The use of snipers in attack is another point. If you have a man who can hit a model of a human head once in every 2 shots at 400 yards—and I will undertake to get most men up to this standard who can shoot decently—we shall kill some machine gunners in our next advance. Also when a German is shooting at our troops coming down a road through an aperture made by the removal of a brick from a wall, as they have often done, how useful to have a fellow who can put a bullet through the aperture.
Of course no telescopic sight should ever be touched, except as far as moving the focussing sleeve goes, by anyone who does not understand it thoroughly. When the object-glass becomes dirty or fogged with wet, snipers often unscrew it. Unless they put it back in its exact original position, they of course alter the shooting of the rifle hopelessly. They also unscrew the capstan heads, which are for the lateral regulation of the sighting. I have seen telescopic sights which were 30 inches out at 100 yards, or about 25 feet at 1000 yards. These things would be impossible under a keen sniping Officer.
One thing I am certain snipers can do. They can make it very hot for the enemy’s forward artillery observing Officers. If when the enemy shell our trenches, one can get on the flank, one can often spot a Hun Officer observing. The thing to do then is to lay a telescope on through a drainpipe loophole near by. If you pack in the rifle on to a bed of sandbags so that the pointer of the telescopic sight rests just under the place where the Hun pops up, it is possible to take aim and fire the rifle in from two to four seconds. It is very important that the man who is to shoot should look through the big telescope and get a map of the trench opposite into his brain. Our telescopic sights magnify about 3½ and one can often make a successful shot by shooting six inches or a foot left or right, or above or below a white stone or some prominent object in the opposing parapet, even when you cannot define the Hun’s head very clearly through the sight.
I have seen this done. It is a very good sign when the Hun’s field-glasses fall on the wrong side of the parapet.
Another thing to which we might give attention is the use of decoys. I have had some made for me by the French.
I am quite convinced if I were asked to give the Germans the impression that we had been relieved by Sikhs, Gurkhas or Frenchmen, that I could do so, so wonderful are the models made for me by the French sculptor. It is impossible to tell them from the real thing if skilfully exposed at 100 yards, unless the light is very strong, and at 300 and 400 yards it is quite impossible.
In fact as long as trench warfare lasts, I believe much can be done in many small ways, if desired. But 1200 or 1500 telescopic sights in the hands of trained men and four times as many optical sights, if full value is got out of them, might along our line shorten the German army of many a valuable unit before the spring.
Again and again battalions report two, three or four Germans shot by their snipers in a single day; if you reduce these claims by half or even if each battalion snipes but one Hun a day—and this is an absurdly low estimate where adventitious sights are skilfully used, the loss to the Germans would be great.
I have received the most kindly welcome possible from everybody, and in many cases, almost in all, the Corps have been asked to let me go back to give further instruction. All Brigadiers are very keen indeed to get a high standard of sniping, and many of them feel that to do this is almost impossible unless the snipers are trained to their rifles until their belief in their own powers of hitting a mark, however small, becomes fixed.
As I think of sniping all day and often dream about it at night, I could write you a lot more on the subject, of which I have only touched the fringes. If we organize sniping, we can get solid and tangible results by killing the enemy and saving the lives of our own men. Only those who have been in a trench opposite Hun snipers that had the mastery, know what a hell life can be made under these conditions.