Machine-Gun Tactics

by R. V. K. Applin

Callwell defines a convoy as “a column of non-combatants guarded by a comparatively speaking small escort.” The object of this escort is to hold off all hostile parties and to get the convoy to its destination in safety. Escorts will generally have to be reduced to the smallest possible size in order not to deprive the fighting force of men. They will therefore always act on the defensive, while endeavouring to keep moving with the convoy, which will only be halted when compelled to do so for its own safety. When the escort consists of the three arms, machine guns may be used to reduce the number of infantry required very considerably, while adding to the defensive power of those necessary.

In minor operations where every available rifle is required with the fighting force, machine guns will be found invaluable to replace infantry. Their exact position with the convoy must depend upon its composition and length and the number of guns available. The principle of having a machine gun, or where possible a section, at the head and another at the rear end of the line of wagons or pack animals is sound, as these are the vital points, and an attack on the centre can be met by a cross fire from these positions. If the convoy is unduly long, another gun or section may be placed in the centre. Should it be necessary to form laager, the machine guns in the front and rear enable this to be done under their converging fire. Where wagons or carts are used and the enemy is unprovided with arms of precision, machine guns may be mounted on the tops of wagons, so that they can open fire instantly and fire while moving forward with the convoy; this position not only provides them with a good field of fire, but also affords protection to the detachments from a sudden charge home of savages from an ambush.

“The success of an attack upon a convoy usually depends upon the defeat of the protecting troops. This will involve a combat, which will be governed by the principles already laid down in this manual.... If fighting is inevitable, the enemy should be engaged as far from the convoy as possible.”[60]

For this reason machine guns should open fire on any body of the enemy presenting a good target, even at long range, if they are moving to attack the convoy. The presence of machine guns with a convoy will free the infantry to move out wide on the flanks in open country, and to push ahead to piquet hills, clear bush, and occupy heights on the line of march, without exposing the convoy to danger during their absence.

BLOCKHOUSES

Blockhouses have been much used in warfare in uncivilised countries ever since the introduction of firearms, to enable small detachments on a frontier or on the lines of communication to maintain themselves in the midst of the enemy when unsupported by other troops, and also to form a chain of posts across an enemy’s country for the capture or suppression of guerilla bands.

Looking back to the South African War, it appears inexplicable that little or no use was made of machine guns to hold the long blockhouse lines which stretched for so many hundreds of miles in every direction during the latter stages of the war. Time after time the Boers succeeded in breaking through this line, even in places where the blockhouses were within effective range of each other and the intervening space guarded by elaborate barbed-wire entanglements. The reason for this is not difficult to discover. Screened by the darkness, the fire of the small garrisons of these blockhouses was neither sufficiently powerful nor accurate to stop the majority of the enemy from breaking through, even though stopped by the entanglements and compelled to use a single gap. The annihilating and concentrated fire of machine guns which had been laid by day to sweep the entanglements should render the forcing of a similar blockhouse line impossible in the future. Machine guns in detached blockhouses should be sited as low as is compatible with a good field of fire, and should have long narrow loopholes prepared for them for at least two positions on every face. Constant change of position within the blockhouse after firing will prevent the enemy from being able to “snipe” the gunners through the loopholes.

The great variety of conditions and circumstances under which minor operations take place renders it impossible to do more than show how they may be used in certain selected instances. The machine gunner must be prepared to modify and adapt his tactics to suit the special circumstances of the expedition with which he is employed, and he cannot do better than study Callwell’s Small Wars, their Principles and Practice, which has been so freely quoted in this chapter.

ENCLOSED COUNTRY

This chapter would not be complete without some reference to the use of machine guns in enclosed country such as is found in the United Kingdom. Clery, in his Minor Tactics, p. 118, says that cultivated country is the most favourable to the attack, while in defence the country to the front cannot be too open. “In the first, infantry gains a succession of covered positions by means of which it comes on more equal terms with the defence. In the second, the infantry of the defence has a clear field to destroy the assailants as they approach.”