Machine Gun Indirect fires?

[montieth]

Originally Posted by cbo

It is my impression, that such things were in fact dragged along long after they ceased to be usefull because they were part of the TO&E. A bit like the Danish Army sending lawn mowers to the forces in Iraq because they were part of standard kit for camp ;-)

That may be the danes, but then they have peculiar ideas on how to do a lot of things (speed control in cities for example. ). But remember, the UK had just lost a significant portion of its military ground forces in the BEF in Europe. They weren't going to cart around things they didn't really need or more importantly, rebuild up organization to maintain use of deflection sites for MMG units when a simple leaf and tangent sight would work fine for direct fires.

That said, you are right, indirect MG fire was used in WWII. There is a description of it being used in Normandy in 1944 in a history of the 43rd Division (IIRC). It was used to soften up German defenses before an attack and apparently was absolutely devastating, killing off most the defenders.

MMGs with good ammo, water and a good targeting prep can be nasty. Imagine a whole area of a field that's looks like it's being rained on, but instead of water, it's boattailed jacketed lead bullets with wood in the tips raining down. You don't know when it's going to stop and unless you're under something of substantial hard cover, you might get shot. Instead of fragments flying sideways, all the rounds are coming down ballistically.

Of course the really big MMG shoots were in WWI. The Somme saw one where 10 guns of a company each fired around 10,000 rounds, for a total of just short of 1 Million rounds over 10 hours. That was to soften up german assembly areas to forestall a counter attack.