Special Attacks. Special attacks are made with gas, liquid fire, and mine methods. These will be taken up in detail in a later chapter.
Surprise Attacks
Precautions Against Surprise. In considering precautions against surprise attacks, it is not a question of combating patrols or enemy’s reconnaissance parties whose missions are to search out information of your intentions and situation. It is a question of raids and little attacks on your lines. Against such hostile operations the defense of the sector depends upon the following precautions.
Maintenance of the Barbed Wire Entanglements. A surprise attack, to be successful, must have besides surprise the element of swiftness. The enemy must make a dash across “No Man’s Land” up to your first line. This, however, is impossible, if your barbed wire entanglements are intact. Consequently each captain is responsible for the maintenance of the wire belt in front of his line.
It is the duty of the observation service to discover breaches or defects in your wire. To this end, the captain sends out at night patrols to ascertain the condition of his entanglements. If necessary, small detachments are sent out at night to make repairs. If this work is considerable, he calls upon the battalion commander for special working parties to assist. The captain, in his daily requisitions for material, provides for the supply of wire, chevaux-de-frise, etc., that he may need.
Service of Guard and Observation. One of the most important duties of the observers in the first line, and of the sentinels and patrols, is to locate breaches that the enemy has made in your wire, or to discover hostile parties in the act of tampering with the same.
Breaches or passages in your wire may be made by such means as bangalores and petards and detonators. The explosion of such an arrangement is a sufficient signal of alarm. These are usually poor methods.
Passages may be made by special hostile patrols using wire cutters. These wire cutting patrols may precede the attack. Alert sentinels or your own hourly patrols, that crawl along your wire belt, should discover such operations.
The usual method, however, is to destroy barbed wire by artillery fire. The object of hostile shelling of your position is not always easily detected. The enemy may carry out a general artillery fire on your position during the day, for example, just before dusk. At the same time he will concentrate certain batteries for a methodical destruction of parts of your entanglement. For this reason it is the mission of the first patrol, sent out at dusk, to ascertain the condition of the barbed wire belt. The report of this patrol may carry important indications of the intentions of the enemy.
Sometimes a hostile surprise attack is preceded only by a short and unexpected bombardment. Registering shots for this artillery fire are made during the day. These registering shots, however, are fired short of the wire in “No Man’s Land” to deceive the observers that they are for the purpose of barrage control. In this case, the only means to baffle the attack is to have diligent sentinels to give immediate alarm, and a well-trained garrison to take its place in the fire trenches quickly.