For use against any entrenched or fortified positions the howitzers are much more effective than the rifles, due to the fact that they throw their shells up at a sharp angle and they drop at a correspondingly sharp angle. The rifle shells have more of a grazing effect and often, after striking on hard ground, will ricochet for miles beyond the target.
Aside from the light field guns — commonly designated as “whiz-bangs” — the most generally used both by the Germans and the allied armies was of approximately six inch calibre and the shells from these were called “crumps.” The British had both “four-point-sevens” and “nine-point-twos,” this latter being an exceptionally efficient device for rooting out the concrete machine-gun emplacements — called Pill Boxes.
Then, of course, there were the innumerable types of trench mortars; throwing everything from the size of a small pineapple up to monstrous cargoes of high explosive weighing, in some cases, as much as two hundred pounds.
Yes, the artillery caused us plenty of grief but, now here is something for the ordinary tax-payer to consider; they also cost several times as much as the infantry or machine gunners. It was a common jest with us that, when one of the fifteen inch howitzers sent a shell over our heads, someone would remark: “there goes another hundred pounds.” No, he did not mean the weight of the shell, but that it cost about one hundred pounds, Sterling (approximately $500) for each and every one of those shots. Oh, yes, of course, they did a lot of execution — mostly in some vacant lot or field; but my opinion is, based on close observation during the war and careful thought since that time, that, excepting for the purpose of breaking down the strongest fortifications and for the use of heavily armoured battleships, it is a woeful and unwarranted waste of the taxpayer’s money to construct and operate these large-calibred guns. I mean, so far as actual
What we had to do was to build literally miles of railway, first removing all the sod and, when they had brought the gun up to the appointed place, to replace everything that might give an indication of what had happened. Usually these big guns were ensconced in buildings, and it was necessary to remove a large part of the roof and one side and replace these parts with the especially-prepared camouflage. Also, in most instances, it was necessary to tear out a lot of the inside walls of the house. Taken all in all, it was a tough job, as it all had to be done during the hours of darkness — in one night. The real Railway Guns were, of course, different. They remained on their mounts and were fired from the curved tracks which the Railway Corps had prepared for them. The 14-inch naval guns used by the U.S. army at the close of the war were of that type, but there were plenty of them in use a long time before that.
Now, I may be “all wet” about this but I still believe and insist that the actual results of heavy calibred and long range gun-fire is not worth what it costs in actual dollars and cents.
The fire of the lighter “rifles” — say up to about six inches — is not only more accurate but the guns themselves are so much more mobile that they can readily be moved from point to point quickly enough to keep the other fellow guessing. The French 75s and the German 77s, in my opinion, killed off more men than all the heavier guns used during the war.
What good did it do the Germans to shoot shells into Paris from a range of sixty or seventy miles. Just exactly the same as dropping Zeppelin bombs on England. What it did was to make both those people resolve to fight harder. The material damage, I venture to say, never in any case was equal to the cost of the effort and as to the
Chapter 10. The Pistol in War
SO FAR, our fighting had not amounted to much. There we were — the Germans all the time trying to find a weak spot to break through and we trying to hand back some of the misery we were enduring. We staged a few raids, sometimes with the idea of catching a prisoner or two but more often just to harass the enemy and break the monotony of the game.
By this time, many of the machine gunners had equipped themselves with pistols and discarded their rifles. I can’t say that I blamed them in the least. There was only one method by which the rifle could be carried — slung diagonally across the back — as both hands were occupied and the man loaded down with ammunition boxes, tools, the gun or its tripod. Slung in this manner, the rifle proved to be much of a hindrance and annoyance, and on top of all this it could not be gotten into action very speedily. Hence, it soon became common for the machine gunners to “lose” their rifles. Some of us, however, tried to always have a rifle handy, although aside from the sniping which I was doing from behind the line, there had so far been but little chance for any real rifle shooting.
Right here, lets have another shift of subject and talk about pistols for a change. One-hand guns were, undoubtedly, designed for the use of mounted men so that they could deliver fire at the enemy while, at the same time, they had the other hand free for the management of their horses. They only fired the one shot and were then useless until reloaded, so they made them big and cumbersome in order that they could be used effectively as a club until a time came when they could again be loaded — a slow process in that day. They were, really and truly, “horse pistols,” being so big and cumbersome that no gentleman could have carried one on his person while afoot. When and where they were first invented is probably known to some of our specialists in antique weapons — I don’t know and it is really of no consequence here as this is not supposed to be a treatise on the evolution of firearms anyway.
But I am afraid that I shall, now and then, refer to some of the old timers. You see, I’m just as big a “nut” as the next one, and anything pertaining to firearms — yes anything pertaining to killing, whether it be with a stone axe or a blow gun, excites my interest and I want to know about it. As the son of an ex-cavalryman, born soon after the end of the Civil War, I had a good initiation into the pistol question. Everything from Starr and Colt revolvers back to Tower flintlocks were available for my education. Pepper-boxes, derringers — I tried them all and just naturally grew up with the idea that it was a part of the education of every American citizen to know how to shoot a pistol well enough to disable your enemy before he gets you. I never, then or since, have made any effort to become a prize-winning shot on the range. I am not and never have been a threat to the pistol shooters in the National Matches, but have always tried to keep in practice sufficiently to give myself the feeling of assurance that in a pinch I can get my gun out and shoot as fast and as straight as the other fellow.
Well, that’s the way it was when the war started in 1914, and I went up to Canada to see what it was all about. The regulation equipment for officers in the Canadian Army, or at least in the Second Division, included the Colt .45 Automatic, an exact duplicate of our Model 1911. Naturally I was quite familiar with this gun and it was my privilege, as Musketry Instructor, to be present when these arms were received by the officers of the Twenty-first Battalion.
The officers first tried out these .45s on our improvised indoor rifle range, in the armouries at Kingston, and their experience was exactly the same as I had seen, numberless times, in the United States Army. The range was fifty feet, and the targets of the usual short-range type used by the infantry for indoor instruction firing with reduced ammunition. At the first attempts, many of the shots struck on the concrete floor, anywhere from fifteen to forty feet in front of the firer. You can probably imagine the effect this had upon that crowd. It required a lot of argument to persuade some of those officers that the gun was “worth a damn.” But that was only temporary. After a little instruction, emphasized by practical demonstration with those same guns, they soon learned the game and could
