Indirect Fire Machine Guns?

Delta Force

Banned
Early machine guns had sights and even special ammunition produced for them to enable their use as indirect fire weapons prior to mortars and field cannons becoming common. Does anyone know how they performed in combat? Could they be viable alternatives to designated marksman rifles for infantry squadrons, or even used as alternatives to large caliber sniper rifles (the original .50 caliber sniper rifles were heavy machine guns and possibly even anti-tank rifles)?
 

urielventis

This tactic use a lot of ammo, but in a static fight (trench...) it could be used as a nuisance weapons on enemy assembly area.
British force in world war one and two were train to do it.
 
marathag

marathag

I believe US Marine would do Indirect Fire training, but no fancy Vickers style dial sights.

But to be good at this, your really need watercooled barrels,too.
 

yulzari

I don't know about these days but back in the 1980's GPMG training included tripod mounted sustained fire with all the dials, bells and whistles. The purpose being to deny ground. There are assorted cases of companies of Vickers of the Machine Gun Corps being used to deny swathes of ground for many hours using millions of rounds in the actions. The limiter being ammunition supply not the numbers of guns. You do not use them in this role in the infantry platoon but at least at battalion level.

Sniper weapons are low volume aimed fire weapons and do not have the volume of fire to deal with an enemy willing to accept numbers of casualties. The answer to sustained indirect machine gun fire is other indirect fire such as mortars, artillery and air strikes. Today the drone can also be indirect fire but more in lieu of the sniper role than the indirect machine gun due to limited payload.
 

Peg Leg Pom

Battle of the Somme. 10 Vickers Guns, 10 hours, 1,000,000 rounds fired needing 200 men carrying the ammunition and water No stoppages. Bloody marvelous guns Vickers built.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Back in the 1980s we still had some training in this technique in the USMC. Million round H&I fires were not part of that training narrative. Suppressive fires in support of maneuver, with the masking terrain being a superior level of protection for the MG. Protective fires for a defense was another.

As a artillery guy, it was easy for me to understand how indirect MG fires could have more precision than might be suposed.
 

yulzari

Indirect machine gun fire denies the ground in the beaten zone where the rounds are landing. Today an army with IFVs can pass through a beaten zone so better indirect weapons are more appropriate in a symmetric war.
 

Riain

A friend of mine set up 3 gpmg as indirect fire, set them for 50 round burst and quick traverse, he said he just banged a lever and all the guns moved over an increment. He aimed these at a mob of about 100 kangaroos that had been designated to be culled from the firing range and cut loose: 50 round burst, bang adjustment, burst, bang adjust, burst.

So 450 rounds from 3 gpmg at 100 kangaroos, number of roos hit = a big fat 0.
 

fastmongrel

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Note the angle of the barrel and the Director sight, piles of brass, MG belts, boxes of ammunition and water cans one of them is the condenser with steam coming out of it.
 

Father Maryland

Riain said:
A friend of mine set up 3 gpmg as indirect fire, set them for 50 round burst and quick traverse, he said he just banged a lever and all the guns moved over an increment. He aimed these at a mob of about 100 kangaroos that had been designated to be culled from the firing range and cut loose: 50 round burst, bang adjustment, burst, bang adjust, burst.

So 450 rounds from 3 gpmg at 100 kangaroos, number of roos hit = a big fat 0.
Click to expand...

Is all Australian wildlife completely invulnerable to military firepower?
 

Redbeard

Banned
Back in ancient times (late 1970s) I used to be a machine gunner with the MG3 (postwar MG42) and we had tripods capable of indirect fire - if you somehow had access to a truckload of extra spare barrels and another truckload of ammo...

The tripod was very handy for setting up fire at pre-designated points however. You sight in at daytime and mark the settings on the tripod, and at night or low visibility you can quickly bring up accurate fire at a given point. A kind of indirect fire I guess.
 

Richter von Manthofen

I have a problem with that idea, much of the kinetic energy is wasted in indirect fire. A grenade takes its charge with it a bullet gets only slower.

I also doubt the effecticity of the weapon excep on rather flat ground. A +/- 20 degree elevation (and 4k range) allows hits only behind rather shallow defenses. the rounds might go over obstacles that are rather high, true, but the potential victim has an easy time to hide behind walls, tanks, whatever.

As others have pointed out - a large waste of Bullets and Barrels IMHO

More a terror weapon that a casualty inflicting one
 
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