Who likes volley sights??

[Claven2]

Thought I'd show off 2 of my latest acquisitions and see what other guns you folks out there have that include anachronistic volley sights.

Gun on top is a 1913 BSA SMLE MkIII with Jan 1916 Australian issue markings in the 2nd Military District. It's a matching gun, but the adjustable rear sight is force matched.

Gun below it is an Eddystone P14 MkI*E with RAF marked stock roundel. No Weedon repair depot markings and retains its original volley sights. It's a matching gun, though the bolt is force-matched.

As an observation, P14s always seen to shoot better than SMLEs, but the SMLEs seem quite a bit handier and are lighter. I get why they were favored for front line issue in WW1 over the P14 in all but the sniping roles. I suspect this Eddystone spent the war guarding some aerodrome somewhere, while the SMLE likely spent WW1 with the Citizen Military Forces of the 2nd Military District in New South Wales, there is a CMF/2MD - 1/1916 stamp on the buttstock. It was re-barreled in 1929, still has a nice bore, and doesn't look to have seen any real action since. The barrel seems to be the only Australian-made part on it, and it's numbered to match the receiver.

Anyone else got some cool (ideally commonwealth) WW1 era rifles with volley sights to show off?

 

[Potashminer]

The notion of "volley sights" on rifles was a British notion when "those in charge" did not think machine guns were needed for long range firing - so British soldier's idea was a squad of riflemen, perhaps 10 rounds each, rapid fire - set volley sights to 2,600 yards of so, and saturate that acre of land with bullets - perhaps the other guys over there would duck or quit whatever they were doing - maybe some were unlucky enough to be actually hit - or so I had read.

So is probable that you will find volley sights / inletting, etc. on British made SMLE and on made-for-Britain P14 - but not found on M1917, even though made in same factories, to similar blueprints, only a few months later. I always suspected that the US Army's use of Gatling guns made them have a different opinion of machine guns on a battle field, then the senior British guys had. I have an ad up on CGN EE - among other things, I am looking for "R" marked volley sights for P14 - I have "W" marked and "E" marked, and some reproductions - but not any "R" marked.

A very specific (separate) rear sight and bolt stop spring seat is required for those volley sights to work on P14.

 

[Eaglelord17]

It wasn’t just the British who believed that they would be fighting long range with their rifles and also weren’t the only ones with volley sights. The Austro-Hungarians had volley sights on their 1888-1890 series straight pull rifles.

Every nation at that time thought they would be shooting longer ranges thanks to experiences like the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer war, and all the various colonial wars against poorly armed troops. The P13 development was specifically to make a long range bolt action rifle intended for these expectations.

Volley sights makes sense from the context that they mainly expected troops to be marching in formation or poorly equipped mobs charging you. It was also intended for taking out fixed positions such as artillery (which still would have had some direct fire expectations at this point in time). In which case they would have worked sufficiently. Part of the reason the mad minute worked so well at the beginning of the war was the fact the Germans would march to the front.

French doctrine at the beginning of WWI was that they could march 50m in 10 seconds and only get shot at once, basically completely ignoring the existence of machine guns let alone the bolt action rifle. It is a large part of why they lost so many in such a little amount of time, highest casualties of a single battle in a single day, it was something like 38k. Insane.

The Gewehr 98 had a 400m minimum sight setting and even though it didn’t have volley sights it still had a 2000m maximum setting.

 

[Claven2]

I’m currently cleaning up a really badly rusted and beat tomato stake of an 1888/90 that has volley sights. Will probably never fire again, but it’s a hard to find hole filler. Will post some pics when it’s ready. Mostly I like it for what it is and that it also had volleys.

 

[Eaglelord17]

I’m currently cleaning up a really badly rusted and beat tomato stake of an 1888/90 that has volley sights. Will probably never fire again, but it’s a hard to find hole filler. Will post some pics when it’s ready. Mostly I like it for what it is and that it also had volleys.

Very hard to find rifles in Canada, let alone in any sort of decent condition. I lucked into my Bulgarian M90 (88/90 that was never a 88) which is in VG condition and it still has the volley sights which is also rare.

Most of them had the volley sights removed, I suspect post WWI but likely depended on who was using it.

 

[Painkillers]

Nevermind, and thank you Eaglelord.

 

[Claven2]

I should have taken before pics, but mine had black wood with a heavy coat of grime, cracked stock, and bright orange scaly rust on every surface. I had to machine off the action screw heads to get it apart.

Many parts will be forever pitted and with basically no finish, but it’s too far gone, in my view, to refinish the stock acceptably. I could probably file out the pits and rebuke the gun, but not worth the effort. It should display ok when I’m done.

The barrelled receiver is still not touched apart from me wire wheeling where the markings are. I’ll take pics to give you all an idea of how it started out.

 

[Claven2]

While I like volley sights, and magazine cutoffs, I've never had or used either, which brings me to a few questions I hope you fellows can answer.

Volley sights, not too dissimilar to archery disciplines, were intended to deny the enemy access to an area on the battlefield. Practically speaking, the troop defending the area at question would form fairly tightly together, all set sights at the same yardage and most likely empty their magazines. The effect would be 1000's of rounds raining down on to an area perhaps 30m-50m square, 1200 meters (yards) away. The lethality, while arguable, I believe plays second fiddle to the psychological impact on the receiving end.

As trench warfare became the norm, the sights were deemed redundant as engagements became hand grenade close. Understanding that England had an Archery martial tradition, that morphed on to the SMLE and other rifle platforms, did the German or Austrian/Hungarian/Prussians not have a similar countermeasure? Are there Kar98's with volley sights? Are their field action reports of tit for tat engagements with enemy troop at long distances that resulted in casualties or KIA's?

Said another way, and taking trench warfare out of the picture, how effective were these sights/ tactics in early WW1 or perhaps Boer War?

As mentioned above, the Mauser used the Lange-vizier, a very tall rear sight that could go to 2000 meters without needing separate volley sights. Same with the m91 mosin.

Same concept, but different approach to get there.

In terms of action reports, troops on the receiving end would not have known the difference between 100 soldiers using volley sights and one machine gunner saturating an area.

In Tuchman’s Guns of August, she cites German troops reporting coming under MG fire that was in fact delivered by massed troops firing smle rifles in late 1914.