MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results

[jwxspoon]

Sure Tom,

The incident I referred to took place on Oct 25, 1983, at Point Salinas airfield on the island of Grenada. We flew in the prior evening from Hunter AAF; the first birds dropped troops 30 minutes or so late onto the airfield (around 5:30 - about 30 minutes after the marines had landed on the other side of the island - this was supposed to be simultaneous) and immediately found they had a pitched battle on their hands. The intel we were supposed to have gotten from a Seal team about the status of the airfield did not materialize; we found out later they were off floating in the atlantic ocean for the next 24 hours until they were picked up. Because our radios did not match frequencies with the Marines, we were pretty much in the dark about what was going on. We orbited over the ocean for a while and finally our birds came in and dropped around 0700. It was a real mess because the chalks were out of order and we were taking fire. The 1st Bn troops had pretty much organized but there was a lot of shooting back and forth.

The Cubans had blocked the airfield with stakes and poles and had construction equipment sitting out, as well as piled up sandbags, etc. Very soon after we were down we began taking MG fire from two BTR-60's located further down the airfield. They advanced toward us but retreated after several LAW's were fired at them at extreme range. While this was going on, our 60mm mortars set up along the side of the runway to place fire on them and the Cuban positions. It was a real mess because each of us only carried 1 or 2 mortar rounds in our rucks, and we had to collect them as quickly as possible. These rounds were fired off as quickly as we could collect them by direct lay (the mortar gunner directly aiming and firing each weapon). During this time we received quite a bit of small arms fire, mostly AK fire, which did not bother us too much, but then we began receiving heavier HMG fire, which we would hear passing us even before we knew we had been fired at.

Shortly thereafter the word was that a mortar had taken out one of the BTR's with a top hit, and the other was destroyed by an A6 from the carrier Independence offshore. Within a couple of hours we had secured the perimeter and had captured somewhere around 250 Cubans and Grenadans.

My point in my posts above was that when under fire from these weapons you know it very quickly. The rounds sound different when they pass and/or hit near you. In any case I am grateful that the Cubans were not better fighters or more prepared for our arrival - it was evident they were preparing for us from the partially completed fighting positions.

Hope this answers your questions.

JW

[JasonC]

Um Michael, that only happened on the one single day of the war in which the utterly green men of the Kitchener New Army first went over the top. The war lasted 4 years and even the battle of the Somme lasted 6 months - with an order of magnitude higher casualties, on both sides, than the Brits took on the first day.

Men who had seen it happen did not still walk through HMG fire with rifles at port arms, to be shot down in their ranks. The Germans had a similar experience in 1914 at first Ypres, and the French had a few in the battle of the frontiers.

It was strictly a result of green crossed with brave equals dead. Not of battle drill. The Brits never lost 20,000 men to HMG fire on subsequent days, and it isn't because they magically developed titanium hides. It is because they hit the dirt like sensible people, every subsequent time.

[Bullethead]

Let me preface my remarks by stating that I think CM's MGs are undermodeled. Primarily, belt-fed weapons lack the ability to deliver sustained grazing fire to deny approach across open ground. Also, tripod-mounted weapons don't have the ability to fire at pre-set aiming points beyond their LOS or through smoke.

Michael Dorosh said:

A direct comparison to WW I is false for the reason I mentioned - troops were NOT aware of the supprssive effects, or at least their commanders weren't, and they were trained to advance regardless.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but that's simply the funniest thing I've ever read in this forum

The suppressive effects of smallarms fire was well-known since rifles replaced muskets in the mid-1800s. After that, troops crossing open ground were subjected to very effective fire for hundreds of meters instead of the dozens of meters that had prevailed in Napolean's day. In all wars from at least 1861 on, attack after attack bogged down short of the objective as the troops hit the deck and returned fire instead of pressing on. And this regardless of training and orders from commanders used to the effective range of muskets and bayonets. The introduction of MGs simply made this worse.

Of course, sometimes troops would keep coming regardless of taking heavy, effective fire. But such instances were the exception, and usually failed just like suppressed attacks, only more bloodily.

There is no way troops can keep from becoming instantly aware of the suppressive effect of even well-directed, long-range rifle fire, let alone MGs. They will hit the deck all by themselves. And certainly Brit fieldgrade commanders, many of whom were veterans of the Boer War, were well acquainted with this phenomenon. Hell, if the WW1 guys didn't understand suppression, they why did they got to such elaborate ends to achieve it with carefully orchestrated arty and MG barrages prior to attacks?

But one thing that's getting lost here is that grazing fire can be quite deadly even if units are suppressed and hitting the deck. If there is nothing to hide behind, just being on the ground does not get you out of the path of bullets fired from an MG only inches above the ground. In fact, hitting the deck can actually make you more vulnerable in such situations because you present a bigger target, including all your vital organs, to the bullets. OTOH, if try to stay erect and the bullets catch you in a leg, they knock you down and you get perforated in the important places. But on the whole, it's often better stay up and running to the next cover than to hit the deck when you're caught in this situation. Not that many troops can overcome their natural tendency to hit the deck when the bullets start coming.

This is where CM's MG modeling, at least for belt-fed weapons on tripods, is under-done. The MGs just fire 1 burst which might possibly inflict 1 or 2 casualties and force the rest to hit the deck. But then it stops shooting, whereas what should really be happening, at least against such an exposed target, is chopping the cowering troops up with sustained grazing fire. And if the squad keeps coming, it should continue to take casualties as bullets find legs.

Simply put - you used your experience in the 1990s to try and describe situations occurring in the 1914-18 war - a decidedly fruitless approach.

This is a misconception. People are still the same, MGs still shoot the same way, and bullets still have the same effects with they hit people. Many people think there is nothing to learn from WW1, but it really wasn't that different from much of WW2.

Middlebrook's descriptions of the opening day on the Somme bear out what I am saying - troops were trained to advance into machinegun fire (I am not saying it got them very far, believe me) and this would account for the losses they suffered.

