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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 18, 2015 19:13:05 GMT
Trenches have been used in warfare for millennia. Nor was their effectiveness or the experience limited to the pre-gunpowder era. Trenches were used in the American Civil war and the Boer war.
They didn't just decide 'hey, lets dig a trench', it was something they planned and trained for.
The specific designs of the trench systems did evolve during the war, becoming more and more complex. But this was more to do with trenches originally being made as short-term defensive works rather than the more 'permanent' structures they became. The original and more basic trenches worked well enough, as evidenced by the fact that they stopped advances in both directions until specific tactics and technologies were developed to deal with trenches. Fairly few design features of trenches were devised in the field, so to speak, but existed at least in theoretical form already. For example the idea of the 'trench line' actually consisting of three of more lines one behind the next wasn't new, it was just that this was the first time that armies really had the time and manpower to dig networks that complex.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 19, 2015 3:10:46 GMT
Keep in mind that Machine Gunners, even those using water cooled MG's in 1914, fired short bursts unless the situation was dire. (Because even with water cooled MG's continuous fire will wear out the barrel rather quickly, and you'll also run out of ammunition before you know it). The other factor to consider is the ammunition belts used, which only held 250 rounds. Meaning at best you'd only really be able to sustain maximum rate of fire for 30 seconds - so actual rate of fire would be around 415-440 rounds per minute (assuming five seconds to reload, which is probably somewhat higher than a decent crew could manage). Good points. Maybe run two or three short bursts from a machine gun, with two or three equally-short periods of fire from a rifle team mixed in, and ask J&A (and maybe an infantryman expert as well) to sort out which burst of sound came from what weapon/s. If we set the test speed of a Vickers at 480 rounds/minute, that gives us a nice even 8 rounds/second. A 10-15 second burst would be short enough to not run out of ammo in the middle of the burst. |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Sept 6, 2015 16:22:48 GMT
Thread necromancy! If my math is right, to test the "is it a machine gun or is it rifle fire" story from the Battle of Mons, we would need: - One Vickers (or equivalent), firing in 15-second bursts. At eight rounds per second, that's 120 rounds per burst.
- A squad of trained riflemen with Lee-Enfield rifles (or equivalent), all capable of firing at the WWI expected minimum standard of one round every four seconds. Eight riflemen should be able to put out 120 rounds in 15 seconds, though they'll need to reload during the tests -- the Lee-Enfield had a 10-round magazine, and each of them will need to fire 15 shots.
- At least one "designated listener", and more would be better. The listeners would either be blindfolded or placed somewhere where they could hear the gunfire clearly but couldn't see whether the rifles or the machine gun was in use.
- As much .303 ammo as the show can afford. (If substitute weaponry is in use, adjust caliber as well.) Since the USAF got a nice promo this season with "Flights of Fantasy", maybe the US Army would like to get a special episode of their own?
Run multiple tests, half of them rifle fire and half machine gun, mixed up of course. The listeners would try to determine by sound alone which gun(s) were being used on each test. |
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Post by the light works on Sept 6, 2015 23:02:21 GMT
Thread necromancy! If my math is right, to test the "is it a machine gun or is it rifle fire" story from the Battle of Mons, we would need: - One Vickers (or equivalent), firing in 15-second bursts. At eight rounds per second, that's 120 rounds per burst.
- A squad of trained riflemen with Lee-Enfield rifles (or equivalent), all capable of firing at the WWI expected minimum standard of one round every four seconds. Eight riflemen should be able to put out 120 rounds in 15 seconds, though they'll need to reload during the tests -- the Lee-Enfield had a 10-round magazine, and each of them will need to fire 15 shots.
- At least one "designated listener", and more would be better. The listeners would either be blindfolded or placed somewhere where they could hear the gunfire clearly but couldn't see whether the rifles or the machine gun was in use.
- As much .303 ammo as the show can afford. (If substitute weaponry is in use, adjust caliber as well.) Since the USAF got a nice promo this season with "Flights of Fantasy", maybe the US Army would like to get a special episode of their own?
Run multiple tests, half of them rifle fire and half machine gun, mixed up of course. The listeners would try to determine by sound alone which gun(s) were being used on each test. our ammo of the same era was 30-06, of which we can still very readily get both ammo and bolt action rifles. |
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Post by mrfatso on Sept 7, 2015 10:52:13 GMT
Can you get 30-06 machine guns easily?
