School Meals, Milk and vitamen supplements (or at least Cod Liver Oil) are doable to improve the health of future recruits (and mothers) if the political will is there to do it.
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Post Boer War British Army Recommendations.
- Thread starter Peg Leg Pom
- Start date
Most messages got through to the right place, and most got through in the expected time. However inevitably some messengers got lost, some got wounded and some got killed. Couriers work, and if a message isn't time critical and/or is highly sensitive even today they can be the best option.
Deleted member 1487
World War I Runners Faced Perilous But Critical Mission of Carrying Messages | HISTORY
Runners were more reliable than any other form of communication. But the role was among the war's most dangerous.
www.history.com
I'd seriously question if most messages actually got through. Runners had the highest casualty rates of the war.
Tactically infantry needed foot runners. Higher up it used to be horses. Bicycles were then added in but, by 1914, the BEF was committed to the motorcycle as it's hard copy courier mover. In 1904 this would have been something to anticipate and trial for introduction soon. If you are out of rifle shot etc. the motorcycle has all the advantages over both the horse and the boot.
Better than radios, with the use of RDF. Every radio and telegraph/telephone station would immediately be triangulated and destroyed by artillery or airpower as soon as it was used, probably destroying the artillery batteries or headquarters they were at in the process. Communication would quickly revert to things like couriers, except the side not so dependent on radio/telegraph would be better adapted to this (and probably wouldn't have lost most of its artillery and HQs to strikes before learning).
Deleted member 1487
Sure, not that radios were in much use for the reason of technological limitations and of course the availability of land lines. Couriers could work if you're willing to tolerate high losses and constantly send out at least 3 to be sure the message gets through...though even then it is likely it will be late in arriving.
That's still better than the near-guaranteed death of every radio and telegraph operator near the front lines (and probably the HQ and artillery staff that are with them).
By and large the British army got the lessons of the Boer war right – it’s a 3 year war not black week and ofc that was then immediately followed by the Russo Japanese war which has additional lessons and then by Balkan wars which reinforce the lessons. And one of the lessons was the importance of having lots of cavalry – mounted infantry who can move fast tactically and seize ground. And the lessons are to the roles of the British Army generally not, lets prepare for a major involvement in Europe in 1914 or thereabouts which features lots trenches because unlike a war in say 1920 we wont have hundreds of Medium D charging into the German flank at Mons then exploiting through the bombed out cities of Germany ( thankyou Handley Page) with loads of gas.
But to address some of the specifics already mentioned.
The .303 was in use, has large stocks of a very serviceable rifle in use and can increase the range on battle sight to about 600m, from 400m by introducing the then brand new Spitzer bullet. Which leads to a whole other series of issues around how do you suppress a firing line you can’t see and cross 600m of ground. Which is about the practical level of observing troops trying not to be seen. The textbook solution was QF artillery firing shrapnel, and MGs which enable a small number of men to find concealment while the rest are in cover/concealment and ideally using the cover to advance. As the canadians did in the Boer war advancing at night to within 65 yds of the Boer positions.
Any other bolt action rifle will be a bolt action rifle with the same issues but mildly different characteristics. So even within small arms it has to be third priority after a more portable MG an automatic rifle ( which was the need filled by the Lewis) and possibly a semi auto.
Traction engines, no. Slow and if steam powered need time to work up steam. Handy in rear areas before you have a light railway build not so much after that. Motor transport is the better option and the British army entered WW1 as the most mechanised in the world, which is partly a function of its size. In 1902 however there are no viable lorries. Nor are there viable aircraft.
60lb was what the artillery wanted and specced for both horse and mechanical transport btw, so maybe a traction engine for a gun of position, its the politicians who wanted the 4.7.
Madsen, looks good. No major army adopted it. The US tested it and it failed on reliability grounds after a 7,000 round test. It then failed again in the 20s. It does not get a quick change barrel until the 1950s. So what you are probably looking at is an early chauchat or maybe a BAR which rapidly overheats and jams a lot anyway. Nothing wrong with that but it does not produce the volumes of fire needed to supress an enemy firing company volleys at long range. If you want to do marching fire, the Boer war experience is that’s daft, it may work but it’s a bit heavy compared to a semi auto rifle.
After that its an air cooled man portable weapon capable of high volumes of fire, Lewis or Hotchkiss M1909 ( in US, but train the troops to load it you idiots). The brits far preferred the Lewis but in 1914 they wanted volume of production so Hotchkiss being willing to tool up a new factory is going to be done. Its mainly used for cavalry and tank armament.
