As the gun is generally required to move and come into action independently of other troops, it must find its own scouts, who not only have to safeguard it from surprise when moving, but must be trained to select good positions whence it can come into action. For this reason the men of the detachment must be trained scouts.
To summarise:
(1) Only marksmen should be chosen.
(2) Trained scouts should be given the preference.
(3) The whole detachment must be trained as range-finders and scouts.
(4) The whole detachment must be proficient in judging distance.
(5) Only strong men should be selected.
The strength of a machine-gun detachment is given in Chapter IX. With the tripod mountings and pack transport the best working strength for a machine-gun section will be found to be the following:—
1 officer, 1 sergeant, 2 corporals, and 20 privates—that is, 1 N.C.O. and 10 men to each gun. It is almost superfluous to say that the whole detachment must be trained to work and fire the gun, and should have a very thorough knowledge of its parts and mechanism, and be experts at remedying failures and effecting minor repairs. Until the whole detachment are so trained and can detect the cause of any failure instantly and remedy the same in the minimum time required, it is useless to attempt tactical training in the field. The preliminary training will take from three to six months, according to the ability of the instructor and the time available daily for work.
It will be found that certain men of the detachment are far more skilful in laying and firing the gun than others, and it is undoubtedly sound to specially train these men as gun-layers and to permanently allot to the two best layers the duties of Nos. 1 and 2 (i.e. the firer and his assistant). This should be the post of honour and coveted accordingly, and the two best gun-layers should be awarded a distinguishing badge. As no badge is authorised by our regulations, a lance stripe might be given to the best No. 1 of each gun.