The thing about the British ammunition is that is was common to the Lee Enfield, Vickers and even the Lewis light machine gun used the same .303 round.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Sept 7, 2015 11:31:36 GMT
The M1917 Browning machine gun was used in World War I, and used 30-06 ammo. Rate of fire is very close to the Vickers. The US Army used it until the 1960s (and handed the gun off to several allies after then), but that might have been the M1917A1 which had a much faster rate of fire -- 600 rounds per minute as opposed to 450 rounds per minute.
The Browning is classed as a heavy machine gun, while the Vickers is a medium machine gun. I don't know enough about firearms to know if that would make any difference to the tests.
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Post by the light works on Sept 7, 2015 13:08:35 GMT
I would think most .30 caliber machine guns would be close enough in sound to make the rate of fire more significant than the precise cartridge.
for that matter, the M-60 fires the 7.62 NATO, and you can get modern bolt guns that shoot that, as well. rate of fire is a bit higher, though.
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 7, 2015 21:36:31 GMT
If they could get access to a military armorer they could most likely modify a machine gun to lower its rate of fire. (Off the top of my head I think that such modifications would be HIGHLY illegal for civilians to do).
The main problem is the 'trained riflemen' part. The British Soldier of the myth spent years training to fire and operate his bolt action rifle quickly. It is unlikely that they would be able to find enough people with anything close to that level of practice.
Observation; Modifying a machine gun to have a comparable rate of fire is easy, however duplicating the rate of fire for the rifles would require that they have the same type of action as used by the Lee-Enfield.
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 8, 2015 6:25:41 GMT
If they could get access to a military armorer they could most likely modify a machine gun to lower its rate of fire. (Off the top of my head I think that such modifications would be HIGHLY illegal for civilians to do). The main problem is the 'trained riflemen' part. The British Soldier of the myth spent years training to fire and operate his bolt action rifle quickly. It is unlikely that they would be able to find enough people with anything close to that level of practice. Observation; Modifying a machine gun to have a comparable rate of fire is easy, however duplicating the rate of fire for the rifles would require that they have the same type of action as used by the Lee-Enfield. Cross thread and into the same episode, "Mad minute" thread citadelofmyths.freeforums.net/thread/1607/mad-minute?page=2&scrollTo=72568 may give you that rate of fire, so test the two at the same time?... |
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Post by the light works on Sept 8, 2015 14:09:05 GMT
If they could get access to a military armorer they could most likely modify a machine gun to lower its rate of fire. (Off the top of my head I think that such modifications would be HIGHLY illegal for civilians to do). The main problem is the 'trained riflemen' part. The British Soldier of the myth spent years training to fire and operate his bolt action rifle quickly. It is unlikely that they would be able to find enough people with anything close to that level of practice. Observation; Modifying a machine gun to have a comparable rate of fire is easy, however duplicating the rate of fire for the rifles would require that they have the same type of action as used by the Lee-Enfield. Cross thread and into the same episode, "Mad minute" thread citadelofmyths.freeforums.net/thread/1607/mad-minute?page=2&scrollTo=72568 may give you that rate of fire, so test the two at the same time?... I was also thinking it would be a good double-up. |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Sept 9, 2015 10:19:35 GMT
The main problem is the 'trained riflemen' part. The British Soldier of the myth spent years training to fire and operate his bolt action rifle quickly. It is unlikely that they would be able to find enough people with anything close to that level of practice. I don't know how closely the rifle action "matched" the Lee-Enfield, but I know when I was in high school JROTC the competitive rifle team used bolt-action rifles. If ROTC/the military aren't a source for people trained in bolt-action rifles, what about re-enactors? The Great War Association's website isn't fully up to date, and I'm certain they're using blanks for battle re-enactments, but they should already have the right rifles. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 9, 2015 10:47:51 GMT
I can't remember how large a group it was who started the myth, but I think it was a company of troops. In the British Army that would be some 90 men. I doubt there are that many Lee-Enfield rifles in working condition in the SF area, or that many people skilled in their use.
As I said the British army at the time of the myth was not filled with the conscripted troops of later years. It was filled with professional troops who had spent a decade or more in the army, and who would have spent a large chunk of that time on the firing range training specifically for fast accurate fire. No one alive today has anything close to that level of skill with the Lee-Enfield.
So a 'straight' test is impractical, they couldn't find enough of the right kind of rifle, probably couldn't afford to fire off that much ammunition nor find enough people who could work the action that quickly.
The best I think they could do is record the sound of the shot and play it back over multiple speakers with random delays for each. Then compare that to recorded sounds of machine gun fire. This would also allow them to have the listener in front of the 'firing' position without any safety concerns. After all if they are using live ammunition they wouldn't be able to have anyone in front of the guns unless they are basically in a bunker...which would mute the sound. And the original myth is about troops coming under fire while advancing.
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