They were just like everybody else in that regard. To gain ground, you have to advance into enemy fire. And the enemy is going to have MGs. So how were the troops going to get into the enemy trenches if they didn't try to advance into MG fire? That was true in WW1 and it is still true today.

The Brits suffered appalling casualties on the 1st of July for many reasons that had nothing to to with whether or not the men were trained to advance by rushes or just walk slowly toward the enemy with rifles slung:

1) Due to some cock-up, the arty barrage ended 10 minutes early over the whole 8th Corps front, instead of just in 1 small part of it where special circumstances required an earlier advance. So the Germans had 10 minutes to come up from their dugouts, set up their MGs, and call arty on the 1st wave of Brit troops seen lying out in no-man's-land.

2) Due to inclement weather during almost the whole week-long barrage, arty observation and adjustment was largely impossible. Thus, the barrage largely failed to destroy or even suppress the German strongpoints and supporting arty, or cut the wire. As a result, the Brit attack went in against nearly intact defensive positions without any benefit of surprise. And in places the Brits had to cross hundreds of meters of open ground, so there was plenty of time to shoot them.

3) Because there were only a few gaps in the wire, and the MGs were still operational, the Germans were able to blanket all of the gaps with MGs. Because such gaps offered the only possible means of reaching the German trenches, the Brits had to mob through them and got mown down like grass. The Germans also covered the gaps in the Brit wire the same way, and thus kept 2nd and subsequent waves from even leaving the Brit forward positions. It was even worse in some sectors, where there were no gaps at all and the attacking troops milled around under fire vainly searching for them.

4) Once the Brit attack started, the unsuppressed German arty blanketed no-mans-land and the Brit trenches all day, in conjunction with MGs firing in enfilade from unsuppressed pillboxes. Thus, in the few areas where the attack went off more or less as planned and the 1st wave got into the German trenches relatively easily, there was no way for the Brits to exploit this success or even support the forward troops. Subsequent waves and reinforcements were obliterated, resupply could not be got forward, and the forward troops could not retreat. As a result, German counterattacks mopped many of them up by the end of the day.

There's the famous anecdote about some general seeing lines of troops lying like raked hay and commenting favorably on their formation, not realizing they were dead. I don't believe this really happened. From what I've been able to determine, very few of even brigadiers could see the battlefield from their forward command posts, let alone brass from higher up and further back. There was just too much smoke and dust all day long.

Also, the ground was so torn up by shellfire that keeping in straight lines was impossible. The troops seem to have jumped from crater to crater as they advanced. Whether they did this simply by force of circumstance or in a deliberate effort to take cover as they advanced is rather moot.

Insisting that the firing of an MG in someone's direction will automatically make them take cover is false - a good portion of the 20,000 men killed on day one of the Somme would probably disagree with you.

You go out and expose yourself to MG fire and see how long you keep your feet . Besides, most of the Brits killed that day fell to shellfire. The MGs got quite a lot, no doubt about it, but the guns got more. MG fire pinned the troops in craters out in no-mans-land and heavy shelling all day ate them up.

[Bullethead]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Um Michael, that only happened on the one single day of the war in which the utterly green men of the Kitchener New Army first went over the top. The war lasted 4 years and even the battle of the Somme lasted 6 months - with an order of magnitude higher casualties, on both sides, than the Brits took on the first day.

Men who had seen it happen did not still walk through HMG fire with rifles at port arms, to be shot down in their ranks. The Germans had a similar experience in 1914 at first Ypres, and the French had a few in the battle of the frontiers.

It was strictly a result of green crossed with brave equals dead. Not of battle drill. The Brits never lost 20,000 men to HMG fire on subsequent days, and it isn't because they magically developed titanium hides. It is because they hit the dirt like sensible people, every subsequent time.

I wouldn't really call Kitchener's Army all that green. This was the summer of 1916. This volunteer army had begun formation in the 1st month of the war and by mid-1915 its units began arriving in France. This year of training might not have been the best, due to the sheer numbers of volunteers swamping the pre-war establishment, but it was still a year's worth. In the fall of 1915, Kitchener's Army then took over the Somme front. This was a relatively quiet sector at the time, but these troops still held it for about 10 months prior to the attack, becoming enured to frontline soldiering and getting some exposure to combat. So on the whole, I figure Kitchener's Army was better off than many US draftee formations pitchforked into WW2.

The problem was, despite all of that the Brit high command didn't trust all these "civilians". So for the Somme attack, the brass decided to completely centralize control. It was a real lock-step plan that even division and corps commanders couldn't change or influence. There was no back-up plan if things went wrong, and control of the whole battle depended on the forward troops being able to report back to HQ, where decisions were made.

But no plan survives contact with the enemy. And when things went wrong, there was nothing the troops could do about it. Nor could the brass, because every one of the redundant communications systems they relied on to direct the battle failed. MGs and shellfire in no-mans-land defeated telephones, runners, and pidgeons. The dust and smoke defeated visual signals. Thus, the brass didn't get an idea of how badly the initial attack had failed until well into the night. In the meantime, units were continually herded into the meatgrinder according to the schedule (or as close as they could manage) in the absence of orders to do something else.

It didn't help that the German position was one of the strongest on the whole front. They'd made tactical withdrawals here and there after 1914 to get themselves on the best possible ground in the area, and then had 2 years to dig in there. Combine this with a relatively ineffective barrage, spotty wire cutting, a complete loss of command and control, and a total absence of surprise, and you'll get a disaster every time.

[MajorBooBoo]

http://www.combatopinion.com/polls.php?view=1&thepolls_id=158&num_days=50&page_active=1

This new poll shows that both Dorosh and Slapdragon are modeled well...and they are getting polled too.. and they like it

[WWB]

One point about simulating WWI-style MG positions:

Try using wooden bunkers. Looking at pictures, it seems that they were much more akin to dugouts than foxholes. While the MG42 ROF is a bit high, the gunners will be about as safe as they were in the 'teens.