Issuing new kit is a lot easier during WW1 than before the war. Partly money no object but also you are not moving far or fast. By 1914 standards of issue each MMG needs 1.5 SAA carts to carry the ammo, so with its actually a 10% increase in the size of the ammo column, plus fodder, water etc for the horses space on railway carriages etc.
Whether you put the MG at Bn or Bde/Rgt level is not an obvious choice. The Germans put their MG as a 13th company in the regiment, and under the command of the most senior officer present to stand back at 800m+ if at all possible. But that means any single inf bn is dependent for fire support on decisions made by Oberst von Blimp around a kilometre away. But he will get a lot of support if it arrives. That’s great if MGs can find a target and are not found by defenders. Which if you are being attacked by the French in 1914, the Russians at any point or are on the best tactical vantage point for miles, cos its France and you chose to stand there, its most of the time. And it’s a Maxim weighing in at 150lb per item. The downside is once war becomes static adding more 150lb Maxims is a sensible solution which leaves you with no section level Lewis or Chauchat when war becomes semi mobile ( 1917).
On the other hand the British colonel has a massive increase of firepower on hand he can control, and with the Vickers (adopted in 1912 but slow to produce) it’s a 50lb weapon so far easier to move around. The Brits start brigading the MMG when they have enough Lewis or Hotchkiss to replace them at battalion level, then company level, then section. That’s probably the result of Boer war experience (initially) that command on the battlefield has to go down to the lowest practical level and the MG is an essential tool with the lowest practical level being the colonel, the captain the Lieutenant, the sergeant, the corporal.
On indirect fire. A gun/howitzer seems obvious. Its not. QF artillery is very new and getting a gun in now is probably more important than designing a gun/howitzer, which is two distinct roles. Especially as the gun is not the weapon the shell is, and at the time shrapnel intended to suppress enemy riflemen not HE intended to blow things up. Think humungous shotgun round going off short of the position and blasting a few hundred rounds of ball cartridge forward, several times a minute.
Indirect HE is even more problematic. Noone really knows all the issues involved in accurate fire yet but you have to have line of sight to the target and from the observer to the gun position unless you have the time to lay a cable from the gun to the FOO, as he will be signalling with flags or heliograph. Very easy to do with a siege, or trench warfare not so easy in a mobile war. Because the German planning has to assume they will be forced to attack Belgian, French or Russian pre war fixed positions which can be mapped in peacetime and will not move it makes sense to carry around howitzers. For the Brits, no such certainty.
Same with predictive fire. You need a relevant map, which is far easier with arial photography and a static enemy.
Mortars might be a good idea. But its another 100lb (Stokes) to lug around plus ammo, and the same issues with the FOO. The german minenwerfer is a 300+lb weapon issued to engineer units for siege purposes. You can use it defensively in static warfare, but at 300lb its not going to be moving very fast.
Grenades would be useful but it’s a weapon with a short range OR one which requires the rifle grenadier to be kneeling in cover and even then only has a range of a couple of hundred meters. And its not obvious that it’s a lesson to be drawn from the Boer war.
BTW, RDF is not really viable to intercept telegraph or telephone comms. Prior to the fullerphone on the allied side it was possible to listen in on morse and some voice phone comms because of transmission through the earth but that does not give away position of itself, after not so much but you could always try and tap the line. Radios are simply too big to be practical. And the RE Signals branch lost around 50% of its people normally repairing lines behind the front. 1-2 km back you are in mg range, 7 ish km in the regularly beaten zone for artillery. German corps were losing a regiment a day bringing up the rations in the preliminary bombardment for the Somme.
But to address some of the specifics already mentioned.
The .303 was in use, has large stocks of a very serviceable rifle in use and can increase the range on battle sight to about 600m, from 400m by introducing the then brand new Spitzer bullet. Which leads to a whole other series of issues around how do you suppress a firing line you can’t see and cross 600m of ground. Which is about the practical level of observing troops trying not to be seen. The textbook solution was QF artillery firing shrapnel, and MGs which enable a small number of men to find concealment while the rest are in cover/concealment and ideally using the cover to advance. As the canadians did in the Boer war advancing at night to within 65 yds of the Boer positions.
