Part 6

At manœuvres and exercises the adoption of this formation is sometimes burked on various pretexts, of which the most heinous is to say that the results of artillery fire are overrated, and the risk run in keeping in closed formation is more than compensated for by the comfort of the men, maintenance of control and saving of time. This theory I fancy had its origin in the South African War, where the Boer artillery was skilful but exiguous, if judged by European standards. I have not been under shell fire myself, but I have seen the results of it on a column of about two hundred men who came along a watercourse two thousand yards or so from the guns, in something resembling a march formation. The guns had the range, and the enemy left about fifty dead in that watercourse in a few minutes, so personally I am going to open out my company and trust to my peace training of it to keep it in hand and get it along fast enough to be on the spot when wanted.

I need hardly give details how to practise this. The point is, to get the company opened out quickly and without confusion, and this is to be done by telling your platoon commanders what you want and where they are to go, and not by any drill. Platoons may further split up into columns of sections. Leave it to your platoon commanders to have the sections moved apart to intervals of fifty yards. If the enemy’s artillery is straight in front, a diamond formation seems suitable—a platoon at each angle—the length of the diagonal front to rear being over two hundred yards and side to side over one hundred; or the platoons may simply follow each other at two hundred yards distance, though this is not a very handy arrangement. But, subject to keeping the distances large enough, it is not the formation that matters, but the way it is taken up, and I will leave it at that.

At the end of this phase of endurance of the enemy’s artillery fire the company comes under rifle fire and has to take to extended order, and on service it would perhaps have to do this and plunge into the attack without the platoons closing in from the scattered formation in which they have so far moved. But for the first few times you should close up at fourteen hundred yards and start from there, so as to tell the men what is next to be done when they come under rifle fire, and in any case the size of your exercise ground would probably necessitate your doing the two phases over more or less the same bit of ground.

EXERCISE XI.

THE COMPANY IN ATTACK WITH THE BATTALION, UNDER RIFLE FIRE.

The immediate objects of the fire fight within effective rifle range are to produce a fire sufficiently heavy to overcome the fire of the defence, and to reach a position from which the assault can be delivered (I.T., 121 (5 and 6)). In theory, then, the desideratum is to get so many men up to about two hundred yards from the enemy that they form a line practically shoulder to shoulder, in order that their fire may be at least as heavy as that of the enemy, if the latter are also in one continuous line, and in default of circumstances admitting of effective covering fire being maintained from positions in rear or on a flank. On this supposition it is frequently argued that a battalion and its companies, when advancing to the attack, should do so on a front not greater than that which the battalion would occupy if it were in single rank, but this does not really follow. The nature of the ground may be such that to attempt to build up a shoulder-to-shoulder firing line all along the enemy’s position within charging distance, may be merely to send men to useless destruction by exposing them on fire-swept spaces, where they are sure to be knocked over before they can do any good. On the other hand, there may be other points where men may be massed so as to give not only a firing line of maximum density, but also a supporting force both to replace casualties and to carry out the assault. These are the points which it is of importance to gain and hold in strength sufficient to carry out the object of the attack—the assault. It is the duty of the battalion commander to give each of his firing line companies some such point as their objective, and to define the frontage and direction of their attack. It is similarly the duty of the commander of a firing line company to give each of his sections an objective within the limits assigned to his company (I.T., 122 (4) and 123 (3-)). The problem for solution is, how to get to those points, and so it does not appear to matter much what frontage the battalion and its companies occupy when they start off for the attack at the fourteen hundred yards limit of effective rifle fire, provided of course, they do not encroach on the frontage of other units. Indeed, an attack which starts on a wide base and concentrates only in its later stages seems much more likely than one which starts from base equal to a single rank frontage to keep the enemy uncertain of its objective, and to be able to bring oblique or enfilade fire to bear on portions of his line. Therefore, when practising the company in attack, do not be bound by cast iron rules as to the breadth of the zone of ground within which you are to bring your company from fourteen hundred yards up to the charging position. Four platoons following one straight behind the other, at two hundred yards distance, make a very unwieldy procession, and, in general, I would advise you to use something in the nature of a diamond formation at first, the three platoons in rear making their own way forward till they reinforce the leading portion which finally consists of the whole company.

