Machine-guns and grenades are certainly the most powerful arms against assaulting waves. Seldom will the reconnoitring airplanes detect all the numerous machine-gun shelters. Some of them always remain after a bombardment to show activity at the time of the infantry attack.
The British have very efficiently used their tanks for the destruction of these remaining machine-gun posts. The French have commenced to use them advantageously. The Americans, entering the war after they have been perfected, and profiting by their Allies’ experience, will be able, on their arrival at the front, to use well designed and constructed tanks in support of their infantry. Tanks will become more and more indispensable weapons, and their general use will save the infantry heavy losses of life. The Germans now have some.
Machine-gun Rifle. A new weapon was added to the armament of the infantry in 1916. It is the machine-gun rifle, which is not to be confounded with the automatic rifle (repeating rifle).
Much lighter than the machine-gun, carried and served by one man only, it is easily moved about, and, when well used, is a most dangerous weapon.
To shoot, the man lies down (behind a shelter if possible) and lifts the butt-end to his shoulder, the fore-part of the gun resting on a very short fork. Machine-gun rifles are used principally against machine-guns.
There are several types of machine-gun rifles. The best is without doubt that provided with a plate, containing twenty-five cartridges, which turns on a vertical axis back of the gun and fires the twenty-five cartridges. Each shot causes the plate to make 1/25 part of a revolution and drop a new cartridge in the barrel. When the plate is empty it is immediately removed and replaced by another that has been previously loaded.
Experience shows that machine-gun rifles give good results only when in the hands of cool and clear-sighted men, well acquainted with their manipulation, but that they are not as good as the ordinary rifles in the hands of African troops.
The Bayonet. All the infantry use the bayonet, a weapon which has maintained its full importance in the present war. French and Russian soldiers handle the bayonet most dangerously. The Germans are not so proficient in its use.
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