WWB

[jwxspoon]

Rereading the comments posted on this topic I'd just like to mention a couple of other things that go "beyond the stats" as far as I am concerned and might reflect upon the suppressive value of the MG's.

A heavy machine gun such as the .50 cal is very hard to get away from. It knocks down brick walls, punches completely through trees, penetrates sandbags easily (often taking a couple of surrounding sandbags with it) and is scary as hell. There is nowhere to go if you are in the open or unable to remove yourself from the gunner's line of sight or his ability to guess where you might be. This still does not make my point. Understand that this is a through and through round for an M113 APC - in one side and out the other. This is a weapon that will still knock the crap out of whatever at hits at close to 2000 meters.

In Panama a good friend of mine, Clark Barr, at that time a sniper from 7th Special Forces Group was near an aircraft hangar with his team medic when a convoy of vehicles from the 82nd came by and, seeing them, proceeded to fire up their position. Clark and the SF medic, Bob Otis, scrambled and hid behind a 20-ton air conditioning unit. Isolated rounds from the vehicle mounted M60's penetrated THROUGH the AC unit. Clark said he carefully positioned himself behind the AC unit, Bob, and Bob's aid bag. Luckily, neither was hit. Incidentally, Clark has fired the Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle accurately at ranges exceeding 1500 meters... (he adds "you'd better be a big boy if you're firing that thing, too")

An MG42 (kind of a supercharged M60 as far as rate of fire is concerned) will penetrate any kind of "wet" tree (palm, etc.) with a single round, and will penetrate hardwoods, single layer sandbags, and brick or cinder block walls with 2nd and 3rd round hits. This is demonstrated with various 7.62mm rifles at SOTIC and it will

raise your eyebrows to see it.

JW

[ February 04, 2002, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: jwxspoon ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Okay - obviously I tried too hard to make the point. JasonC - if you have any knowledge at all about British casualties and tactics in WW I, you need to demonstrate it. Kitchener's Army was nothing like you describe.

There were indeed many gains made on July 1, and yeah, no kidding the Somme battle lasted severeal months. But do you seriously think no one was killed by machineguns on any other day of the war? I have a perfect example.

Look at Kitcheners' Wood on 22 April 1915 - 10th and 16th Battalions CEF did the same thing - charged through massed MG fire, suffering many casualties - over 400 yards of open ground, at night, and did win the day. I have no estimate on the number of MGs they faced unfortunately. They went to ground initially, after crossing a hedge 200 years from the wood and alerting the Germans. The fire was intense, but one officer yelled out "Come on boys, remember you're Canadians" and both battalions charged full out. They entered the wood, and the charge proved irresistable - with bayonets and etools and fists, the Germans were ejected from the wood. It didn't occur to anyone to take cover - why? Because of their training.

By 1917 the British and Empire forces were reorganizing and pioneering the tactics of fire and movement - but it was a long time in coming, and the troops' training really did not incorporate hiding from MG fire.

Look at it through their eyes, not with hindsight. In 1815, British infantry were trained to stand in front of enemy fire - to lie down was considered cowardly. At some point, it became permissible to seek cover - I would argue this point had not been fully reached by 1916. The training manual (and I practiced this on Legends of the Fall) advocated that infantry advance at arm's dressing, and when close to the enemy to close to shoulder dressing, then fire two rounds rapid, and charge with the bayonet. Defensive fire was irrelevant - and let to costly charges like that at Kitcheners' Wood.

Machineguns may be the "same", but training definitely isn't.

You can scoff at the idea that a soldier in 1914 "should" have known what an HMG could do to him. Pretty easy for us to feel that way, we have been watching machineguns in movies and on TV for decades now. Most men in the volunteer armies of 1914 had never seen one before, much less their effects.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by MajorBooBoo:

http://www.combatopinion.com/polls.php?view=1&thepolls_id=158&num_days=50&page_acti ve=1

This new poll shows that both Dorosh and Slapdragon are modeled well...and they are getting polled too.. and they like it

I guess this is an admission on your part you are ill equipped to participae in any meaningful or relevant way in this discussion?

Apology accepted.

[Sailor Malan]

WOW - mention WW1 and see what happens! As a point of interest, I didn't express an opinion as to whether CM could model WW1, (or even whether it is relevant) I actually asked

"Question - do some people expect MG's to be effective in a WW1 sort of way (murderous against walking troops in a skirmish type line?). I think people sometimes forget that even a "moving" squad could be doing short rushes by sub-section etc."

ASL, you are too fixed on the cause, not the effect.

(Quote)

"It is a significant defect. No, it can't be played around. You haven't thought out of the box and grasped the true nature of the problem - which is that the danger space (extending from the MGs barrel all the way out to the beaten zone) is not, and can not, be modeled with the current game engine. I would explain the 'box' as "I shoot at a target, and the target is hit - so what's the problem?" which completely ignores the fact that the bullets are 'travelling' to the target and influencing everything in between. However, if grazing fire is not in your bag of tactical 'tricks' you won't notice that it's missing - therefore you won't be able to identify what the problem is."

All you are describing is that MG fire (in fact all fire, but MG particularly due to number of rounds fired) can effect multiple targets. If you reread my post, you will see that in effect I agreed with you, I was just being realistic (?) in accepting that the whole basis of fire modelling in CM isn't going to change anytime soon (for good reason). As for whether it can be played around, I presume you no longer play CM! . I would be interested to know whether you think SL or ASL do it adequately, and whether my suggestion for CM helps?

As to the WW1 MG debate, and modelling it, CM doesn't really allow proper modelling of the event (inadeqaute field fortifications, no fire on fixed lines etc), but the closest I could come up with was to use a wall with numerous right angle bends in it to prevent enflading down the 'trench', use wooden pill boxes as suggested else where, and put marsh tiles as well as wire liberally in no mans land to simulate ground extensively broken by shell fire. Even then you wont get a truely "realistic" (what ever that means) result, because the MG cannot effect multiple targets! Which is where I came in. As for the rest, if you really want a good simulation of WW1, try this.

