel is possible only under actual service conditions.
Our Machine Gun training in Canada consisted of, first, a very thorough course of instruction in the construction and mechanical features of the guns themselves, the quickest and most efficient methods of replacing broken or damaged parts, the diagnosis and cure of the numerous malfunctions which are enumerated under the all-embracing name of “stoppages;” second, spirited daily drills, which took the form of competitions, in the rapid mounting, dismounting and moving of the guns, accompanied by sight adjustments and aiming drill and, third, many days of actual firing, with service ammunition, on the Barriefield ranges. This was limited to direct fire but, as it included all degrees of slow and rapid fire, at both bull’s-eyes and man-targets, at all ranges from two hundred to one thousand yards, and since the supply of ammunition was not limited, every man had ample opportunity to become thoroughly familiar with every phase of the actual handling and firing of the guns and the filling of belts, both by machine and by hand.
A gun crew consisted of six men, numbered from one to six and each with certain specified duties. The Number One man was designated a lance corporal and was the commander of the crew and did the actual firing. D
uring the period of our training, however, positions were changed frequently, so that each man performed, in turn, the duties of every number. No permanent assignments to crews were made until we were about to leave England for the front.
In England the course of instruction was extended to include practice on miniature targets of various kinds with traversing: horizontal, diagonal and vertical. Then we resumed the firing, on the Hythe ranges, first at bull’s-eye targets and then at long lines of individual silhouettes set up on the stop-butt and which fell when hit. This was usually in the nature of advancing fire, starting at about six hundred yards and firing a short burst and then moving rapidly forward, setting up the guns and continuing the fire. Two guns would work together, one of them maintaining a fire while the other advanced, just as is done in the “advance by rushes” of the infantry. We seldom had any difficulty in downing all the targets in short order, but I have seen several other, inexperienced outfits, going through the same performance, on the same range, when they would have to get both guns clear down to the two-hundred yard range before finishing the job.
But the matter of indirect fire was still merely a matter of theory. A few of us had given the matter considerable study but had had no opportunity to give our ideas a practical try-out until, on our last visit to the range, just a few days before we sailed for France, we spent several hours experimenting. Our only “tools,” besides map, protractor and compass, were an ordinary carpenter’s square and level. With these and by dint of main strength and endurance, we managed to get on the targets at ranges from 900 to 1100 yards. Next day we received an issue of clinometers – quadrants – such as were used by the light artillery. These, together with prismatic compasses, protractors, maps and elevation charts, comprised the firing equipment with which we took the field. There were, of course, numerous and sometimes amazing gadgets being turned out and offered for the purpose of simplifying the problems of the Emma-Gee officer, many of them of no practical use and none of them living up to the expectations of the inventors.
A Rifleman Went to War Page 35