Indirect Fire Machine Guns?

It was an area denial tactic. Infantry or Cavalry will not be keen to enter or cross a beaten area with bullet's landing at probably 250 rounds per minute. Most of what artillery does (and it's a similar effect) isn't to kill but to shock, deny free movement and keep people's heads down.
 
I agree MG indirect fire is a Suppressive technique. However in our training it's use for sustained fires using thousands of rounds was rejected. Sustained long running fires by any weapon were not a part of our tactical kit. Abrupt and momentary suppression was prefered, just sufficient to allow a assault on the target, or maneuver without interference from the target.
 

hipper

Banned
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

The thing is the bullets speed up on the way back down, it was used to prevent reinforcement of trenches across open ground small changes in elevation would produce a lozenge shaped Beaten Zone which would be hazardous to cross
 
More a terror weapon that a casualty inflicting one
Well yes. The beaten zone of sustained fire is not to cause casualties (although it will of course) but to deter or terrify the enemy from using that ground. Much as the bayonet was a terror weapon in the past in that it's role was to frighten the enemy onto running away and actual bayonet fighting was rare. People ran away from bayonets and they refused to enter beaten zones.
 
........ 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.[/QUOTE]
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Today you use drones as spotters ..... similar to AOPs of old, but now they stream video to the gunner's iPhone allowing to adjust the trajectory of bullets impacting on the far side of a hill.
 
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.
I agree MG indirect fire is a Suppressive technique. However in our training it's use for sustained fires using thousands of rounds was rejected. Sustained long running fires by any weapon were not a part of our tactical kit. Abrupt and momentary suppression was prefered, just sufficient to allow a assault on the target, or maneuver without interference from the target.


yeah but you were not fighting WW1 or in Normandy
 
Hi All

In my understanding during WW1 there were two kinds of machine guns, heavy and later lighter more mobile machine guns. The more portable weapons where used in the more modern direct assault/defence role.However all heavy machine guns where primarily used in the area effect indirect role, hence heavy tripods and water cooled barrels. Yes this used a lot of ammunition but was very effective and was an important part of the mix of creeping artillery and mortar fire that ended the stalemate in the trenches during 1918. I've recently been studying the 100 days offencive and the importance of heavy indirect machine gun fire to clear the way and then protect the area gained from counter attack is repeated in every book I've seen.

Later better communications and artillery make this seam wasteful but at the time and throughout WW2 it was the reason for having heavy machineguns, indeed the images we have of Tommies being mown down by direct heavy machine guns at battles like the Somme are pure Hollywood.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Hi All

In my understanding during WW1 there were two kinds of machine guns, heavy and later lighter more mobile machine guns. The more portable weapons where used in the more modern direct assault/defence role.However all heavy machine guns where primarily used in the area effect indirect role, hence heavy tripods and water cooled barrels. Yes this used a lot of ammunition but was very effective and was an important part of the mix of creeping artillery and mortar fire that ended the stalemate in the trenches during 1918. I've recently been studying the 100 days offencive and the importance of heavy indirect machine gun fire to clear the way and then protect the area gained from counter attack is repeated in every book I've seen.

Later better communications and artillery make this seam wasteful but at the time and throughout WW2 it was the reason for having heavy machineguns, indeed the images we have of Tommies being mown down by direct heavy machine guns at battles like the Somme are pure Hollywood.

So while rushing an enemy trench you would really only be dealing with direct fire for the last few hundred yards or so?
 
So while rushing an enemy trench you would really only be dealing with direct fire for the last few hundred yards or so?

From the time that the artillery barrage lifted from the enemy trenches in a well planned attack; depends how closely you want to follow the barrage.
 
The thing is the bullets speed up on the way back down, it was used to prevent reinforcement of trenches across open ground small changes in elevation would produce a lozenge shaped Beaten Zone which would be hazardous to cross

Sure but the speed "gained" is vertical and not horizontal. Its not much you loose, but as IF is used at greater range the knietic energy delivered is lower even without considering the IF.
 

hipper

Banned
Sure but the speed "gained" is vertical and not horizontal. Its not much you loose, but as IF is used at greater range the knietic energy delivered is lower even without considering the IF.

velocity is a vector so it does not matter to anyone that's hit what the separate components are.
There's a nice quote at the link given by Belfast of machine gun fire coming down "vertically" remember that a rifle bullet will be above 2500 ft when fired for maximum range

see this nice quote below the experiment is carried oout by Cottesloe and his fellow experimenter H R A Mallock, Fellow of the Royal Society,

Their experiment, carried out in September 1910 and August1911appeared to prove the maximum range of the cartridge was near 3350 yards when fired at an angle between 25 and 30 degrees, with the greatest range recorded at 25 degrees. They knew this was wrong, as both theory and subsequent tests showed the true answer was nearer 3500 yards when fired at between 30 and 33 degrees.

The problem lay with where they were testing and the calculated height reached by thebullet(see the attachment). The hills, which they originally assumed had protected thebulletduring flight from unusual wind effects were too low at 2500 feet! Aircurrents which they could not measure had shortened the range. For more than 1100 yards of flight thebulletwas above these hills.
 
Thank you Belfast and Hipper.

There is clearly much confusion between harassing fire and barrage fire. Almost as soon as practical machine guns were entering service users saw that they could produce a beaten zone at their extreme ranges but saw this as useable for engaging in the same way as rifle volley fire at similar ranges. i.e. to engage a large area target such as a battery of artillery, troop of cavalry or a company of infantry. The first thinking though was as massed fire at infantry in open ground in the same way as canister shot from artillery and they were mounted as light artillery. My (scanty) reading of the Russo-Japanese use was to suppress specific targets in the advance or in defence.