Find 1 busy road and one six sided die. To simulate the first few weeks of the war, wait for a gap in the traffic, and walk to the centre of the road. Then for 1915-18 throw the die repeatedly, every time you throw 1 take a step forward, on 6 step back. The war ends when you reach one side or the other. US players can, of course find someone already playing . No play testing has taken place on this game, so I'm not sure it would be balanced!

[ February 04, 2002, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: Sailor Malan ]

[Bullethead]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

One point about simulating WWI-style MG positions:

Try using wooden bunkers. Looking at pictures, it seems that they were much more akin to dugouts than foxholes. While the MG42 ROF is a bit high, the gunners will be about as safe as they were in the 'teens.

WWB

On the Somme, many of the German MG positions were concrete pillboxes. In fact, many German positions over the length of the front had concrete pillboxes, concrete dugouts far underground, etc.

[Michael Dorosh]

Sailor - I like your simulation of World War One very much.

I'm not trying to say that WW I is relevant to discussion of CM's modelling of MGs - I agree with all parties that they are not 100 percent accurately modelled, and even Steve agrees with that. I was simply discussing it for its own sake - the machinegun changed forever the way infantry "does business" - and it was in the years 1914-1917/18 that these changes occurred. Looking at training and tactics at the time through modern lenses just smacks of lazy scholarship - I appreciate that others were willing to discuss it, and look forward - if Steve et al indulge us - in further discussion.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bullethead:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wwb_99:

One point about simulating WWI-style MG positions:

Try using wooden bunkers. Looking at pictures, it seems that they were much more akin to dugouts than foxholes. While the MG42 ROF is a bit high, the gunners will be about as safe as they were in the 'teens.

WWB

On the Somme, many of the German MG positions were concrete pillboxes. In fact, many German positions over the length of the front had concrete pillboxes, concrete dugouts far underground, etc.</font>

[JonS]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

... It also helped that most German artillery was rendered combat ineffective by accurate counter battery fire before the Canadian assault began.

This is important. Say what you like about improved infantry tactics, training, and all the rest but when the RA sorted themselves out in 1917 it was game-over for the Germans. Same thing happened in 1942 at El Alamein.

Regards

JonS

[Bullethead]

Michael Dorosh said:

JasonC - if you have any knowledge at all about British casualties and tactics in WW I, you need to demonstrate it.

Oh, come down of your high horse, MD This is other comments in this thread telling people to butt out don't go over well.

Kitchener's Army was nothing like you describe.

You might have meant me with this because I think I put in more of a description of Kitchener's Army than JasonC. So assuming that's the case, why do you disagree with my description?

Like WW1 in general, Kitchener's Army has gotten a lot of bad press and is the victim of long-standing, incorrect dogma accepted without question by most people today. This is the result of the fact that most commentary on the war was written by profession soldiers and historians who used them as sources, and these soldiers never had a high opinion of Kitchener's Army. Plus, Kitchener's Army got wiped out at the Somme and other 1916 ops, so it must not have been very good, right?

The fact is, Kitchener's Army knew how to fight. Its soldiers had been trained and equipped, over the course of a year, as well as possible given the exigencies of the time. It had the better part of a year of actual frontline experience before going into its first major offensive. By that time, the Brits had 2 years of institutional combat experience in the present war to draw on in their training and planning. And its troops certainly lacked nothing in courage or motivation.

But the brass never had a high opinion Kitchener's Army. Why? Because its troops were all civilians who joined up when the war started. As such, they lacked the spit-and-polish, paradeground and barracks discipline of the tiny, pre-war, long-service, professional army. At that time, this counted as much or more with reviewing officers as did competence in combat skills. Also at that time, the professional brass thought it took 10 or more years to make a soldier starting from the blank page of a boy straight from home. So how could you take a bunch of older bank clerks, etc., well set in their civilian ways, and make soldiers out of them in 1 or 2 years?

As we know now, the brass was wrong on this score. You can take masses of draftees, not even volunteers like Kitchener's Army, and turn them into war-winning armies in less time than Kitchener's Army had to get ready for the Somme. This was proven in 1917-18 and all through WW2. Also, "no combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection, and no inspection-ready unit has ever passed combat." Such armies won't be tuned to as high a pitch as the Old Contemptables, so will take higher casualties and may suffer a reverse or 2 on the road to victory, but they will still do quite a good job. Were it otherwise, how do you explain subsequent Brit victories with the draftee armies that came after Kitchener's lot?

Look at Kitcheners' Wood on 22 April 1915 - 10th and 16th Battalions CEF did the same thing - charged through massed MG fire, suffering many casualties - over 400 yards of open ground, at night, and did win the day. I have no estimate on the number of MGs they faced unfortunately. They went to ground initially, after crossing a hedge 200 years from the wood and alerting the Germans. The fire was intense, but one officer yelled out "Come on boys, remember you're Canadians" and both battalions charged full out. They entered the wood, and the charge proved irresistable - with bayonets and etools and fists, the Germans were ejected from the wood. It didn't occur to anyone to take cover - why? Because of their training.

Um, ain't "going to ground" the same as "taking cover"? I always thought it was. Also, can you say for sure these guys weren't bounding from cover to cover in their advance? I can't, and I doubt very much they did otherwise.

This is an example of the exception, not the rule. It's the Canadian version of Belleau Wood, where the USMC had a very similar experience and "Fightin' Dan" Daly, who won the CMH TWICE, got his lads going again with an analogous, though move vulgar, exhortation.

