shooting instruction before and during WWI

Kampfhamster

Kampfhamster

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I'm trying to put together a brief history of shooting instruction starting with the invention of smokeless powder and breech loaders up to now.

How exactly were allied troops trained before and during WWI? Out to what distances did they shoot? From stories I know that swiss soldiers shoot out to 800m on a regular base. I assume allied soldiers did the same.
 
Oh Smellie!? Someone want's to pick your brain.


{you may have to slide a pizza under the sock closet door OP?}


I know that volley sights on some Enfields were set to beyond 2000 yards. Understand at that distance ones target is not an individual, rather the squad, regiment ect's target is the enemies squad, regiment ect's movements. Almost a throw back to Welch Longbowmen...shoulder to shoulder rapid firing with an arching trajectory to saturate an area with arrows {bullets/projectiles}.

Smellie, please correct me if I'm off base but I think as soon as both sides started to "dig in" the Brit's realized the volley sights all but useless...warfare had changed...the Lee Enfield was adapted. {quite well if I do say so myself.:p}
 
Kampfhamster said:
I'm trying to put together a brief history of shooting instruction starting with the invention of smokeless powder and breech loaders up to now.

How exactly were allied troops trained before and during WWI? Out to what distances did they shoot? From stories I know that swiss soldiers shoot out to 800m on a regular base. I assume allied soldiers did the same.
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Gotta remember in the early days of WWl, the power of the machine gun hadn't been appreciated yet and volley shooting was an important part of infantry training, that's why those puzzling sights on the early LEs and their kin. ;) Then people died like flies and there was little time to train their replacements. British standards were abysmal, according to my sources, better to throw a grenade.

Gryzz
 
It probably depended on what your role was going to be. I'm sure in basic training you were not shooting past the +-500yrd mark. But if you were going to be a sniper they trained you to reach further distances.
 
I'm not sure he drinks beer, and Smellie himself has recently commented on the vertical clearance issues between the floor and the bottom of the sock closet door if he were to be presented with such treats...best to call the pizza guy, charge it to your card and send him Smellie's way for a delivery.

I'm currently trying to cut and paste a different shooting position...standby.
 
Chaput said:
It probably depended on what your role was going to be. I'm sure in basic training you were not shooting past the +-500yrd mark. But if you were going to be a sniper they trained you to reach further distances.
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instruction of sniper's was always special and is not really that much of interest in this context.
 
Supine_position.gif


Fulton%20in%20Position.jpg


A position known as "Supine"...or so I'm told. I still have no idea how anyone can shoot like that without getting a severe butt stock slap to the head!?
 
PM sent.

I have the Ross shooting manual and the Canadian Scoring Book on CD (prepared by myself from original copies).

Also a pile of others. Working slowly to get them all on electronic files: some are very rare.
 
Chaput said:
It probably depended on what your role was going to be. I'm sure in basic training you were not shooting past the +-500yrd mark. But if you were going to be a sniper they trained you to reach further distances.
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Sir, in WW1 and before there was NO sniper training of any kind in anybody's army, let alone those of the British Empire/Commonwealth. Please have a read of a couple of books about how the sniping schools eventually came about -

'Sniping in France' by Major H Hesketh-Pritchard DSO MC for WW1.

After WW1 it was all forgotten...and had all to be re-learned, using the skills of the Lovat Scouts...........................'With British snipers to the Reich' by Captain C Shore in WW2.

See also

'Sniper' by Peter Brookesmith.

'The sniper at war' by Mike Haskew.

'Out of nowhere' by Martin Pegler.

'The pictorial history of USSniping' by Peter Sennich

...and lastly, IF you can find one, the Department of the Army Training Circular TC 23-14 - Sniper Training and Employment pf October 1969 - a grea read and a positive eye-opener.

There are literally dozens of books by our friends below the 48th on how THEY had to relearn all the skills put aside after WW1, and again after WW2, so that they could successfuly employ the skills of folks like Charles Mawwhinney, Carlos Hathcock and other Viet-Nam era snipers.

The road back to the likes of the Canadian DF Master Corporal Rob Furlong was long and hard.

tac
 
See if you can find this book, it'll give you a little background. ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Trench-War-Anthony-Saunders/dp/0750918187

Grizz
 
tacfoley said:
Sir, in WW1 and before there was NO sniper training of any kind in anybody's army, let alone those of the British Empire/Commonwealth. Please have a read of a couple of books about how the sniping schools eventually came about -

'Sniping in France' by Major H Hesketh-Pritchard DSO MC for WW1.

After WW1 it was all forgotten...and had all to be re-learned, using the skills of the Lovat Scouts...........................'With British snipers to the Reich' by Captain C Shore in WW2.

See also

'Sniper' by Peter Brookesmith.


'The sniper at war' by Mike Haskew.

'Out of nowhere' by Martin Pegler.

'The pictorial history of USSniping' by Peter Sennich

...and lastly, IF you can find one, the Department of the Army Training Circular TC 23-14 - Sniper Training and Employment pf October 1969 - a grea read and a positive eye-opener.

There are literally dozens of books by our friends below the 48th on how THEY had to relearn all the skills put aside after WW1, and again after WW2, so that they could successfuly employ the skills of folks like Charles Mawwhinney, Carlos Hathcock and other Viet-Nam era snipers.

The road back to the likes of the Canadian DF Master Corporal Rob Furlong was long and hard.

tac
Click to expand...


MAYBE THERE WERE NO "OFFICIAL TRAINING" BEFORE WW1. BUT I HAVE SEEN A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE SNIPER.
IN THIS DOCUMENTARY THEY TALK ABOUT THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND HOW SHARPSHOOTERS BECAME A FORCE OF THERE OWN.

WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY. VERY INTERESTING.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHLDZWWMIxY
 
"Sniping in the Great War" by Martin Pegler states that the German army had a sniper program in place prior to WW1, also that the British built a program (somewhat ad hoc) during the war.


A great book by the way.
 
Kampfhamster said:
I'm trying to put together a brief history of shooting instruction starting with the invention of smokeless powder and breech loaders up to now.

How exactly were allied troops trained before and during WWI? Out to what distances did they shoot? From stories I know that swiss soldiers shoot out to 800m on a regular base. I assume allied soldiers did the same.
Click to expand...

It is impossible to generalize about the "Allies". I can't say anything about the French, but the British and the Dominions all worked from the same manuals, though the Ross in Canada would have introduced some variations. There is quite a bit of material available about the British in the pre-WWI period of course. In brief they had "no end of a lesson" in the 2nd Boer War and set out to make their infantry the best riflemen in the world, and to give them the best battle rifle. There was a great upsurge of interest with official support for rifle practice and a lot of technical innovation. The Ross and the P13/14 were designed in that period; the SMLE was considered out of date by many experts and inferior to the Mauser. Unfortunately the next war proved to be quite different and the SMLE turned out to be very suitable after all!

Volley fire with the .303 MkVII cartridge was provided for out to 2700 yards. 600 men firing 15 rounds a minute is the same volume of fire as 30 Maxims, approximately. They create a similar beaten zone by their fire, with equal effect. The Germans learned this in 1914, but those men of the pre-war Regular Army were mostly dead by the end of 1915 and the standard of weapon's handling and marksmanship went down from there.
 
There was no such thing as sniper training until well after W.W. II. Anyway, on .303british.com(add the W's) there's a page about buying a book on Musketry training for W.W. I and Small Arms training for W.W. II.
What Major Fulton is doing is shooting a 'creedmore' style match. Strictly civilian, long range, target shooting.
If you have a closet just for your socks, you have some serious issues of some kind. snicker.
 
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