WW1 brought in MMGs in numbers and the decision to group them into specific units was to employ them in the indirect mode in sufficient numbers and with extensive supply support to maintain their fire over long periods. This is what made barrage fire a reality and not a theory. One saw MMGs in the front lines as LMGs did not then exist but Hotchkiss and Lewis etc. guns began to take on the local direct fire role in being portable to advance or retire with infantry. The Germans kept MMGs in the front line in lieu of LMGs in numbers. By grouping them you could plan, control and maintain them in enough numbers to produce a barrage of effective fire on chosen zones denying ground for an attack or screening one's own attacks and do so at battalion or brigade levels whereas artillery was controlled at higher levels. Conventional artillery needed extensive pre planning for an extended barrage and could only maintain this for a lengthy period with extensive stockpiling possible only for the most major planned actions. Just as the mid/late 20th century platoon had the full range of direct and indirect fire in miniature so the Machine Gun Corps gave battalions and brigades their own organic indirect fire capability. In time alternatives took on the role as available technology changed. At the small scale mortars took on the role but the use of MMGs in indirect fire, if not in barrage fire, persisted and indeed still persists with the HMG becoming more popular too. The maxim that gaps in your defence must be covered by fire, day and night in all weathers, makes proper indirect fire still useful for the task.

Local meteorology is far more important when MMGs are used than artillery as the lighter rifle calibre bullets are more easily deflected by the wind. One advantage of having a Machine Gun Corps was that they could be trained in such things and use tables to measure and adjust fire to compensate unlike front line machine gunners who were perforce using their MMGs as better rifles. If your MMGs use bullets optimised for range and have to use rifle ammunition which is optimised for lesser ranges and not over heat barrels, then the tables are inaccurate so your MMG grouping needs it's own supply line. Much as British tank units could use 7,92mm ammunition as they had their own supply system separate from the infantry.

Civilians grossly under estimate the levels of professionalism and training necessary to carry out so many of the duties of the infantry as ex service personnel find only too clearly when they enter civilian life. To properly operate a MMG unit in the indirect role is a prime example of middle level management in an extensive organisation using skilled and scarce machine tool operators and the staff have to be able to assimilate detailed scientific training and use it in the most extreme conditions for extended periods relying upon the managers at local and regional levels for the provision of the tools, materials and maintenance for the task and directing their efforts to the most profitable ends. If you can do that then arranging for the manufacture of widget parts in a comfortable factory for the Acme Tool Company is p*ss easy.
 
Well - when the sights were set to a maximum elevation of 20 ddegrees I doubt that bullets would rain down vertically, - Usually I am sceptically on reports from the "heat" of battle).

Kinetic energy is true, but that only proves my point. You have to spend energy to shoot up the bullets. when coming down again LESS energy is gained (basic laws of physics).

I'D argue that the indirect fire use of MGs is less aimed at real indirect fire (that is over obstacles that limit the LOS) done by Mortars and Artillery and more a means to increase the range of the fire - a Vickers has a normal range of 800 or so yards. With indirect fire you increase range up to 4000k (? - IIRC) yards. Used this way its useful in area denial (advancing troops) but still no much use against well dug in troops (at least less useful than Mortar or Arty). And the limited amount of Kinetic energy limits probably the range anyway. The more energy you invest in shooting up the less is available for horizontal movement. Thus increasing the angle is not always a good idea.
 
The key thing that defines indirect fire in use is that it permits fire from the gun settings. If the ground is open and the weather clear then direct sighting can take place but if night or bad visibility occur then the firing can continue using the pre planned settings and tables to vary from them. It is the reason why MMGs come with tripod (or similar) mountings thus giving the gun a fixed and stable position from which the settings can be read and set.

To users this is obvious but it seems a subtle piece of semantics to the innocent. It is the same indirect fire that requires only the use of the settings when ground intervenes between the gun and target. It can be remarkable how little elevation of the ground is necessary to hide one from the other. A couple of metres can be enough. With prone infantry less than a metre will hide them. Wellington routinely kept his troops on a reverse slope until needed to protect them from direct cannon fire.

As far as the verticality of rounds at extreme range. I would advise one to attend an archery clout or flight shoot where the shooters are reaching the extremes of ranges of their bows. The arrows are subject to velocity degradation from aerodynamic drag and gravity just as are bullets shot from a gun. The arrows suffer more from drag to be sure but the effect is the same. Just over a shorter distance. You will see the arrows arriving vertically (or almost so) and bullets are no different. When the range is at it's limits the energy of the bullet is entirely from gravity from the drop hence one can debate the effective range until the cows come home but, even at the closest of one's preferred definition, the bullet arrives with a mostly vertical vector. Bullets (and arrows) fly aligned to the tangent of their arc. They do not remain horizontal in flight. In the real world a bullet fired from an elevated barrel will gain some small aerodynamic lift (see sports javelins for the best use of the phenomenon) but this is trivial by comparison with the effects of drag and gravity.

The OP referred to snipers. They can do excellent work but have to see their target so are limited to direct fire. Indirect MMG fire is imprecise (the Vickers was intentionally allowed some tolerance) to cover an area and hits it's target by the sheer mass of fire over a beaten zone within which the target has been located. In WW2 terms by area bombing of the town from Lancasters not point bombing of the actual factory building by Mosquitos.
 
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