Infantry Fire; Its Use in Battle (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V- COLLECTIVE FIRE AND COMBINED SIGHTS. If then, individual fire, beyond the limits deduced, be not only unprofitable, but a source of danger, from the likelihood that ammunition will be exhausted, and thus induce disaster, what shall take its place? It need hardly be stated that, both in defense and in attack, many shots will be fired while distances greater than 400 yards separate the combatants. Any attempt to prevent this entirely would be dangerous to discipline, as must anything be which leads to au unpunished violation of orders. The answer to the problem is to be found in controlled fire?that is, in fire which is under such direction that the bullets, instead of being scattered over a multitude of objectives, limited in number ouly by the possibility that several men may choose the same object, are concentrated on chosen objectives, at which the men must fire. This is not intended to meau that in controlled fire the men must all fire at an indicated man, or even at exactly the same spot on the group of men. On the contrary, if the object chosen be of any considerable dimensions, each man's fire will Collective fire being impossible without control, and controlled fire being naturally collective, the terms may be used interchangeably to designate a flre not necessarily simultaneous, but regulated and concentrated.laturally and properly be directed on that part of the group fhich he can best see to aim at. Collective Groups.?When a body of men fire on the same ibject, with an elevation nominally the same, neither the men lor their rifles being absolutely alike, the bullets, from the auses already considered, will be spread over a considerable pace, especially in the direction of the fire. There results rom this a bundle or cone of trajectories, analogous...