MG Barrages

[Nick]

Mate,

There is a good account with the Camel Bde attack at Rafa where single companies had been fighting all day with out gainning any ground untill Smith after talking to his Bn commanders moved two companies to a flank and grouped all his company MG sections in two postions (each MG sect had three lewis guns) thus with some fire power advantage at a given point he sent the two companies in which captured the first redoubt and led to the collapse, (with the sucsess of the NZMB) of the garrison.

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Steve,

I think that it takes a good commander to be able to reorganise during an action to be able to deliver such fire superiority, but I'm a little surprised that it wasn't part of the orignal plan. I have some accounts of Rafa, I'll take a look at these.

Thanks, it's appreciated

Nick

[Nick]

Nick, sorry to hijack your thread without making a more positive contribution to your original query.

Bruce

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Bruce - don't apologise, it's interesting reading and all grist to the mill.

Nick

[Staffsyeoman]

In respect of the MG 'barrage'; indeed, it WAS originally devised by the Canadians. Brigadier General Raymond Brutinel, who stood astride the Canadian MGC from 1914-19, initially developed the tactic. Later in the war, he had a serious difference of opinion with George Lindsay (the progenitor of the British MGC) who left it implied in doctrinal writings that the British had. They do appear to have been reconciled by the later part of the war, however.

That New Zealand barrage map is a beauty, fairly typical. I've lost count of the numbers I've seen now!

[stevenbecker]

Nick,

Yes so was I.

Why there are no artillery plans including MG's for these battles in 1916 leds to the idea that the commanders never thought passed the charge/advance to the target.

MG use like the guns was only to suport the Bde/unit they belonged to with no idea to combine the firepower elements of all Bde's/units to achive surpiriority at a given point.

They proboly never read Napoleon's works on this instead reading British docran and with their expirences in South Africa never had a chance to put the use of all arms into effect.

Of cause the many British officers also suffered from this and not only colonial officers.

Cheers

S.B

[Bruce Dennis]

Some time ago I posted in this thread some comments based on my recollection of passages in The Social History of the Machine Gun, by John Ellis. After a delay, I can now access a copy to fill in the blanks.

I referred to British attacks being wiped out by one or two well placed German machineguns, and, naturally, I was asked to be more specific. This is what Ellis said, describing the use of MGs at Neuve Chapelle, March 1915 “The experience of one unit, the 2nd Scottish Rifles, in this battle have been meticulously studied, and are typical of the day’s events.” He then quotes directly from Morale: the 2nd Scottish Rifles at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 1915 Cassell, London, 1967, pp 68 & 71-72: “…as the attack progressed the German positions which did the most damage were two machine gun posts in front of the Middlesex. Not only did they virtually wipe out the 2nd Middlesex with frontal fire, but they caused many of the losses in the 2nd Scottish Rifles with deadly enfilade, or flanking fire.” Ellis then sums up the foregoing with”…two machine guns, a dozen Germans at most, brought to a halt two battalions of British infantry, or something over 1500 men. …"

Robert Dunlop said "It would be interesting to learn which examples he cited. I know of several, for example the Jaegers who survived the initial bombardment in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle." Bullseye, Robert.

Ellis goes on to say "...in September, at the Battle of Loos, exactly the same thing happened again.”

Bruce

[Robert Dunlop]

Thanks Bruce. With regards to Loos, I wonder if Ellis is refering the to holdup that occurred around one of the redoubts towards to centre of the attack. Heavy losses were sustained in trying to take it. Or was it on the left of the British attack?

Robert

[Bruce Dennis]

Thanks Bruce.  With regards to Loos, I wonder if Ellis is refering the to holdup that occurred around one of the redoubts towards to centre of the attack.  Heavy losses were sustained in trying to take it.  Or was it on the left of the British attack?

Robert

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He doesn't say any more about Loos. I had forgotten how interesting the book was, and I'm glad I found it again. His theme is true to the title of the book and is mainly about the introduction of the weapon into different forces and, later, societies. The book is not concerned with specific actions except where they are perhaps a 'first' or a lesson ignored/learned. Early arguments as to whether MGs should be part of the artillery are laid out, and there is a useful explanation of the British infantry training practices that contributed to the success of the German machinegunners, quoting spacing of infantry during advance over open ground etc. It is good reading.

