A General's Letters to His Son on Minor Tactics

by Anonymous

1. Nos. 3 and 4 Platoons will proceed under Lieutenant Smith to the neighbourhood of Cross Farm, where they will take up the best positions they can find with the object of protecting the crossing of the River Lea.

It has been reported that a large quantity of wire, some of it barbed, is to be found at Slag Farm. Lieutenant Smith will take steps to obstruct the ford with this with the object of denying its use to the enemy.

2. No. 1 Platoon will take up a position near Home Farm and No. 2 Platoon near Hope Farm, also with the object of preventing the crossing of the River Lea.

3. No. 2 Platoon from Hope Farm will fire ranging shots on to the ford at Slag Farm, Chalk Pit, and the two road junctions to the north of the ford, and when the officer commanding the platoon is certain by the observation of his fire that he has obtained the correct ranges, he will pass this information to the officer commanding No. 1 Platoon.

The officer commanding No. 1 Platoon will range on the ponds near the bridge and on the road junction to the north of them, and will similarly pass the range chart to the officer commanding No. 2 Platoon. This ranging will be carried out at once in order that the ranging by Nos. 1 and 2 Platoons may be finished before the ranging is commenced by the officers commanding Nos. 3 and 4 Platoons, which will be carried out under the orders of Lieutenant Smith.

N.B.—I am quite aware that a company is supposed to carry a Barr & Stroud range-finder. Although this is an excellent instrument when it is in thorough order, there is really no such reliable range-finder as a rifle fired at a mark which will show the impact of the bullet.

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In the proper solution of the foregoing scheme, everything really depends upon your fire orders. I am presuming that your men are fairly well trained with the rifle. I wish, of course, that all our men were trained up to the standard of the Old Contemptibles, but “Rome was not built in a day,” nor can discipline and good marksmanship become part of a man’s second nature as a result of only a few months’ training. If, however, your men are reasonably good shots and can fire at least fifteen rounds a minute (they ought to fire twenty under peace conditions), in such cases as the above much more will depend upon whether you give correct fire orders than upon whether the men are first-class marksmen or only moderately good shots. You can compare a company of first-class marksmen to a Choke-bore gun which shoots farther and harder but requires a skilled game shot to use with advantage, whereas a company of moderately-trained shots would resemble an ordinary scatter gun, with which the ordinary shot would probably do more execution. If you give a range as 1,200 yards when it is only 1,000 yards and you have marksmen, no shots will fall on the object; whereas if your company were composed of third-class shots, the chances are that it would be well sprinkled with bullets. Do not think from this that I prefer the third-class shots, for that is very decidedly not the case; but if you have a highly finished weapon, you want a good man behind it, although in the hands of such a one it will do brilliant execution. If you have a company of good shots and are not certain of a range, your best plan is to fire with combined sights and thus to increase the depth of the fire-swept ground. This method, although in many cases the best to adopt, is bound to diminish the efficacy of your fire, for if the correct range be 1,200 yards and you fire one platoon at 1,000 yards, one at 1,100, one at 1,200, and one at 1,300, it stands to reason that you can only hope to get a quarter as many hits as you would do if you gave the whole four platoons the correct range; but even that is better than giving the range at 1,000 and missing the mark altogether. It is a bad plan to go “Nap” before you have looked at your hand. I shall later on give you certain little problems for solution in which I am of opinion that combined sights should be used. In the problem under consideration, however, their use would be absolutely wrong. You can check all the ranges by seeing the splash of the bullets either in the ponds, in the river, or on the Chalk Pit, and you should be content with nothing except the correct range. Young officers are always apt to consider that so long as they have taught their company to shoot fairly well, they have done their duty with regard to musketry. This is, in reality, by no means the case. The company is simply the sportsman’s gun; the commander has to learn how to use it.

There are many circumstances under which a man has to pick out his own target, as, for instance, when the enemy is attacking, and here everything depends upon his individual marksmanship. There are, however, many other occasions in which if 10 per cent. of the effect depends upon whether the men are first-class marksmen or only ordinary decent shots, 90 per cent. will depend upon whether the officer gives fire orders properly adapted to the situation. The above problem is an illustration of this principle.

You should notice that in my solution I carefully arranged that the party comprised of Nos. 2 and 3 Platoons should not commence ranging until Nos. 1 and 2 Platoons had finished. Were they to fire simultaneously, confusion in the splashes made by the bullets would be the result.