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.