Looking back to WWI:
THE AEF WAY OF WAR: THE AMERICAN ARMY
AND COMBAT IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR
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During the latter phases, when no barrage existed, “the officers and men were too reckless,” often charging enemy machine guns, instead of outflanking them. 102 Even the division commander remarked that generally “there was no time wasted in flanking these obstacles; the men . . . took them all by frontal attack and at the point of the bayonet.” 103
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Buck reported that his “leading waves” were “not thin enough,” and he wanted at least eight toten paces between riflemen when advancing under fire. “Better still,” he suggested, would be an irregular line of small columns at wide intervals, each small column being an independent unit whose mission is to gain the flank or rear of machine gun nests, with the permission to advance rapidly or slowly according to conditions of the resistance met, always picking its way through barrages or areas swept by machine gun fire. These small columns (4, 6, or 8 men each) should have Chauchat rifles, or V-Bs [rifle grenades], or hand grenades, but the absence of any or all of these should not alter the action of purpose of the group.104
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"It was by observation of the Moroccans in this action that the regiment learned the
method of advance ordinarily utilized by European veterans, whereby the assault line,
having lost the barrage, progressed steadily forward, individuals, under the eye of their
squad leaders, moving at a run from shell-hole to shell-hole. When stopped by
resistance,--usually a machine gun,--the squad, section, or platoon engaged it by fire
from the front, while flankers immediately worked around with rifles and grenades to
take it from the flank. It was a common saying in the 1st Division that the Moroccans
taught them how to fight." (p73)
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The division’s officers took a number of actions to solve these problems. Junior officers who reported that “Infantry is handicapped against organized machine gun nests without the mortars or one pounders [37mm],” made certain they always went forward with those pieces in the future, and they learned to make good use of them.107 Summerall ordered an investigation into the use of machine guns and automatic rifles, directed changes to the way the guns were to be advanced during battle (always “from cover to cover” behind the leading waves, with a forward observer looking for prospective fire missions), made improvements in their method of ammunition supply (every rifleman would carry a clip for the Chauchat), and stressed the importance of their fire during the attack (he claimed that one of the primary “lessons” of Soissons “was the great advantage of employing all of the machine guns in the most powerful manner to support the infantry”).108 Summerall even announced the heresy that “the service rifle” was “greatly inferior in value” to the automatic rifle, and he directed that every rifleman be trained to shoot the automatic. (p74)
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During this period Summerall also issued a directive specifying how he wanted his infantry tofight, and it shows that he expected it to make maximum use of its available firepower.
"Hostile strongpoints and machine guns must not impede the advance of any part of the
line not obstructed by them. They will be vigorously reduced by the intense fire of
machine guns, automatic rifles, Stokes mortars and 37mm guns, and the accompanying
artillery. Under cover of this fire the infantry must advance by rushes around the flanks,
in small groups or individually, accompanied by automatic rifles.5"
The standard service rifle was conspicuously absent from the list of crucial infantry weapons. Also, in keeping with the directives of Pershing’s newly issued Combat Instructions, Summerall intended to employ a few light guns as accompanying artillery pieces in order to give the infantry more power. He likewise directed that all twelve machine guns of each machine-gun company would be used to advance the infantry in all attacks, and that each gun was to follow all infantry advances with a minimum of 2,500 rounds.
This little snippets must of course be seen in the context of the concept of a late WWI set-piece attack. The relative importance on the infantry weapons increased in the more fluid phases and semi-open warfare as the coordination with the artillery became more difficult.
It really seems that the upper brass went to Europe with great faith in the rifle, the bayonet and the will of the soldier and tried to defend their doctrine. Younger and lower ranks adapted generally much more quickly.
Going back to the topic one can see just how much and how rapidly the importance of the auxiliary infantry weapons increased, just like the one of the combined arms (artillery, tanks and aircraft) did on a larger scale.
Machine guns, light 37mm guns, automatic rifles, hand grenades, (WP, HE) rifle grenades, flamethrowers, bangalore torpedos became very important indeed. Specialists like "bombers" were selected and trained for specific tasks with 10-15 hand or rifle grenades. (The same concept was used by German raiding parties in WWII) The automatic rifle (Chauchats) was a key element for the infantry during the attacks and seems to have had a very strong influence on the concept of the BAR.
I was never quite aware just how massive the production of rifle grenades was both in WWI and WWII. I have never fired a rifle grenade, perhaps this is the major reason why this important component of the platoons and squads of the two World Wars remained under my personal radar.
Firn
P.S: (Wiki)
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The initial two-man Chauchat team was also found insufficient and eventually grew to a four-man squad by October 1917 (the squad leader, the gunner, the assistant gunner who handled the magazines plus one additional magazine carrier). Later on, during the German spring offensive of 1918, the war had moved out of the mud of the trenches and into open fields thus making the guns more reliable and easier to maintain. Furthermore, French infantry regiments had been reorganized into multiple small (18 men) combat groups ("Demi-Sections de Combat"). Those were made up of a full Chauchat squad plus four VB (Viven-Bessiere) rifle grenade specialists and eight conventional grenadiers/riflemen. At this point in time, in 1918, the preserved French regimental records and statistics of medals given to Chauchat gunners document that they had contributed in no small part to the success of the new infantry tactics. Those were focused on the suppression of enemy machine gun nests by the combined action of portable (Chauchat) automatic fire plus the VB rifle grenades, always used within a range of less than 200 yards.