The General Staff

The Employment of Machine Guns 1918 (Parts One [Tactical] & Two [Organisation and Direction of Fire] The General Staff

Issued in January 1918, this volume consists of the two parts - Tactical and Organisation and Direction of Fire - of the Army General Staff's official doctrines on the use of machine guns. By this stage of the Great War, the implications of the slaughter inflicted by enemy machine guns at the Somme in 1916 and at Passchendaele in 1917 had percolated through to the BEF's High Command, who were now matching German tactics in employing this fearsome weapon. In Part One there are Chapters on employing machine guns in defensive and offensive roles; use of the guns in woods, villages and towns; organising the defence of captured positions; improvisation and how to employ the guns in open ground. There is also an A-Z of machine guns, from co-operation with artillery to wire and woods. Part II has sections on maps, contours, scales, traversing, overhead fire, night firing and barrage fire among others. This is a complete guide to the British Army's use of machine guns in the final stages of the Great War and is essential reading.