Lee Enfield at 3000 yards

[Thumbcocker]

https://youtu.be/CWOw9Q6bovs

I would not want to be standing down there.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Larry Gibson]

Volley fire was very effective as can be seen from how close he was hitting at 3,000 yards. Imagine a squad or, better yet, a platoon of riflemen firing on command and how that would have rained down on an enemy. There was a very good illustration of being on the receiving end in a Movie where Earnest Borgnine is marching a platoon of German soldier towards the front in WWI. They get hit by volley fire from the British.

Unfortunately, the use of volley fire was never really understood or used by the US Army or Marines. Most all don't even know how to use the vertical scale on the reticle in issue binoculars. Not really for volley fire but for firing at targets the rifleman or machine gunners can't see. Similar to volley fire though.

[atr]

the Boer's were masters at long range volley fire, mostly using the 7x57 cartridge

[45workhorse]

Volley fire was very effective as can be seen from how close he was hitting at 3,000 yards. Imagine a squad or, better yet, a platoon of riflemen firing on command and how that would have rained down on an enemy. There was a very good illustration of being on the receiving end in a Movie where Earnest Borgnine is marching a platoon of German soldier towards the front in WWI. They get hit by volley fire from the British.

Unfortunately, the use of volley fire was never really understood or used by the US Army or Marines. Most all don't even know how to use the vertical scale on the reticle in issue binoculars. Not really for volley fire but for firing at targets the rifleman or machine gunners can't see. Similar to volley fire though.

Not volley fire, but, defilade fire.
We set it up one time at 29 Palms. We were just off the crest of a small dune, just far enough back for the round to clear the hill.
Each M-60 was set one at a time.
Then the fun began, we rained bullets down at a map distance of 2,700 yards. To hear 6, M60's "talking" lets just say it was thing of beauty.
Gun 1, started it off, and on down the line, then back to gun 1.
The Skipper was happy, he stood there and watched it, through bino's.
1,200 rounds tore up the trench line.
Just listening to those 6 guns talk, I am at a lost for words............


If I remember correctly the M240 has a bracket on the Left side, that you could attach the sight from the 60mm mortar. I have slept once or twice, since I last saw one. Never got a chance to try it out.
But, deploying "EMMA GEES" is a lost ART.

[Geezer in NH]

That's why emma geees get called Hard Rain

[45workhorse]

That's why emma geees get called Hard Rain

[Bigslug]

But, deploying "EMMA GEES" is a lost ART.

As cool a concept as it is, I'm not sure how widely the lost art was ever actually found.

Herbert McBride wrote The Emma Gees while WWI was still ongoing, and as I recall, he did not cover the art of long range beaten zones nearly as much as he did in 1935's A Rifleman Went to War because much of the techniques were considered secret. His branch of the Canadian/British service at least took it seriously; didn't sound like the Germans did much of it; the Americans had the early, rushed-into-production M1917's with sights that were incorrectly marked for the ammo until a post-war refit.

At the point you have a radio and artillery, you have to ask yourself "Why?", but I still find the notion of rifle volley sights and MG's as artillery fascinating.

[45workhorse]

The king of the battle field (arty) you can hear it fired and might even hear it moving through the air. But defilade emma gees fire you might not hear it. Tracer burn (7.62) out at 600 meters, so you still have 80% of the rounds hitting the target area.
Never got to set the M2 or MK19 up for defilade fire
But I have never been in combat so, I don't know what rounds/arty sound like other than sitting in pits at the rifle range marking targets for fellow Marines.

[ebb]

Near as i could tell the time of flight was over 8 seconds.

[Larry Gibson]

Tracer burn (7.62) out at 600 meters, so you still have 80% of the rounds hitting the target area..............

Only the trace element in the base of the bullet stops burning around 600 meters. The rest of the bullet keeps going and may or may not hit target area but it will hit somewhere down range.....thus 100% of the bullets keep going toward the enemy/desired impact area. My observations is the tracer bullets will impact with the others in the "beaten zone" out past 3000 meters. based on firing M60 at that range and beyond.

[45workhorse]

I still don't want to be down range. Firing line yes!!!

[samari46]

I had to watch that video twice as I thought it was neat. When you see the shooter rest his head on his hand I knew it was going to be great. Not wanting to be downrange either. Frank

[charlie b]

The method isn't used much because it wastes a lot of ammo.

[Larry Gibson]

The method isn't used much because it wastes a lot of ammo.

Heck of a lot less 'waste" than 3 - 5 rounds of mortar or artillery rounds....or 40mm grenade rounds.