What normally happened was the attacking troops got pinned down by fire and left cowering in whatever cover and craters were available, unable to advance or retreat. And most times, they didn't have a bona fide hero in their midst to get them going again like this. So they just lay out there and got chewed up by arty and MG fire as long as daylight lasted, and then the remnants would stagger back to their trenches in the dark.

The heroes who arise in such situations might just be contagious berserkers. But I think the real reason troops get going again in such situations is that they realize, at least subconsciously, that remaining pinned down is at least as dangerous as pressing on, and that pressing on at least lets them personally have some say in their own survival, whereas hiding in craters in no-mans-land is a totally random thing.

But the fact remains that the instincts of most men cause them to "go to ground" when they start receiving heavy and effective fire while still hundreds of meters of short of the objective. This regardless of their training or current army doctrine. Otherwise, there'd be no need of heroes to get them going again.

All I can say is, you must not have been shot at very much. Having faced the "lead headwind" several times, I can tell you there is nothing greater at the time than the desire to be out of it. You will drop into the 1st hole you find, regardless of training. If you're not totally spooked, you'll wait a few seconds to catch your breath and hopefully allow the enemy gunners to fixate on other targets, then dash to the next hole. If you remember your "modern" training, in your head you'll be running the litany of "I'm up, he sees me, I'm down, he missed" over and over. But if you're still moving at all, this litany corresponds to instinct so isn't that important.

By 1917 the British and Empire forces were reorganizing and pioneering the tactics of fire and movement - but it was a long time in coming, and the troops' training really did not incorporate hiding from MG fire. Look at it through their eyes, not with hindsight.

Both my grandfathers and all their many brothers fought as grunts in WW1. One of these brothers was living in Paris in 1914 and fought through the whole war, first with the French and then with the US. And my paternal grandfather was a machinegunner. They're all dead now, but they all told me their war stories, especially as to the tactics of the time. They advanced in squad and individual rushes because they knew that just keeping on would get them all killed.

In 1815, British infantry were trained to stand in front of enemy fire - to lie down was considered cowardly.

In 1815, the effective range of individual weapons was 100m or less, as proven by contemporary firing trials as canvas sheets as tall and wide as a battalion in 2 lines at close order. The only things that could hinder wandering calmly over the battlefields at longer ranges were arty and cavalry charges.

At some point, it became permissible to seek cover - I would argue this point had not been fully reached by 1916.

So the 2nd Boer War never happened? IIRC, the Boers lacked MGs and didn't have that much arty (although it was the best diamonds and gold could buy at the time). But their rifle fire stopped many Brit attacks hundreds of meters short of objectives. And there the Brits would lie all day in shallow scrapes dug with their messkits. Exactly as the yankee army often did in the 1860s.

The 2nd Boer War lasted a couple of years. It was fought by the professional army and navy. Due to casualties and the difficulty of making headway against such fire, it eventually involved much of the peacetime standing army. The junior officers of this war were the brass in WW1. So the higher-ups knew all about this type of fire.

The training manual (and I practiced this on Legends of the Fall) advocated that infantry advance at arm's dressing, and when close to the enemy to close to shoulder dressing, then fire two rounds rapid, and charge with the bayonet. Defensive fire was irrelevant - and let to costly charges like that at Kitcheners' Wood.

And most times, such manuals weren't used. Hardee's Tactics was supposedly the main manual used in the War Between the States, and it advocated much the same sort of drill. But that isn't what was used in real life most times.

You can scoff at the idea that a soldier in 1914 "should" have known what an HMG could do to him. Pretty easy for us to feel that way, we have been watching machineguns in movies and on TV for decades now. Most men in the volunteer armies of 1914 had never seen one before, much less their effects.

OK, picture this. Assume that for some unknown reason you were trained under the assumptions that Napolean's tactics still ruled the battlefield, despite contrary evidence from the Peninsular Campaign, the Waterloo campaign, the Crimea, the War Between the States, the Franco-Prussian War, the two Boer Wars, the Russo-Japanese War, and the 1st 2 years of WW1 over the intervening 100 years. So you're walking blythely across no-mans-land. Then suddenly MGs open up on your battalion and you see dozens of your buds get mown down at once. Simultaneously, heavy shellfire erupts all over the area, taking out more of your buds. It doesn't take a military genius to see that remaining standing up in such a Hell is suicidal. So what do you do? Keep on ambling slowly towards the enemy or start using whatever cover is available? Your instincts will throw you down into the 1st hole available. That's what pretty much always happened, alleged training otherwise be damned.

[MajorBooBoo]

I guess this is an admission on your part you are ill equipped to participae in any meaningful or relevant way in this discussion?

Apology accepted.

Is an admission an Apology in Canada? Is an assumption of an admission likewise Canadian for apology?

I cant believe that Slappy is taking the lead in the cheese-eater pageant poll. DOHrosh is clearly the BTS mascot (whats Canadian for weasel?)

[ February 04, 2002, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: MajorBooBoo ]

[ASL Veteran]

ASL, you are too fixed on the cause, not the effect. All you are describing is that MG fire (in fact all fire, but MG particularly due to number of rounds fired) can effect multiple targets. If you reread my post, you will see that in effect I agreed with you, I was just being realistic (?) in accepting that the whole basis of fire modelling in CM isn't going to change anytime soon (for good reason). As for whether it can be played around, I presume you no longer play CM! . I would be interested to know whether you think SL or ASL do it adequately, and whether my suggestion for CM helps?

I read your post and fully understood its content. If CM can't model MG grazing fire, then that is the cause. The effect is that you can't use MGs effectively in enfilade - and there is no way to 'play around it' and get any results that are similar to properly modelled grazing fire in CMBO as it currently is.

Now, the reason I say that you can't play around it is because you can't. If you set up an MG in an enfilade position it is no different than setting it up to fire directly at the target - and in most cases less effective than firing directly at the target. Now you can use your MGs that way in CM, but make no mistake in thinking that it is an adequate work around. It isn't. It is like fighting a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back and it limits the way you employ MGs tactically.

