Problem 2
The brigade to which you belong has entered a town from a southerly direction, and you are opposed by an enemy who has entered it from a northerly direction.
The company of which you are in command has been allotted the ground between the roads B F, C G, both inclusive, your flanks are protected, the streets are about thirty feet broad with pavements five feet broad, houses run all along the streets.
Answer the following Questions.
(a) If you were to tell off a section to prevent the enemy advancing along the street B F from a northerly direction, which side of the street would it be best for them to occupy, and why?
(b) Your men occupy the streets B D and D C, but no man can show his face in the street A H, which is covered by machine guns and snipers firing from near A, and all men attempting to cross the road at D have been shot. Several houses in the street B D have been knocked down by shell fire.
In this street there are six empty wagons and in the houses in the street there is to be found furniture of all descriptions, as well as ropes, harness, and stables, with some horses in them. You are anxious to place a barricade across the street A H at D, so as to enable you to use the crossing at D. How should you set about making this barricade?
(c) There is a house at H looking right down the street A H. Whereabouts in this house should you put your Lewis gun, and why?
Solutions.
(a) On the western side, because your men, shooting out of the windows in a northerly direction, would then fire from their right shoulders without exposing their bodies.
(b) Fill the wagons with rubble from the houses which have been knocked down. Fasten sacking or sheets on to the wagon, so as to give cover from view between the body of the wagon and the ground. Throw a string attached to a brick across the street. By means of this, pull over a rope and attach the wagons to this rope, and thus pull them into the position you require.
(c) At the back of a room in the house, where you can see but cannot be seen, firing through the window. If you choose a window near the top of the house and put the Lewis gun on a table some distance back in the room, you will probably be able to fire over the barricade which you are thinking of constructing at D.
I have put you three definite and very simple questions with regard to street-fighting, for it may often happen that correct action on the spur of the moment when a village is first entered may result in ground being easily gained which would otherwise entail heavy fighting and serious loss to capture.
Street-fighting is a very big subject, and as a rule it gradually develops into underground warfare.
Villages entered during a battle often have snipers in the top stories or on the roofs of the houses, and these are places in which you may also place a few good shots with great advantage. This is an illustration of the advisability of doing to the enemy what you do not like his doing to you.
I will send you another problem next week.
Your affectionate father,
“X. Y. Z.”
LETTER IV
December 22, 1917.
My dear Dick,—
You have told me that you have once or twice temporarily commanded a company and have asked me whether I think there is any advantage in a young and active company commander being mounted.
In another part of your letter you ask whether I think a defensive position should be taken up on a forward or on a reverse slope.
This latter is a very big question and one on which many pages could be written, but I shall confine myself here to saying that it is imperative to hold the crest line in order to get observation, but that, owing to the crest line and forward slope being so much more vulnerable by artillery fire than is the reverse slope, there are many advantages in constructing the main line of defence well behind the crest.
I find now that I have tried in a few words to answer your second question before dealing with the first one. The object of giving you a horse is, firstly, to enable you to move about more rapidly, and consequently to do your duty better; and secondly, because a company commander’s work really begins when the march is over. It is infinitely more important that he should be fresh than that any other man in the company should be so. Again, by riding on in front and making proper arrangements for bivouacs or billets, he may save weary men much marching and counter-marching, and, what is even more important, he will on other occasions, by being able to push on in front, save half an hour by thinking out proper tactical dispositions before his men arrive. I will now give you a little problem which will, I think, illustrate the two questions which you have asked me. You must, nevertheless, remember that there can be no hard-and-fast rule as to where a position should be taken up. We cannot alter the ground to suit our formation, and therefore our formations must be made to suit the ground. The proper way to hold ground when the object is to fight a rearguard action is quite different from the way it should be held to fight a battle à l’outrance, and all I will commit myself to doing is to give my advice as to how a certain piece of ground should be held in certain given circumstances. I hope that the following problem will, to a certain extent, answer both your questions.