One time on Range 81 [800 meter MG transition range] at Fort Lewis I put 4 of my shooters with well zeroed M16A2's on line shooting at one lane of targets (200 to 800 meters) against 3 M249s shooting on adjacent lanes of targets. I would call the range when targets appear, the M16 shooters would adjust the rear sight to that range and then fire 2 shots (semi, well aimed shots) at the targets. Should note the targets were several at each range representing MG crews, fire teams and squads. The left rifleman was to fire on the two left targets, the right rifleman the right two targets and the two middle riflemen (two of them were female Soldiers) the middle targets. The M249 gunners were from an infantry unit and were to fire 6 - 10 shot bursts at each of the target banks in their lane. The course of fire was controlled from the tower through a computer which recorded the number of hits. When the smoke cleared my four riflemen had more hits than the M249s with almost double the hits on two of the M249s. My riflemen had expended about 2/3s the ammo that any of the M249s did.

Opened some eyes on that day and won a fifth of whiskey off the platoon sergeant of the M249 gunners.

[Rapidrob]

I one of my WWI books,it may have been " Shots fired in Anger" there was a chapter on the Britt's Volley Firing on many German soldiers at a cross roads. The distance was well over 2,500 yards.
The number killed or wounded was high and there were few places to escape from the "Steel Rain" as the Germans called it. If my memory serves me, there were a couple of thousand rounds fired in just a couple of minutes.( the English soldiers were well trained in the "Mad Minute" of rapid firing accurate rounds in 60 seconds.)
It changed an offensive the Germans were about to start. Not what you'd call a waste of ammo.

[45workhorse]

Emma Gees are for area targets, some examples are, troops in the open, a linear ambush, a vehicle convoy.....
Especially, if the beaten zone coincides with the long axis of the target.

I miss my belt fed Machine guns.

Aimed fire should always result in more hits.

Larry you are waking up some long unused brain cells. Where I am now, no belt feds, short ranges and pine trees. Not very good for steel rain.
I will have to dig out some books and reread, just so I can keep up with you.

[charlie b]

Larry, that's aimed fire. Not a waste of ammo. Aimed rifle fire is much better than MG's at most ranges. MGs are better with massed concentrations of troops, as above, when the beaten zone covers multiple targets.

Tank qualifications using the MG's used to be just a "Z" pattern across the infantry targets. Someone realized that at the end of the day (17 tanks, 100rnds each) there were only a handful of holes in the targets. Subsequently the 'knock down' target mechanisms were installed on tank ranges. The "Z" pattern that was taught resulted in many fails. Since then gunners would to aim at a small group shoot a burst, shift aim to another, etc until the targets knocked down.

[Larry Gibson]

Larry, that's aimed fire. Not a waste of ammo. Aimed rifle fire is much better than MG's at most ranges. MGs are better with massed concentrations of troops, as above, when the beaten zone covers multiple targets.........

Yes it was aimed fire fired in volley at targets configured for machine gun "beaten zones". The four M249 gunners were also aiming and firing bursts of 6 - 10 rounds. Volley fire during WWI was aimed, both with rifles and machineguns. If it wasn't aimed there's no way it would be effective at long range. The rifleman and machine gunners may not have aimed directly at there target but they were aiming at something. Aiming at an alternate aiming point is what the vertical reticle in military binoculars is for.

BTW; this is the reticle I'm referring to. It was in military binoculars up through the mid '60s and early '70s. Then the ranging vertical scale was replaced with a mil scale.

[missionary5155]

For annual tank crew qualification we always had a MG target set out beyond 3000 meters. But with the M60 tank rangefinder it was rather easy.

[Bigslug]

The method isn't used much because it wastes a lot of ammo.

You kinda need to have a hindsight chuckle at how military systems seem to get designed by committee.

If you think in terms of the old 40+ caliber rifles firing 400+ grain bullets in an era where ammunition had to be transported over unpaved terrain by horses, then it's pretty easy to understand why the logistics boys fought the idea of a magazine-fed rifle so the troops wouldn't blow through the ammo supply.

Then you can kinda understand how, after an engagement like the defense of Rorke's Drift, the Brits would have an attraction to the idea of a magazine cutoff that would allow fighting in Squares while single loading like the old Martini, but keep the magazine contents available for when things got REALLY hairy.

Then you end up with the pre-1916 SMLE with a magazine cutoff (to not waste ammo) AND volley sights (to shower down rounds) mounted on the SAME rifle. If nothing else, it shows a desire to micro-manage the troops.