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Japan shares with Russia the dubious distinction of having fought the first major war of the 20th century, and the first in which machine-guns on both sides played a prominent part in significant numbers. Maxim Nordenfelt and later VSM1 supplied both protagonists – the Japanese bought four 8mm Maxims in 1893, and later nine ” New Pattern” Model 1901s; the Russian Navy bought almost 300 guns of various types between 1897 and 1904, while the Russian Army obtained perhaps as many as 1000 guns from Loewe/DWM between 1899 and 1904. Later, the Japanese switched their allegiance to the Hotchkiss, and the Mle’00 was the gun which armed most front-line units of the Japanese Army by the time of the outbreak of war with Russia.

ELB wrote:I read Weaponsman a lot also, that was an interesting post.

I had never before heard of using machine guns as indirect fire weapons, but seems it might have been quite common in the first decades of the 1900s.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

ELB wrote:I read Weaponsman a lot also, that was an interesting post.

I had never before heard of using machine guns as indirect fire weapons, but seems it might have been quite common in the first decades of the 1900s.

Rifles were also used as indirect fire weapons too, even through WW1. The British had a volley setting on their Enfields that, when volley fired at a high angle, would direct plunging fire onto enemy troops both in trenches or out in the open out to distances of 2,000 yards and beyond, and such tactics were a normal part of British Army rifle doctrine. Granted, they didn't fire on troops that were 100 yards away that way, but if an enemy column was observed marching toward the front from a mile away or some such, this tactic of raining a cloud of bullets down onto enemy troops would be part of normal doctrine.

kragluver wrote:MGs were used extensively for indirect fire during WW1. The battle lines being static was the biggest reason for this I believe. Not as much in the second unpleasantness. Read Mcbride's A Rifleman Went to Warfor some excellent discussion about First War MG tactics.