So, the context within which I am referring to 'play around' is that you aren't playing around a weakness in MGs - you are simply not playing with that feature at all by using MGs exclusively as Point Fire weapons. 'Playing around' to me means that you can tweak your deployments and alter your unit composition etc. to obtain a result that is similar to the desired effect. As it stands there is no way to acheive an effect similar to fully modelled grazing fire in CMBO.

Yes, ASL did a tremendous job with grazing fire. I was known as 'Firelane Master' for my preference of the use of grazing fire and became expert at sighting MGs for maximum effect in the game. That is admittedly why I miss grazing fire so much - because I relied on it so heavily in ASL. Obviously game conditions don't always mirror reality (which is why I never refer to ASL in these debates, but rely on FMs and historical sources), but you can bet that if grazing fire were modelled in CM I would be an expert in its employment in CM too.

Not to be totally negative though - as a Point Fire weapon MGs seem to be modelled just fine in CM. The firepower ratings 'feel' about right, although I think the suppression model could be tweaked up a little, and the troops running around pell mell in the open needs to be addressed. I'm sure that is what will be looked at in CMBB - although it still isn't the same thing as fully modelled grazing fire.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bullethead:

[QB]Michael Dorosh said:

Like WW1 in general, Kitchener's Army has gotten a lot of bad press and is the victim of long-standing, incorrect dogma accepted without question by most people today. This is the result of the fact that most commentary on the war was written by profession soldiers and historians who used them as sources, and these soldiers never had a high opinion of Kitchener's Army. Plus, Kitchener's Army got wiped out at the Somme and other 1916 ops, so it must not have been very good, right?

The fact is, Kitchener's Army knew how to fight. Its soldiers had been trained and equipped, over the course of a year, as well as possible given the exigencies of the time. It had the better part of a year of actual frontline experience before going into its first major offensive. By that time, the Brits had 2 years of institutional combat experience in the present war to draw on in their training and planning. And its troops certainly lacked nothing in courage or motivation.

But the brass never had a high opinion Kitchener's Army. Why? Because its troops were all civilians who joined up when the war started. As such, they lacked the spit-and-polish, paradeground and barracks discipline of the tiny, pre-war, long-service, professional army. At that time, this counted as much or more with reviewing officers as did competence in combat skills. Also at that time, the professional brass thought it took 10 or more years to make a soldier starting from the blank page of a boy straight from home. So how could you take a bunch of older bank clerks, etc., well set in their civilian ways, and make soldiers out of them in 1 or 2 years?

As we know now, the brass was wrong on this score. You can take masses of draftees, not even volunteers like Kitchener's Army, and turn them into war-winning armies in less time than Kitchener's Army had to get ready for the Somme. This was proven in 1917-18 and all through WW2. Also, "no combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection, and no inspection-ready unit has ever passed combat." Such armies won't be tuned to as high a pitch as the Old Contemptables, so will take higher casualties and may suffer a reverse or 2 on the road to victory, but they will still do quite a good job. Were it otherwise, how do you explain subsequent Brit victories with the draftee armies that came after Kitchener's lot?

Agreed, I have no quibble with any of this.

Um, ain't "going to ground" the same as "taking cover"?

No, it isn't.

Also, can you say for sure these guys weren't bounding from cover to cover in their advance?

Yes, I can, without a doubt.

I can't, and I doubt very much they did otherwise.

You don't know what you're talking about. Check Dancocks' books - either GALLANT CANADIANS or WELCOME TO FLANDERS FIELDS.

This is an example of the exception, not the rule.

Possibly - but I haven't looked hard for other examples - it is one I know well since my regiment parades every year on the anniversary of 22 April.

What normally happened

Are you talking about Daly, or British troops from 1915-1917?

was the attacking troops got pinned down by fire and left cowering in whatever cover and craters were available, unable to advance or retreat. And most times, they didn't have a bona fide hero in their midst to get them going again like this. So they just lay out there and got chewed up by arty and MG fire as long as daylight lasted, and then the remnants would stagger back to their trenches in the dark.

The heroes who arise in such situations might just be contagious berserkers. But I think the real reason troops get going again in such situations is that they realize, at least subconsciously, that remaining pinned down is at least as dangerous as pressing on, and that pressing on at least lets them personally have some say in their own survival, whereas hiding in craters in no-mans-land is a totally random thing.

Agreed - perhaps the point in dispute between us was often this happened?

But the fact remains that the instincts of most men cause them to "go to ground" when they start receiving heavy and effective fire while still hundreds of meters of short of the objective. This regardless of their training or current army doctrine. Otherwise, there'd be no need of heroes to get them going again.

Again, this is what happened to the Newfoundland Regiment, as just one example. I am telling you, full scale attacks were not common from 1914-1916, and when they were launched, the men were so laden with gear - as much as 80 pounds - many couldn't go to ground, or they would never get up. I am talking not just large pack, but spools of barbed wire, entrenching tools, the works. There was always the belief that the arty would smash the enemy flat.

All I can say is, you must not have been shot at very much. Having faced the "lead headwind" several times, I can tell you there is nothing greater at the time than the desire to be out of it.

Irrelevant - you were trained to drop at the first sign of effective enemy fire. Early war British infantry were not. I stated this twice now - big difference.

You will drop into the 1st hole you find, regardless of training.

Prove it. I've given one example where they did not do that.

If you're not totally spooked, you'll wait a few seconds to catch your breath and hopefully allow the enemy gunners to fixate on other targets, then dash to the next hole.

And if there are no holes?

If you remember your "modern" training, in your head you'll be running the litany of "I'm up, he sees me, I'm down, he missed" over and over. But if you're still moving at all, this litany corresponds to instinct so isn't that important.

irrelevant

Both my grandfathers and all their many brothers fought as grunts in WW1. One of these brothers was living in Paris in 1914 and fought through the whole war, first with the French and then with the US. And my paternal grandfather was a machinegunner. They're all dead now, but they all told me their war stories, especially as to the tactics of the time. They advanced in squad and individual rushes because they knew that just keeping on would get them all killed.