Bruce

[Borden Battery]

Here is one of my posting from another section of the GWF. It relates to the Canadian Corps use of indirect fire and the adoption of techniques developed during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904.

Borden Battery

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This war also had an important impact on the use and adaptation of tactics for machine guns and the start of indirect fire. I have included three quotations regarding this influence.

Borden Battery

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"The effect of the Manchurian campaign was to open a whole new field of tactics to the machine gun, and of all the nations, Germany was the first to realize it and to reap the most valuable harvest.

Practically every phase of later tactics and even fire direction and control had their foundation in Manchuria and no role was more emphasized than the value of the machine gun in the offensive. In the last stage of the Battle of Mukden, it has been pointed out, no less than four batteries were used to beat down the fire of a Russian detachment holding the buildings and enclosures of a Chinese farm and under this 24-gun storm the garrison hastily abandoned the position. It was the climax to a growing tendency to the use of massed machine guns.

There in that incident might have been the cradle of machine gun barrage fire to come later - much later.

The general effect of the war in the Far East was an immense stimulation of thought directed to machine gun and a vast output of literature and resulting study, out of which tactical doctrines began to be formulated in most armies.

Perhaps reports drifting back from the Manchurian battlefields on machine guns interested no German more than the Kaiser himself. Soon after Sir Hiram Maxim invented his gun the Kaiser, then Crown Prince, saw it in Berlin. His immediate enthusiasm, temporarily at least, found itself cooled off against the cold, implacable conviction of the German General Staff that the machine gun was useless for a European war. They were sticking stolidly to the post-war convictions of 1870. In 1887 at Queen Victoria's Jubilee, accompanied by a group of German cavalry officers, Crown Prinz Wilhem paid a visit to the 10th Hussars at Hounslow and so intrigued was he by their machine gun equipment that, on his return, he ordered a gun to be sent over to Germany.

Due in no small measure to the Kaiser's personal enthusiasm and interest for and in machine guns, Maxim batteries of four guns were introduced at the German manoeuvres two years later. Out of his own personal pocket Emperor William provided a machine gun of the same type for each of the Dragoon Regiments of the Guard.

German army Field Service Regulations of 1908 indicate to what a high peak of specialization machine gunnery had been brought in the German army.

Special regulations as late as 1912 indicate that machine gunners had become a sort of Corps d'Elite. The Germans then possessed two different kinds of machine gun batteries - the Machine Gun Company and the Detachment. Companies had been attached to each Regi-ment, corresponding roughly to a British Brigade. A six-gun com-pany, it was to work with the Regiment normally or be detached, in pairs, to battalions.

The Detachment was non-regimental and an independent unit usually attached to Cavalry Brigades. Motorcar detachments had also been formed."

Source: A History of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps by Lt.-Col. C.S. Grafton, 1938

pp 20-21

"I had been a close student of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and had been struck with the great fire power of the Machine Gun when employed in sufficient numbers by resolute men, well trained. I deplored the systematic ignorance of the qualities of these weapons shown by the French General Staff and also by the British General Staff, although with the light Vickers machine gun the British had the best machine gun available at the time - and, as far as I knows, still unsurpassed."

Source: Tape 1 Raymond Brutinel Manuscript - Motor Machine Gun Brigade, Interview - Oct 1962

"I would like to remark here that the doctrine developed in the Canadian Machine Gun Corps is substantially the rediscovery of methods employed by the Japanese in their war against Russia in 1904, and these in turn appear to have inspired the organisation of the Marksman Machine Gun Companies of the German Army. The Battery of eight machine guns was adopted by the Japanese for the same reasons which in turn lead to their selection by the Canadian Machine Gun Corps."

Source: Tape 17 Raymond Brutinel Manuscript - Motor Machine Gun Brigade, Interview - Oct 1962