Put out the skeleton enemy on a front of, roughly, what your company will occupy in single rank, and let the position, if possible, have within it two, or at most, three points, which you can assign as objectives to the platoon commanders. You must consider this position as having been assigned to you as objective by your battalion commander, the ground on the right and left of it being the prey of other companies, and not the object of your assault, though it should, nevertheless, frequently be the object of your _fire_ during the advance.

Draw up the company at about fourteen hundred yards from the enemy. Tell the platoon commanders the relative positions the platoons are to take up when the advance begins, roughly the distances between them (I.T., 123 (7)), the direction of the attack, if the enemy’s position is not quite clearly to be seen, the frontage on which the company is free to manœuvre, and the points which the sections are to regard as their objectives; the details contained in I.T., 123 and 124, may also be enumerated if the commanders are not experienced. As regards these details, I recommend that scouts be formed not in a line of men extended at wide intervals, but as a line of patrols of four or six men each, and you or a subaltern should halt them early in the attack and tell them to send back word that they are held up by fire, or that they have defined the enemy’s position; on this the nearest platoon reinforces them, and the process of building up the firing line begins from that point. As regards inter-communication, use connecting files and semaphore signalling to join up the various parts and make real use of them, but avoid sham messages.

As soon as the object and manner of the attack have been detailed to all, tell the platoon commanders to move off their platoons to their positions and extend them ready to advance, and the scouts to get off in front. Five paces is the least extension to ensure that a bullet aimed at one man may miss him with a fair chance of not hitting his neighbour. Do not let the scouts go too far away, because at this time of getting to grips with the enemy, their usefulness, when acting with their companies is mainly limited to guarding against ambush at close range, and as ground scouts to prevent the company coming against some unseen obstacle, barbed wire, donga, canal, or what not.

As soon as all are in position, the company may be considered as being in the formation in which it would have arrived at the point where, in addition to the enemy’s artillery fire, it comes under heavy and fairly accurate rifle fire. Give the signal to advance, and let the platoon commanders begin to work their platoons forward, using what covered ways they can find. After a little of this, have the scouts halted and reinforce them by one platoon, order fire to be opened, bearing in mind that one platoon’s fire is probably useless at over one thousand yards from the enemy, but if your company is in the diamond formation the platoons on each flank will probably be able to fire, and with favourable ground, e.g., a knoll, or bluff somewhere on the line of advance, the rear platoon also will be able to fire over the heads of the firing line. There is no danger in this if the men hold their rifles straight, and it would assuredly be done in war. I have myself seen it, and the chances of an accident are minimised by practice in peace. During this early opening of fire use every effort to keep the fire from being merely a make-believe, i.e., send word round by your connecting files or semaphore to fire at certain targets, and see that section commanders direct their fire accordingly. In battle the information as to which part of the enemy’s position seemed most to demand attention would, of course, reach you from those of your side who were suffering fire coming from that part of the position, and the result of your passing the word to fire at it as above would be that a shower of bullets would come dropping all round it, to the upsetting of the aim of the hostile marksmen. Under cover of this fire your firing line may be allowed to gain a little ground, platoons moving alternately so as to avoid a cessation of fire. Thereafter continue to gain ground, and gradually reinforce the firing line till all your supports are absorbed and the whole company is in the firing line. When this has taken place the line will consist of a mixture of men of different sections and platoons. Avoid unreal movements in attempting to keep the men of each unit together in reinforcing and recognise that admixture is unavoidable. (I.T., 93 (11) and 123 (9)). The organising of the resultant disorder is one of the essential objects of training for the attack. Make your section commanders call on the men to right and left of them, if they are nearer them than any other unit commander, to act under their orders. Thus: “Private A to Private J under my orders.” Have this done constantly till it becomes a matter of course. The men of files can always hang together, but prove that this is being done by asking men where their file mates are. Get this system started as soon as reinforcement is begun, and keep it in full swing throughout. Once it is started, these extemporized fire units must apply the principles learnt by the intact sections and squads in Exercise IX., i.e., supporting fire by part to cover movement of the others, control and distribution of fire, etc., and so work on up to assaulting distance and deliver an assault. After this, let section and platoon commanders reform their men and units as quickly as possible, and then reform the company under your own orders. At subsequent parades introduce casualties among the section and platoon commanders, and let the senior privates in each of the mixed up fire units step into their places and carry on the attack without halt or confusion.