By the time the Yanks got into it, so were the British. I was pretty clear that I was discussing pre 1917 training.

In 1815, the effective range of individual weapons was 100m or less, as proven by contemporary firing trials as canvas sheets as tall and wide as a battalion in 2 lines at close order. The only things that could hinder wandering calmly over the battlefields at longer ranges were arty and cavalry charges.

I was referring also to artillery.

So the 2nd Boer War never happened? IIRC, the Boers lacked MGs and didn't have that much arty (although it was the best diamonds and gold could buy at the time). But their rifle fire stopped many Brit attacks hundreds of meters short of objectives. And there the Brits would lie all day in shallow scrapes dug with their messkits. Exactly as the yankee army often did in the 1860s.

I agree with you that taking cover was not uncommon - but you are saying in any and all circumstances. There were also a lot of frontal assaults in the Boer War - and the Civil War. Which was the standard tactic to be employed.

And most times, such manuals weren't used. Hardee's Tactics was supposedly the main manual used in the War Between the States, and it advocated much the same sort of drill. But that isn't what was used in real life most times.

New troops tended to stick to the manual - which was the case at Kitcheners' Wood.

OK, picture this. Assume that for some unknown reason you were trained under the assumptions that Napolean's tactics still ruled the battlefield, despite contrary evidence from the Peninsular Campaign, the Waterloo campaign, the Crimea, the War Between the States, the Franco-Prussian War, the two Boer Wars, the Russo-Japanese War, and the 1st 2 years of WW1 over the intervening 100 years. So you're walking blythely across no-mans-land. Then suddenly MGs open up on your battalion and you see dozens of your buds get mown down at once. Simultaneously, heavy shellfire erupts all over the area, taking out more of your buds. It doesn't take a military genius to see that remaining standing up in such a Hell is suicidal. So what do you do?

Irrelevant - we are talking about what THEY did.

Keep on ambling slowly towards the enemy or start using whatever cover is available?

What did the Newfoundlanders do?

Your instincts will throw you down into the 1st hole available.

[Michael Dorosh]

From WHEN YOUR NUMBER'S UP: THE CANADIAN SOLDIER IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR by Desmond Morton

At Zero Hour, they blew their whistles or, in the terrible din, simply set the example by climbing a wooden ladder into the open. Men followed. Sergeants urged on stragglers...Then, when a line had formed, officers ordered it forward...

Once in the open, though seldom spread at regulatoin two-yard intervals, twenty yards between lines, most men shared...(an)...unexpected calm, even a sense of power and confidence as adrenaline pumped through them. Few paid heed or even noticed when comrades fell. (Emphasis added) Reality returned at the enemy trench, whether it was empty or bristled with fire. If leaders had fallen, the attack faltered and men sought safety in shell holes or behind corpses. (emphasis added)

So if the attack lost its leadership, the attack faltered - and then the men sought cover. It does not say that the men sought cover as a matter of course.

So if you don't notice your friends falling, how do you notice that you are being shot at with a machine gun? That would seem to me to be the best visual clue, but Morton tells us they didn't notice.

Morton is one of the leading Canadian authors and researchers on WW I and interviewed many veterans, as well as reviewing diaries, writings, etc.

[ February 04, 2002, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Michael Dorosh]

From IN FLANDERS FIELDS by Daniel G. Dancocks

...the Third (Canadian) Brigade had issued its orders for the counter-attack (at St. Julien on 22 April 1915), confirming them just before eleven. "10th and 16th Bns in that order will counter-attack at 11:30 PM...Attack on frontage of two companies. Remaining 6 companies in close support at 30 yards distance on same frontage." It was a formation that Napoleon might have used a century before, long before the invention of the machine-gun, but it was the formation that they had practised earlier and that was in vogue in the British army at the moment. (emphasis added)

Later, he talks about another action, Mauser Ridge.

The Germans could see the Canadians, too; there was no possiblity of surprise, and the khaki-clad "colonials," standing shoulder to shoulder, presented the enemy machine-gunners with magnificent targets. The attack had all the makings of a suicide charge.

Still later, about this charge:

"It seemed that every soldier in the enemy's ranks had a machine gun," remarked J.M. McKinley..."and the air was literally filled with bullets." The German fire was simply too heavy for flesh and blood to endure...The Canadian soldiers were soon forced to hug the ground, many crawling behind small piles of manure, which proved to be "better ranging marks than protection."

Here we have the example of the attack faltering, and the men doing exactly what has been described - going to ground. But at this stage of the game, it was by no means an automatic response, nor was it encouraged.

[Michael Dorosh]

And the best, from FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan

(The) sophistication of traditional 'fire and movement' was known to the British but was thought by the staff to be too difficult to be taught to the Kitchener divisions. They may well have been right. (emphasis added) But the alternative tactical order they laid down for them was over-simplified:...what this meant, in terms of soldiers on the ground, was that two battalions each of a thousand men...would leave their front trenches...extend their soldiers in four lines...and advance to the German wire....The manoeuvre was to be done slowly and deliberately, for the men were to be laden with about sixty pounds of equipment... A sergeant of the 3rd Tyneside Irish describes how it was: "I could see, away to my left and right, long lines of men. Then I heard the "patter, patter" of machine-guns in the distance. By the time I'd gone another ten yards there seemed to be only a few men left around me; by the time I had gone twenty yards, I seemed to be on my own. Then I was hit myself.

We could quibble about the definition of "effective fire" I suppose, but this sergeant clearly knew he was under effective enemy fire, and yet he does not tell us he took cover - he simply walked on until he was hit himself.