Any other bolt action rifle will be a bolt action rifle with the same issues but mildly different characteristics. So even within small arms it has to be third priority after a more portable MG an automatic rifle ( which was the need filled by the Lewis) and possibly a semi auto.
Traction engines, no. Slow and if steam powered need time to work up steam. Handy in rear areas before you have a light railway build not so much after that. Motor transport is the better option and the British army entered WW1 as the most mechanised in the world, which is partly a function of its size. In 1902 however there are no viable lorries. Nor are there viable aircraft.
60lb was what the artillery wanted and specced for both horse and mechanical transport btw, so maybe a traction engine for a gun of position, its the politicians who wanted the 4.7.
Madsen, looks good. No major army adopted it. The US tested it and it failed on reliability grounds after a 7,000 round test. It then failed again in the 20s. It does not get a quick change barrel until the 1950s. So what you are probably looking at is an early chauchat or maybe a BAR which rapidly overheats and jams a lot anyway. Nothing wrong with that but it does not produce the volumes of fire needed to supress an enemy firing company volleys at long range. If you want to do marching fire, the Boer war experience is that’s daft, it may work but it’s a bit heavy compared to a semi auto rifle.
After that its an air cooled man portable weapon capable of high volumes of fire, Lewis or Hotchkiss M1909 ( in US, but train the troops to load it you idiots). The brits far preferred the Lewis but in 1914 they wanted volume of production so Hotchkiss being willing to tool up a new factory is going to be done. Its mainly used for cavalry and tank armament.
Issuing new kit is a lot easier during WW1 than before the war. Partly money no object but also you are not moving far or fast. By 1914 standards of issue each MMG needs 1.5 SAA carts to carry the ammo, so with its actually a 10% increase in the size of the ammo column, plus fodder, water etc for the horses space on railway carriages etc.
Whether you put the MG at Bn or Bde/Rgt level is not an obvious choice. The Germans put their MG as a 13th company in the regiment, and under the command of the most senior officer present to stand back at 800m+ if at all possible. But that means any single inf bn is dependent for fire support on decisions made by Oberst von Blimp around a kilometre away. But he will get a lot of support if it arrives. That’s great if MGs can find a target and are not found by defenders. Which if you are being attacked by the French in 1914, the Russians at any point or are on the best tactical vantage point for miles, cos its France and you chose to stand there, its most of the time. And it’s a Maxim weighing in at 150lb per item. The downside is once war becomes static adding more 150lb Maxims is a sensible solution which leaves you with no section level Lewis or Chauchat when war becomes semi mobile ( 1917).
On the other hand the British colonel has a massive increase of firepower on hand he can control, and with the Vickers (adopted in 1912 but slow to produce) it’s a 50lb weapon so far easier to move around. The Brits start brigading the MMG when they have enough Lewis or Hotchkiss to replace them at battalion level, then company level, then section. That’s probably the result of Boer war experience (initially) that command on the battlefield has to go down to the lowest practical level and the MG is an essential tool with the lowest practical level being the colonel, the captain the Lieutenant, the sergeant, the corporal.
On indirect fire. A gun/howitzer seems obvious. Its not. QF artillery is very new and getting a gun in now is probably more important than designing a gun/howitzer, which is two distinct roles. Especially as the gun is not the weapon the shell is, and at the time shrapnel intended to suppress enemy riflemen not HE intended to blow things up. Think humungous shotgun round going off short of the position and blasting a few hundred rounds of ball cartridge forward, several times a minute.
Indirect HE is even more problematic. Noone really knows all the issues involved in accurate fire yet but you have to have line of sight to the target and from the observer to the gun position unless you have the time to lay a cable from the gun to the FOO, as he will be signalling with flags or heliograph. Very easy to do with a siege, or trench warfare not so easy in a mobile war. Because the German planning has to assume they will be forced to attack Belgian, French or Russian pre war fixed positions which can be mapped in peacetime and will not move it makes sense to carry around howitzers. For the Brits, no such certainty.
Same with predictive fire. You need a relevant map, which is far easier with arial photography and a static enemy.
Mortars might be a good idea. But its another 100lb (Stokes) to lug around plus ammo, and the same issues with the FOO. The german minenwerfer is a 300+lb weapon issued to engineer units for siege purposes. You can use it defensively in static warfare, but at 300lb its not going to be moving very fast.
Grenades would be useful but it’s a weapon with a short range OR one which requires the rifle grenadier to be kneeling in cover and even then only has a range of a couple of hundred meters. And its not obvious that it’s a lesson to be drawn from the Boer war.