EXERCISE XII.

THE COMPANY IN ATTACK ACTING ALONE.

On service a company may often have to attack some post of the enemy without having the support of either artillery or infantry, and exercises framed to illustrate these conditions are very useful in developing the initiative of all ranks. In paragraph V. of the preamble I gave an example, and I think, if you will peruse it again, you will see what sort of thing you should arrange for the exercise. At inspections one sometimes sees a company sent off by itself to carry out such an attack, and the method often adopted is to tell off the company into the firing line and supports, and, perhaps, a reserve. The whole then go straight for the object and perform a sort of travesty of what the company does when acting as part of a battalion. By this time I trust you will be quick to perceive that this is just what it ought not to do. As an isolated force it has to do much more than simply to form a firing line and bring off an assault. It must secure its flanks, have a real reserve, employ a flank as well as a frontal attack, provide for its own withdrawal if worsted, be prepared to deal with a counter-attack, and observe all the principles laid down in I.T., 121. _Mutatis mutandis_, your reserve may consist of only a platoon, your flank guards a file or two of men, your flank attacks a section or platoon with a subaltern accompanying it, and so on, but the precautions must be taken and the principles put into practice, or your attack would run risk of failure. You would do it all on service; therefore, do it all in peace. Carry out such exercises, carefully planned, and with observance of service conditions, and I am quite sure you will see what a great deal there is to be done in this direction before you feel yourself and your company quite competent to undertake a similar task in the field. That first exercise against a skeleton enemy will be the forerunner of many others. Your criticism of the action of your non-commissioned officers must be carefully considered, as there are usually several justifiable ways of doing a thing, and it should always be constructive and not merely destructive (T. & M.R., 2 (2)).

EXERCISE XIII.

THE COMPANY IN RETIREMENT.

The men have been practised in retirement in pairs in Exercise II., and the sections and platoons have also learned their part in Exercise VI. It remains to train the company for this duty, which it might have to do either as acting as rearguard to the battalion, whether the latter was, or was not, in conjunction with other troops, or as if effecting its withdrawal when isolated. In both cases the procedure and distribution are pretty much alike. In the former case, the company, if it gets into difficulties, _may_ be able to get help from the rest of the force, but in the latter it will not be able to do so, and the commander should be especially careful to have in hand some portion of his company which he can use to extricate any detachment which gets “tied up.” On the other hand, it is very desirable that the main body should not be called on to reinforce the rearguard when the company is not acting alone. So that in both cases you should be prepared to meet eventualities from your own resources. Again, a rearguard is bound to have the majority of its force in action in order to hold back the enemy and present an appearance of force, so that it is not always possible to set apart a portion of so small a body as a company to act solely as reserve, and to remain continuously outside the actual combat. The solution of the difficulty seems to lie in an intelligent application of the principles of rearguard fighting given in F.S.R., 71 to 73, and the early but timeous withdrawal from the fighting line of a portion of the company who move back to a position in rear from which they can cover the withdrawal of the remainder, but are still available to be thrown into the fight, if it is necessary to inaugurate some sort of a counter attack to give portions heavily engaged a chance to break away from close grips. It is important in this exercise to teach non-commissioned officers and men to be ready to adopt quickly any method of withdrawal that may be ordered, because the nature of the ground must determine the way in which a withdrawal can best be effected, and the nature of the ground may vary every few hundred yards. Therefore I merely suggest some ways of practising retirements, and during the course of the exercise you should change from one to another, and also encourage commanders to act on their own initiative, when, as will probably happen, your system of inter-communication fails to act with sufficient speed and accuracy. I.T., 137, gives general rules as to the action of platoons and sections, and the standard set up in Exercises II. and VI. should be adhered to. Send out the skeleton enemy with orders to follow up the retirement, but not to close in under six hundred yards.

(_a_) Get the whole company deployed into one line of platoons, with intervals between them, occupying a wide front, four to eight hundred yards, the men at five or more paces extension. This may seem too wide a front, but, after all, the intervals between the platoons are only two hundred and forty yards, and an enemy trying to break straight through the line would be under fire at one hundred and twenty yards or less, while a wide front is the best precaution against having your flanks turned and your retreat intercepted.

