Long-Range (Volley) Sights a la "SMLE"

[Spaceman]

13 hours ago, JMB1943 said:

As a counterpoint, the following numbers are taken from Appendix 1--Range Table of .303 Mk. VII from Hythe Firings [Textbook of Small Arms, War Office (1929) p. 371]

RANGE (YDS)   ELEVN. (mins) DESCENT (mins)  VELOCITY (fps)

3000                    834                   2009                  300

for a muzzle velocity of 2440 fps; this corresponds to an elevation of 14 deg.

This range table was apparently generated using Vickers machine guns.

How do these numbers compare to those entered into your ballistics calculator?

The 300 fps velocity corresponds to only 35 ft-lb of energy, and an impact of 58 ft-lb (79 Joules) has long been established as the minimum required to wound the human body.

Regards,

JMB

 

The Mk I Vickers was sighted to 2,900 yds and must have been considered lethal at least out to that range. Although at face value the Vickers muzzle velocity and rifling seems comparable with that of an SMLE, I don't quite understand why this was the case given the Vickers had a barrel length of 28.4" and the SMLE had a barrel length of 25.2". I can't quite put my finger on it but it may not be straightforward to compare the external ballistics of a machine gun with a service rifle, albeit using the same Mk VII ammunition?  I used a ballistic calculator for the SMLE with Mk VII ammunition along with quoted values for the ballistic coefficient giving 100 ft lb of energy out to at least 3,700 yds. My recollection was that 100 ft lb of energy was considered to be lethal perhaps with 58 lb ft being what was considered necessary to achieve wounding?

[MikB]

I think the nominal numbers given for wounding and lethal energy by various sources are to some extent arbitrary and at best contain elements of averaging. The fact that projectiles carrying between 60 and 100 ft.lb. KE have caused death and serious injury aplenty is evident from the history of small handguns in the .22" - .32" calibre range over the last century-and-a-bit. James Bond's Walther PPK has only a little more.

A soldier struck by such a round, even with a flesh injury in an extremity, would be quite likely to fall out of march as wounded, and thus wouldn't be available for closer combat - unless his superiors were especially callous or desperate. That's why I suggested any hit had the potential to remove the victim as a participant.

It's not the capability of the projectile, but the probability of a hit that it seems to me defeats the value of volley sights on manually-operated rifles issued to infantrymen carrying a hundred or rwo rounds apiece. Machine guns able to deliver industrial quantities of bullets over hours-long barrages are a game-changing proposition  - but of course they potentially develop another story involving artillery counterfire and/or mobile armour.

[navydoc16]

10 hours ago, MikB said:

I think the nominal numbers given for wounding and lethal energy by various sources are to some extent arbitrary and at best contain elements of averaging. The fact that projectiles carrying between 60 and 100 ft.lb. KE have caused death and serious injury aplenty is evident from the history of small handguns in the .22" - .32" calibre range over the last century-and-a-bit. James Bond's Walther PPK has only a little more.

A soldier struck by such a round, even with a flesh injury in an extremity, would be quite likely to fall out of march as wounded, and thus wouldn't be available for closer combat - unless his superiors were especially callous or desperate. That's why I suggested any hit had the potential to remove the victim as a participant.

It's not the capability of the projectile, but the probability of a hit that it seems to me defeats the value of volley sights on manually-operated rifles issued to infantrymen carrying a hundred or rwo rounds apiece. Machine guns able to deliver industrial quantities of bullets over hours-long barrages are a game-changing proposition  - but of course they potentially develop another story involving artillery counterfire and/or mobile armour.

Correct, like others have said the idea is sound in theory but it’s in modern analysis where it falls down. 
 

the context for its use it detailed in some of the manual of the time, but comes from time fighting rebellions in the colonies, large masses of protestors ect. 
 

The idea that a garrison of 300-400 men could lay 15 rounds a minute at 2000 yards in a general direction at clustered colonial subjects. The brain would say that is a good proposition for delivering firepower at the time.

[MikB]

12 hours ago, navydoc16 said:

Correct, like others have said the idea is sound in theory but it’s in modern analysis where it falls down. 
 

the context for its use it detailed in some of the manual of the time, but comes from time fighting rebellions in the colonies, large masses of protestors ect. 
 

The idea that a garrison of 300-400 men could lay 15 rounds a minute at 2000 yards in a general direction at clustered colonial subjects. The brain would say that is a good proposition for delivering firepower at the time.

That's a good historical comment, and suggests the situations visualised by the designers of the 1890s. I'm reminded of the description of a desert battle in Kipling's "The Light That Failed", presumably set in the 1880s, where the enemy had gathered some distance off, taunting and demonstrating, thus giving the British time to form a square before they charged. It's doubtful in that scenario whether there'd've been time and capacity to organise volley fire even if suitable magazine rifles had been available (I think it was still in Martini-Henry days), nor would marching units likely be carrying enough ammunition to support it. In other situations such as a fixed fortress with big stocks of ammunition thus attacked, the volley sights might've had real value, so long as they'd been tested and correctly set, and the users had been taught the considerable effects of any sideways cant.

It does show how vastly different WW1 turned out to be - in scale, enemy tactics and battlefield landscape - from the conflicts that majored in the minds of the original rifle designers.

Edited 23 March by MikB

[Mattr82]

Yes the warfare that the British had engaged in over the previous 15-20 years certainly shaped their thinking towards the application of long range mass fire.

If one thinks about it, the theory would have worked well on the plains of Afghanistan or Sudan etc but the realities of 'modern' warfare soon sets in. 

 

[navydoc16]

The curious thing is all the lessons from the true “empire” service such as India and the Middle East was allways considered - a lower class officer thing. Writing on machine guns, volley and mortars were initially disregarded. 
 

those with proper bloodlines would never set foot abroad except to command or captain. So the reports were often disregarded. 
 

if something worked it was the good officers in England who made it happen, and if it didn’t it was the idiots in “XYZ country”who stuffed it up 

 

kind regards

G 

[Mickster]

Absolutely fantastic