Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Cavalry of the Army / of the United States 1917. To be also used by Engineer Companies (Mounted) for Cavalry Instruction and Training

by United States. War Department

To designate a target the commander announces, for example: Reference point, that clump of trees on hill crest. When the men have located the reference point he announces: Target at 4 o'clock, 2 finger widths, range 1,000 yards, a gun pit. By a finger width is meant the distance on the face of the assumed vertical clock (actually on the landscape) intercepted by the breadth of a man's finger held perpendicularly to his hand and arm, the latter being fully extended in the direction of the reference point.

Each man looks along the center-4 o'clock line of the imaginary (vertical) dial, measures, on this line, a point distant 2 finger-widths from the reference point (the center of the dial), and thus locates the gun pit.

A combination of the two methods may be necessary when, in using the second method, the reference point is not readily identified. Thus, in the case mentioned, it may, for example, be necessary to say: Reference point at 1 o'clock, clump of trees on hill crest.

In both methods the sequence of commands laid down should be observed.

Various devices for pointing out indistinct targets may be improvised and used.

THE USE OF COVER.

142. The recruit should be given careful instruction in the individual use of cover.

It should be impressed upon him that, in taking advantage of natural cover, he must be able to fire easily and effectively upon the enemy; if advancing on an enemy, he must do so steadily and as rapidly as practicable, taking advantage of any available cover while setting the sights, firing, or advancing.

To teach him to fire easily and effectively, at the same time concealing himself from the view of the enemy, he is practiced in simulated firing in the prone, sitting, kneeling, and crouching positions, from behind hillocks, trees, heaps of earth or rocks, from depressions, gullies, ditches, doorways, or windows. He is taught to fire around the right side of his concealment whenever practicable, or, when this is not practicable, to rise enough to fire over the top of his concealment.

When these details are understood, he is required to select cover with reference to an assumed enemy and to place himself behind it in proper position for firing.