[ February 04, 2002, 08:27 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[JasonC]

Because of their *training*? The CEF was a small force of picked volunteers, not the mass of green clerks, shopkeepers, and laborers of Kitchener's New Army. 200 yards after the last cover is not 500-800 yards. A short charge to close combat is not walking forward under 70 lb loads with rifles on the right shoulder. And oh, yeah, it was *night* for crying out loud. And they did hit the deck like sensible people, then made a coordinated attack - instead of just walking through the fire. Green is green. And yes, the New Army was very much "like that" at first. It wasn't by the end of the Somme, but it sure as heck was at the begining.

Of course MGs hit men after the first day of the Somme, and before it. But not 20K in a day for one combatant, or front, or sector. British losses that day were an order of magnitude higher than normal, and the reason was green troops attacking for the first time. Plenty of other stuff-up offensives occurred, with uncut wire, with hold-out dug-outs with worse mud, with less intense or effective preliminary bombardments. They did not all result in 5 figure per day loss tolls. If they had, then overall losses for the war would have been an order of magnitude higher than they actually were. A few other occasions are in the same league in losses per unit time, and they also usually involve large numbers of green troops attacking.

As for the idea that UK soldiers never ducked and the rest of it, it is balderdash. Plenty of Brits had already discovered the importance of the grenade, and knew the irrelevance of the bayonet, well before 1917. They also knew enough about the importance of moving firepower forward to have equipped all battalions with Lewis guns before the Somme even opened. The cartoon picture you present of UK doctrine circa 1916 is unrecognizable in anything beyond journalist level coverage of the war. Certainly if you read "Military Operations in France and Belgium" you will see a lot more was going on. Which does not change the fact that bulk of the individual soldiers on the first day of the Somme had practically no experience making infantry attacks, i.e. were greener than grass.

[Michael Dorosh]

From THE FIRST DAY ON THE SOMME by Martin Middlebrook, describing the attack by the Newfoundland Regiment on 1 July 1916

As the Newfoundlanders bunched together to get through the narrow gaps in this wire, the German machine-gunners found their best killing ground. Dead and wounded men soon blocked every gap, but those still not hit struggled on, having to walk over their comrades' bodies.

More experienced or less resolute men might have given up and sought shelter in such impossible conditions, but not the Newfoundlanders....The attack was watched by a survivor of an earlier attack from a nearby shellhole: "On came the Newfoundlanders, a great body of men, but the fire intensified and they were wiped out in front of my eyes."

Doesn't sound like they "instinctively took cover" to me - they continued to walk forward, over the bodies of their comrades who were obviously in a killing zone.

[Michael Dorosh]

Also from Middlebrook:

The Germans were amazed by the attack formation used by the leading British troops. "The behaviour of the Highlanders seemed to us rather strange, for these came forward very slowly...without taking the least cover. (emphasis added) (Schneyer, 170th Regiment)

When the English started advancing, we were very worried; they looked as though they must overrun our trenches. We were very surprised to see them walking, we had never seen that before. I could see them everywhere; there were hundreds. The officers were in front....When we started firing, we just had to load and reload. They went down in their hundreds....If only they had run, they would have overwhelmed us. (Musketier Karl Blenk, 169th Regiment)

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

[QB]Because of their *training*? The CEF was a small force of picked volunteers,

Not so small, they numbered four divisions and a corps headquarters by 1916, with integral artillery, engineers, railway troops, etc. What is a "picked volunteer", incidentally?

not the mass of green clerks, shopkeepers, and laborers of Kitchener's New Army.

Not true, very few CEF troops had regular army experience. Some learned to shoot and drill in the Militia, none of which prepared them for combat any better than the Kitchener boys.

200 yards after the last cover is not 500-800 yards. A short charge to close combat is not walking forward under 70 lb loads with rifles on the right shoulder. And oh, yeah, it was *night* for crying out loud. And they did hit the deck like sensible people, then made a coordinated attack - instead of just walking through the fire.

Co-ordinated with what, Jason? They simply got up and charged - the two battalions were thoroughly co mingled, they had no supported fires, and it was luck that saw anyone reach the German lines.

Of course MGs hit men after the first day of the Somme, and before it. But not 20K in a day for one combatant, or front, or sector.

What is the relevance of this?

British losses that day were an order of magnitude higher than normal, and the reason was green troops attacking for the first time. Plenty of other stuff-up offensives occurred, with uncut wire, with hold-out dug-outs with worse mud, with less intense or effective preliminary bombardments. They did not all result in 5 figure per day loss tolls.

What is the relevance of this?

If they had, then overall losses for the war would have been an order of magnitude higher than they actually were. A few other occasions are in the same league in losses per unit time, and they also usually involve large numbers of green troops attacking.

Agreed. What is the relevance of this?

As for the idea that UK soldiers never ducked and the rest of it, it is balderdash. Plenty of Brits had already discovered the importance of the grenade, and knew the irrelevance of the bayonet, well before 1917.

Agreed. I never said "never ducked", I was talking about their training - the argument has been made that every single person who has ever come under machinegun fire has instinctively ducked and sought cover. I think I proved quite well that this wasn't so - see the above quotes.

They also knew enough about the importance of moving firepower forward to have equipped all battalions with Lewis guns before the Somme even opened.

Source?

The cartoon picture you present of UK doctrine circa 1916 is unrecognizable in anything beyond journalist level coverage of the war.

How many big offensives did the British launch before the Somme?

Certainly if you read "Military Operations in France and Belgium" you will see a lot more was going on.

Thank you for the source, I will certainly try and read it.

Which does not change the fact that bulk of the individual soldiers on the first day of the Somme had practically no experience making infantry attacks, i.e. were greener than grass.

Granted - but the point was that they were trained to attack that way - because they were green or for whatever reason. And then, they went out and DID it.

It only takes one instance to prove my point that it is false to say "troops will always 100 percent of the time duck when coming under machinegun fire." I have pointed out that in at least a few instances, mostly connected with the Somme, they did not.

[ February 04, 2002, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]