Comments on: Every Englishman had a machine gun

By: I Was There Too

I Was There Too — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 12:18:19 +0000

An anecdote.

When I was a little chap in England (late 60s, early 70s) the neighbour had a whinge to my father about me and my air rifle. Said I was sniping him. My dad replied, ‘if he was shooting at you, he’d be hitting you’.

That was the end of the argument.

By: Alistair

Alistair — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 11:17:28 +0000

Agreed.

British rifle work was excellent.

Unfortunately, it (and the myths it spawned) led British tactical doctrine into an accuracy-and-range cul-de-sac for most of the rest of the century. Emphasis was placed on accurate, sustained, individual fire. Suppression, snap-shots, and section firepower was neglected. It also tended to de-emphasise manoeuvre.

The SA80 was the final failure of this doctrine. It took 25 years to fix in a farrago that makes the problems with the early M16 look slight.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 01:40:14 +0000

Adar, what am talking about being BS are the supposed reports by the Germans about every man having an MG. That was apparently so much bumf, because the actual German intelligence estimates said no such thing. If I remember what I recall reading, the German estimates were that the Brits had as many MGs on issue as their own units did, which was slightly more than the Brits actually had. Myth turned that into what Dunlap reports here…

By: Adar

Adar — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 18:27:40 +0000

Fifteen hits on the target in a minute. Target as defined best to my knowledge as a four foot square target with a twelve inch bullseye.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 16:52:09 +0000

I’m not sure that the “facts” Dunlap is repeating here were actually true–There’s been a bunch of research showing that the “every man had a machinegun” thing was basically British propaganda, and it wasn’t true. The Germans did suffer heavily from rifle fire delivered by the “Old Contemptibles”, but the amount of effect that had in reality…? Questionable. I’m sure that Dunlap believed what he was writing, it’s just that it wasn’t actually true.

The whole thing fed into American prejudices, as well; “Every man a rifleman”, and the cult of precision individually aimed rifle fire that grew out of that obsession. Accuracy is important, aimed fire just as much–But, the raw fact of the situation is that the actual combat situation was not what we were replicating on the ranges–The usual enemy target on the range is a big ol’ paper square, or maybe a bit more realistic silhouette, but in reality…? You’re getting little fleeting glimpses of field gray, against a background of other things that made making out the enemy very, very difficult. Which is why 9 guys firing at nine different “fleeting glimpses” in semi-auto or bolt-action rifle mode aren’t anywhere near as effective as one guy with an MG34/42 dumping a burst into that same area. Odds are, the individual rifleman is going to achieve no hits, while that MG gunner is going to hit something… Or, at least, scare the ever-loving hell out of it with multiple near-misses on that “fleeting glimpse” and his buddies.

Individual rifleman? MG team? I’ll plump my money down on the MG team, every time. The individual rifleman is an important ancillary to the MG team, but that’s it. He’s not the ne plus ultra of the combined arms team down at the squad/fire team level. The MG, the mortar, and the dude with the grenade launcher are more important, and it’s unfortunate that the people running things in the US/UK back before WWII and during the war did not recognize this fact.