(5) Screening guns.
(6) Making artificial cover.
(7) Mutual support (movement and fire).
(8) Indirect fire.
(9) A battery working on a wide front in mutual support.
No drill for a battery has been authorised yet (1909), but the simple formations of a troop as laid down in Cavalry Training will be found admirably suited for a battery of machine guns on pack-horses with mounted detachment.
The writer is fully aware of the condition under which machine guns are officered and manned at present, and that a great error has been made in estimating the time required to train the detachments. The Germans, who have studied the question of machine guns with a thoroughness far greater than that of any other nation, have made them a separate arm of their service, under trained and permanent gunners, and they evidently consider that only specialists can attain the necessary efficiency.
However this may be, it is certain that the officer, whether commanding a section or the batteries of a Division, must be a specialist and a highly trained one.
An officer commanding a company of Russian machine guns in the Russo-Japanese War, writing his experiences to the Nouskin Invalid, says:
“I have spent three years in studying machine guns, and consider myself proficient in their use, but I have always been convinced that the requisite skill and knowledge cannot be acquired in a shorter time.”