“It is our job to interfere with him as much as possible—to prevent or curtail movement, and inflict losses on him. The wounding or killing of one man by harassing fire will have no effect on the outcome of the war, but if we can kill and wound a thousand every night it will in time have its effect.
“The enemy can get away from artillery fire by avoiding shelled areas but he cannot get away from rifle and machine gun harassing fire for he never knows when and where it is going to come.
“If there is sufficient small arms ammunition available and it can be gotten up to the riflemen and machine gunners on the front lines the back areas of the enemy can be made a perfect ‘hell-hole’ by means of systematic harassing fire.
“Many of the men whom our men will relieve tonight will have ammunition in bandoliers with them. By having our men take over this ammunition and expending it tonight we can get a big increase in fire over the enemy back areas. Our ammunition supply for tomorrow will not be impaired. The men being relieved will be re-supplied when they get back to the regimental reserve. I think arrangements should be made for this procedure by the Major.”
Procedure
The Director: “The Major has made arrangements with the Commanding Officer 2nd battalion as to when the command of the sector is to pass to the 1st battalion. He will now have to tell his company commanders when their full responsibility is to devolve upon them for their respective sectors within the battalion. What would you do about that, Lieutenant Baker?”
Lieutenant Baker: “When a relief is made in larger commands the orders state the hour when the command is to pass to the relieving troops. But in a case like this I judge that it passes when the relief is completed. In order to make sure that the point is understood I would specify:
“‘Command of company sectors will pass when reliefs have been completed.’”
The Director: “I think that would be a good idea.”
Lieutenant Baker: “There is another point that should be included in the order. Let us say I am Captain B. My company is relieving Company F on the lines. The Captain of Company F either has not received definite orders as to what he is to do on being relieved or has overlooked the instructions in the confusion. It seems to me that it might be well for the Major to tell us just what Major B’s instructions are as to that point. It might save a lot of confusion in getting the 2nd battalion troops disengaged and out of the battalion sector. It might save a lot of casualties from men wandering around in the darkness for my section and squad leaders to be able to tell the men they are relieving just where to go.”