The Vickers Gun & Indirect Fire
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2022
- On the 16 July, I took part in a Spotlight Saturday event at the UK’s National Army Museum in London. Organised by the @vickersmg the event commemorated the 100th anniversary of the disbandment of the British Army’s Machine Gun Corps but also commemorated the legacy of the Vickers Machine Gun itself. In support of the event I gave a talk on how the Vickers was used in the indirect fire role.
For another angle check out the original VMGCRA livestream: • MGC2022 Indirect Fire ...
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armourersbench.com/2022/08/03...
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One of the best account of indirect fire in ww1 is, without a doubt, the one of sir Herbert McBride of the 21st regiment of the CEF in his book "a rifleman went to war". Not only he describes doing indirect fire has early has 1915 during most notably the battle of Loos, but also how he and his lads had to basically made his range charts from scratch using rubish in no man's land. He was also a proponent of... the colt 1895 potato digger, which he deemed better than the vickers and maxims!
McBride only favored the 1895 Colt for this indirect fire BS,as it had less vibration!Otherwise he considered it a lousy weapon in comparison.But it was the only machinegun,the Canadians had,at the beginning.
This technique holds value. I doubt most, if any, counter mortar radar, could adequately track it for counter battery fire.
You'd have to do it the old fashioned way, listen for firing, listen (or watch/feel) impact, count, and then best guess for azimuth
Yeah!if only there weren't drones!-----Drone flies up,and drops a couple of 30mm shells---End Of Game!
A recording of incoming indirect fire with sight and sound on the receiving end of indirect fire while a chap is trying to live in a trench would be fascinating.
Well done presentation on a horrifying method of war.
Thank you glad you found it interesting. Yes that would be very interesting to replicate.
I've been looking for this info for ages. I've seen some pictures of HMGs angled like mortars and some brief articles describing their use in indrect fire but nothing in depth
Glad this was of use to you! Thanks for watching!
Big subject. Basically platoon would make range cards of their position and pass on salient points to support platoon. They dig in motors and GMPG on tripod with prismatic sight and trilux markers (these are tritium discs on sticks that are put around the gun pit and the sight can be wound on to them for quick reference. This means off set in azimuth and elevation is simpler onto a target. Then gun is registered on likely point of interest and can be quickly offset from there. "Church up 200 right 200" with quick fire orders or delayed orders allowing grids to be used. .
Beaten zone is long and thin thus at say 2000 meters it will be about 150 mtrs long by 20 at most. Thus enfilade fire, to envelope the target, is best. Without going into first graze, dangerous space and so on thats about it.
@@SnoopReddogg From which you learnt: First Graze, Cone of Fire, beaten zone and effect of slope on Danger Space etc etc. Think yourself lucky he didnt make you run around to teach you traverse and elevation!
Excellent presentation, thank you! A comparison (logistics, morale and physical effects, etc.) between the machine gun and mortars would be interesting. Thanks again for your great work!
You're right it would. A future project perhaps, glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching.
Ernest Junger in his memoir Storm of Steel describes his men on several occasion taking casualties to indirect British machine gun fire if I recall correctly
I will have to reread, its been too long!
Outstanding talk
Thanks Joe, first time in a while I'd done one!
I love you videos! This one has got to be one of my favorites now!
Thanks Zachary, glad you enjoyed it!
Good stuff. Very interesting
Interesting presentation, thank you.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it.
Wow had no idea they could reach back over 4,000 metres. That's some distance. Thanks for the vid, very interesting!
Glad you found it interesting, thanks for watching!
I seem to remember a scene in Saving Private Ryan seeing a Browning .50 cal shooting up at about a 45 deg angle. This explains the scene and the extent the producers made to make it realistic.
Time for a re-evaluation of the french Mitrailleuse in comparsion to the vickers machine gun also used in the barrage fire role perhaps
I love stuff like this.G. Corrigan's Mud, Blood and Poppycock is full of infomation like this
Ooh yes, that's a classic.
@@TheArmourersBench his stuff about primitive counter battery stuff using microphones and triangulation would be an interesting subject although I realise a bit out of your subject range
Excellent !
Thank you!
@@TheArmourersBench definitely do a video on the intricacies of indirect fire, people would enjoy the details
@@spiffinz Absolutely!!
Interesting
H and I fire, only with M.G.'s.
What was the pattern size of a fixed vickers at the normal ranges of ww1 and 2 ? I’m curious the size of beating zone 1 gun would hold.
It looks like these lessons are being relearned in the Ukranine war witht he use of AGLs in an indirect role.
Excellent presentation! There were a lot of great questions I'm sure asked and answered at the end. Unfortunately, I have not a clue as to what they were or the answers to them for the most part. One could sort of figure out the question based on the answer given by the presenter in some cases.
If you wish to go from a B- rating to A++ on the next presentation, please have either a microphone for the questioner or have the presenter repeat each question into the mic and then answer them through the mic or hand the mic to whomever is giving the answer. I feel cheated by the loss of information Lol. Thank you though for your effort and time.
Thank you, glad you found it interesting. Sadly mics were out of my control and not available. Thanks for watching.
Machine gun theory.
There are virtually no reports from the receiving side!Be it from WW1 or WW2!It would be interesting to watch a film from the"beaten zone"!At 3000 yards the.303 is pretty much at the end of it's tether energy wise and it is much more subject to atmospheric influence,like wind!It can wound but very rarely kill.--To me it very much sounds,like the machinegun guys invented an occupation,to safeguard their job!
Your thought process does seem logical when applied to a bullet and the .303 caliber. I would add that as the bullet reaches it's apex and starts back down, gravity will start to increase the bullets speed again and it would regain some of it's momentum.
If you look up a ballistics chart showing drop and energy loss, the chart assumes one is shooting with direct fire and the weapon is more or less at a 90 degree angle to the ground .In this case, the energy bleed off and bullet drop happens almost immediately.
I am guessing that the math is very different when the weapon is firing at a 135 degree angle with the bullet having just as much travel time downwards as it did upwards? However, math is not my strong suit and at times, neither is my physics when I attempt to understand it?
No reports, you say?
@@nickjohnson710 YES!--Name any!(from the German or Austrian side)
@@pebo8306 I find that hard to believe
Still a technique used today.
Maybe. Sort of. The good ol' tripod T&E if you have a spotter. Not a precision weapon, but definitely inhibits target's movement. "Beaten zone"
Maybe it is time to consider once again employ indirect machine fire in Ukraine to support the current Ukraine counter offense to retake Kherson.
All those Russian machine guns Ukraine has captured might be put to that use and maybe fitted with a water cooling kit.
I've seen a Maxim, in Separatist hands, being fired upwards from a bank in what appeared to be an indirect role so anything is possible.
It's in hand. Excellent for delaying the rebuilding of bridges etc.
With modern technique,this is a stupid idea!Neither do they have that quantities of ammo;but with todays drone oberservation and counter-battery calculators,you are dead meat within 1-2 minutes!
@@pebo8306 🤣