milsurp rear sight question.

[tahunua001]

hello all,
I am currently taking a communications class where I will be giving a speech on WWI weapons and tactics. I have heard from several fellows online that the reason that rear sights on milsurps are graduated so high was so that entire units could bombard a broad area rather than the expectation that a soldier could actually hit something at 2700 meters. however I can not find a single credible source to substantiate these claims. does anyone have a credible source for this information?

 

[44 AMP]

I can't give you a single source, but what you are looking for would be in the military manuals from the Pre-WW I era.

The tactic was generally called "volley fire" and it was an entire group (squad, platoon, or company, depending on circumstances) aiming at an area target at long range.

This comes from the days before the machinegun came to be recognized as the dominant small arm for suppressive fire. Even as late as the Second World war, some nations did not have machineguns as part of the infantry squad. They were support weapons.

Also, in those distant days, a much higher premium was placed on individual marksmanship. The US Army at one time practiced individual marksmanship out to about 1200 yards. Volley fire was for ranges beyond that!

 

[10-96]

For a reference- seek ye the book "Battle Leadership" by Captain Adolf von Schell. He was a Platoon Leader in WWI (for the German Army) who later did much teaching for the Ft. Benning Infantry School.

Hope that helps. He lays out the method of which it's used where the leadership estimates ranges, gives orders by squad for sight settings, then comes the order to fire. It was more of a harrassment and disruptment of dismounted foot soldier march technique. They did much more of the foot march thing back before some blessed soul invented the deuce-and-a-half.

 

[wogpotter]

There was also something called a "beaten zone" & a "Safe zone".

The idea was that you could shoot long range into a massed group of the enemy troops, not specifically to hit an individual target, but to prevent them from firing because they were (supposedly) hiding from the large amount of incoming fire. Your troops meanwhile moved forward to engage the enemy underneath the high-flying bullets in the "safety zone" where the trajectory was 12~20 feet above them in complete safety.

 

[Wyosmith]

As 44 AMP said the rifles were developed in the days when the machine gun was just being developed, and some of them just before. So suppressing fire from rifles was the order of the day. Our 1903 Springfield (developed 11 years before WW1 was started) was the "new kid" in that war. Most other rifles had designs that dated some 10-15 years older than ours. In the 1890s machine guns were VERY new and most armies didn't have any of them.

WW1 was a war of untold carnage because of the developments in both artillery and machineguns. The use of the "modern" supporting weapons made 1000-1800 yard rifle shooting obsolete.

The designs of those rifle sights dated back to a day when that was the only kind of long range suppression that existed.

 

[gyvel]

"Volley fire" was one tactic used by the British as early as the Boer War. British-made Lee-Enfields had secondary "volley sights" installed on their rifles specifically for that purpose.

It was determined that a bullet at 2000+ yards still retained enough energy to wound a man, thus putting him out of action.

Volley fire practice was usually done with something like a 30 foot bullseye and the percentage of hits was recorded.

I believe this information is spelled out in Major E. G. B. Reynolds book, The Lee-Enfield Rifle.

The Lee-Enfield sights consisted of a separate flip-up peep sight attached to the left rear of the receiver and a dial plate inletted (scribed with ranges) into the foreend with a rotating pointer that pointed to a range at one end, and had a small metal bead on the other to line up on the target when looking through the peep sight.

The volley sights were also incorporated into the design of the Pattern '14 rifle (predecessor of our "1917 Enfield"). They were declared obsolescent ca. 1916 and not used after that.

 

[James K]

Volley fire was not usually used against attacking (or defending) troops, but against areas. Those might be trench lines or places where troops were forming up, but also were places like headquarters buildings, railway stations, artillery parks, supply routes, close support supply depots, and the like. Only rarely did the falling bullets actually kill anyone, but there was a morale factor in having even a few men wounded or killed by what appeared to be an invisible blow from the sky.

Jim

 

[kraigwy]

I have heard from several fellows online that the reason that rear sights on milsurps are graduated so high was so that entire units could bombard a broad area rather than the expectation that a soldier could actually hit something at 2700 meters. however I can not find a single credible source to substantiate these claims. does anyone have a credible source for this information?

Machine Guns, 1917 By Gen (then Major) J. Hatcher, Major G. Wilhelm, and Maj H Maloney.

This book explains what you're looking for. It deals with the how to's an why's of long range fire, Machine Guns and Rifles. Using both in indirect fire, covering dead space, etc. etc. where you had to "drop" round in enemy trenches at 1000-2000 and beyond.

Also determining safe zones for overhead fire of friendly troops.

I wrote a paper that covers part of it; or how to determine the adjustments needed. It might help, or might not, depending on what you're looking for.

http://photos.imageevent.com/kraigwy/mannaccuracydevice/Compute_Ordinate mid range to target.pdf