BTW, RDF is not really viable to intercept telegraph or telephone comms. Prior to the fullerphone on the allied side it was possible to listen in on morse and some voice phone comms because of transmission through the earth but that does not give away position of itself, after not so much but you could always try and tap the line. Radios are simply too big to be practical. And the RE Signals branch lost around 50% of its people normally repairing lines behind the front. 1-2 km back you are in mg range, 7 ish km in the regularly beaten zone for artillery. German corps were losing a regiment a day bringing up the rations in the preliminary bombardment for the Somme.
marathag
Banned
6.5 Tons not enough? September 1902 'The Horseless Age'
https://books.google.com/books?id=LmpDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA337
note it's a water tube design, so safer than most.
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Note the comments of the Boer soldier at the end.
Military Ballooning - British Balloon Museum & Library
The first military use of observation balloons was during the French Revolutionary Wars. They were also used by both sides during the American Civil War (1861-65) and continued in use during the Franco-Prussian War. Balloons were first deployed by the British Army’s Royal Engineers during the...
www.bbml.org.uk
well if the mission involves delivering flour at the speed of a horse on the paved streets of Indy, sure. But not the one the Brits were looking for in 1901.
The 1901 spec for a military lorry was to be able to carry 5 tons, with 3 tons on the lorry and 2 tons on a trailer permissible. It had to be able to travel anywhere a country cart could, drive through a 7'6" wide gate, maintain 8mph on well-maintained roads and 5mph on poor or hilly roads and climb a 1 in 8 incline. It had to run for 48 hours without need for maintenance or cleaning.
The second trial was announced in October 1901, requiring a gross load of 25 tons to average 3mph for 40 miles, not exceeding 5mph, without need to refuel. A gross load of 12.5 tons had to be driven for 1 mile at 8mph and up a 1 in 6 gradient. In addition it had to traverse rough ground, wade through water two feet deep, have ground clearance of 18" and be crewed by no more than two men. It could be no more than 12' high, 7'6" wide and 20' long.
In 1902 it is proposed and in 1907 enacted that any motor vehicle user could be paid a fee if they agreed to make their vehicle available on mobilisation. Everyone did btw, called a class B subsidy.
Now all you have to do is ramp up production of the damn things to the level they make a difference.
thnks for the link.
I was making two points, one on the Gun/Howitzer and there is nothing in the article about that. The basic issue is that for a QF gun you can accept a recoil of around 1m on the barrel before going back into battery. For a howitzer its about half that. A gun firing on a generally flat trajectory has to have higher barrel pressure than a howitzer lobbing stuff. Trying to make a gun howitzer is feasible but its harder than making a gun and a howitzer as separate items especially if one type is intended to be firing DF all the time. The 25lb benefits from WW1 experience and is really a light howitzer that can do gun like things sometimes and it has radios to the FOO.
But the article reinforces my point. The German designs are tested against a variety of targets with 50-80cm of concrete overhead projection so not a major fortress but also not a trench. In fact the British have an excellent field howitzer - the 4.5'' equipping 25% of the field artillery in 1914, but its produced after the 18lb which is already in service. In fact procurement of both starts in 1901 - Roberts. But the FOO - gun position issue still exists. the Japanese howitzers ( and later german) function well in some circumstances, in others they or the observers are overwhelmed by direct fire artillery. Same thing happens to the Brits in 1915 where the howitzers fall silent when all of the observers are killed or the comms destroyed.
If the observer is in a bunker with a good view and linked to the batteries by a buried phone line devastating. Where the infantry cannot call for fire, just metal pounding a predicted fire target.
marathag
Banned
Pretty steep requirement for the era, if they included refueling as 'maintenance'
Run a horse team without maintenance at full load for 12-16 hours, you would have a team of very dead horses.
As I point out in other threads, don't let perfect be the enemy of 'good enough' in retiring Ol'Dobbins to the Farm or Glue Factory.
If they wanted to Standardize on a heavy Truck, they should have done what the US did in the War, Standardize a Truck design and build the Hell out of it.
Subsidize the Truck Manufacturer, not the end user.
If you build something as good as a GMC or Studebaker, companies across the country will buy them, and them more will be built
Produced in 1899, the government could sponsor the setting up of a modern factory to mass produce them. When the technology advances to permit it additional lines can be established for an equivalent internal combustion lorry.
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