Send back a platoon from one of the flanks to take up quickly a position in rear clear away from the firing line; three hundred to six hundred yards is not too much; let it open fire, and let the remainder of the firing line work back by retirement of alternate sections, each running back thirty or forty yards, beginning this movement from the flank from which the first platoon went, the platoon on the other flank holding on and only giving ground when the two centre platoons have got well on their way to the line on which the first platoon is halted. This is a slow retirement, but gives a maximum of continuous fire and the flanks are strong.

(_b_) With the whole company extended in one line, and no intervals between platoons. Retire by short rushes of alternate sections; the rushes must be quite short, twenty yards at most, so that the sections that have retired can fire through the intervals of the rear portion of the line the instant that it begins to retire. This is meant for use after an unsuccessful assault, and only on flat ground.

(_c_) With the company extended in one line, but with intervals between the platoons. Order the flank platoons to retire and take post to cover the withdrawal of the two centre platoons, who remain in position till the flank platoons are ready to open fire. Watch how the platoon commanders handle their platoons; they should do so artfully, as taught in Exercise VI.

(_d_) Retire by half-companies, two platoons together, using your subalterns as half-company commanders, and putting the onus of finding suitable covering positions on them, merely telling them to cover each other’s retirement.

(_e_) With the company all holding one position, leave the scouts or picked men to cover the retirement by rapid fire, and withdraw the remainder at full speed, then cover the retirement of the scouts by the fire of the whole from a position in rear. Watch that the scouts creep back from their cover without letting the enemy know they are going; and of this screen of scouts the flank men ought usually to be the last to go in order to make the enemy believe that the position is still occupied.

EXERCISE XIV.

OUTPOSTS.

I.

The general rules for outposts and the part played by an outpost company are to be found in I.T., 147 to 157, and it is necessary accordingly to train for those duties in peace. Let us begin from the beginning, and see what infantry outposts are and what they have to do. A line of infantry outposts will very often have to be taken up after a day’s fighting, or in close proximity to the enemy before a battle. The commander of an outpost battalion will be told by the staff to take up with his battalion a certain length of the front, say, from Farm A to Hill B, inclusive—perhaps a mile or even two in extent. He cannot possibly have time to ride all along the front and fix places for piquets and sentries. Instead of this, he looks at the ground and comes to the conclusion that it will require, say, all his four companies in the outpost line. He divides up his front into four parts, and gives each of his companies one part. It is his duty to see that the eight companies form along the line that combines the best facilities for defence and reconnaissance to the front. Accordingly, he tells the captain of A Company to take from Farm A to, say, the wood X, inclusive, the captain of B Company from the wood X, exclusive, to, say, the stream ML, inclusive, and so along. The captains of companies then have to go off and take up their frontages. As beforesaid, infantry outposts must expect to take up their line close to the enemy, and often when dusk is falling. This gives you your clue as to how it should be done. You must march your company in fighting formation, so as not to be ambushed—a screen of scouts or other covering troops in front and on the flanks, a party, section, or platoon ready to succour the covering party, and hold up the enemy, and a reserve ready to act under your orders, either for attack or defence. Your movement and the taking up of your line should be unseen by the enemy; therefore, move carefully under cover both from distant and close positions, from which you may be seen. The line must be taken up quickly. The main thing is to get it occupied; therefore, it is a mistake to halt the company while you plod round the whole of the front and plan just where each piquet and sentry will be. Instead, take a good look at the line as you march and decide what are the essential points to be held for defence and as observation points. As soon as your scouts have made good the ground a little in front of those points, send off what you think are necessary, sections or platoons, to seize these points, and act as piquets till you go round and adjust details. Thus your company will occupy the line in rough-and-ready fashion as quickly as they can advance. When the company breaks up to go to the piquet posts, go with any one of the piquets which is to be on one flank and settle the exact position of the piquet with reference to the line you intend to hold as your line of resistance, and any other details which you think the piquet commander should attend to, such as what localities should be patrolled, and estimate the number of men required. Any surplus sections should accompany you from this piquet, and you and they then go along the line to the other piquets which you arrange similarly, using the surplus to reinforce those piquets that need them, and if at the end you have still a surplus of men you may either form them as a support in rear or dismiss them to remain with their own platoons. For purposes of messing on service the latter is convenient, but, tactically, a support is often needed, in which case the men’s comfort must take second place.