4. Effect of Background on Visibility.—During these exercises opportunity will be taken by instructors to utilize the useful object-lessons they provide upon the use of ground and cover. Men should be made to note the varying visibility of objects according to their background. They should be taught that the visibility of targets naturally tends to increase the effect of fire directed at them by facilitating discernment, judging distance, and aiming, while the vulnerability of targets is decreased in proportion as they are invisible or difficult to discern. Men must, therefore, be taught to note the effect of different backgrounds upon the visibility of fatigue-men in service uniforms. When being trained in the use of ground and cover, they should learn, when possible, to avoid positions such as a skyline or a background which contrasts sharply with their uniforms, and may render them distinctly visible to the enemy [Sec. 72, para. 4 (ii)].
5. Describing Targets.—In all exercises men will be given a definite period of time—which may be decreased as progress is made—in which to locate and count targets. Each man should then be asked how many he has discerned. Men will in turn be asked to describe clearly and shortly the nature and position of any target they have discerned which has not already been described by a comrade. They should be taught to use military vocabulary in describing targets, and to indicate their position by the methods explained in Sec. 45. Visual training will thus lay the foundation of instruction in recognition of targets.
6. Use of Field-Glasses.—In the case of targets which are difficult to see, and which have not been discerned, the instructor may allow men to discern the target with the aid of field-glasses, and then make them try to discern the target with the naked eye, using natural features of the ground in the vicinity of the target to locate its position. This instruction will help to train men in the use of field-glasses and in recognition of targets.
7. Effect of Movement on Visibility.—Finally, fatigue-men will be employed to skirmish from cover to cover, and to perform the firing motions from behind cover, in order to show how motion catches the eye and exposes the firer’s position (Sec. 72, para. 3 [iii]).
8. Locating an Enemy by Sound.—Blank ammunition will be used to give practice to the ear in locating an enemy by sound.
Section 35.—Military Vocabulary and Study of Ground.[16]
1. Importance of Military Vocabulary.—(i) Soldiers must be trained not only to discern, but to describe service targets of various kinds. For this purpose they must be instructed in military vocabulary. Military vocabulary comprises the technical terms applied to the organization, weapons, equipment, formations, and duties of various arms. Definitions of these technical terms are contained in the various books of this series, including Drill and Field Training, Field Entrenchments, and First Aid.
(ii) In this book, besides definitions of the technical terms which apply especially to musketry, a list of terms and definitions applied to natural and other features of ground and country is included on p. xxvi as being a necessary part of the military vocabulary used in the recognition and indication of targets.
2. Need of a Standard Vocabulary.—It is important that the military vocabulary in each unit of an army, and, if possible, in the whole army, should be uniform as to its various terms, especially in regard to the indication and description of targets. Both fire-unit commanders and men should therefore be thoroughly trained in applying a uniform military vocabulary correctly to various service targets, such as units of various arms in different formations and to the different natural and other features of ground and country.
3. Method of Instruction.—(i) Instruction in military vocabulary may be carried out in the following manner. In early lessons the instructor will describe in detail simple prominent features, such as part of a skyline or the line of a bank or hedge, and get each man in the class to describe in similar terms another part of the line. He will then practise them by the same method in describing more difficult and extensive features. In this way men will gradually learn the correct terms to apply to a great variety of natural features of ground. When men have learnt how to describe various features of ground in correct terms, the instructor will proceed to describe small areas of ground, the limits of which he will first clearly define.