Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters"
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@Beorninki Pray tell, which country is better? The world keeps trying to move here, so we must be doing something right. I've yet to see anyone cling to the landing gear of a flight leaving the USA. 325,00 Americans died to free the slaves, another 100,000 died to end the First World War, 400,000 died to help save the world from another dark age, and 100,000 more died to keep the Cold War from going hot. As for the American Indian, you talk as though the many tribes lived in peaceful harmony with one another. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most were nomadic warriors who raided each other's camps and polluted the land, migrating only after they had taken all it had to give them. You don't believe in nationalism and see no reason for it. It was the lack of a national identity and the cohesiveness it creates that led to the native's downfall. As for our prisons, we don't put people in them because of their color. We put them in there because of their crimes, most of which are committed against members of their own ethnicity. Before you criticize a country, it would serve you well to study the history and the facts rather than the rantings of modern revisionists who either don't know the truth or are determined to pervert it for their own political ends. Stop spouting their garbage and open your eyes to the truth, even if it temporarily blinds you.
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At 8:15 you show the SPAD fitted with three Colt Browning 1895 "Potato Digger" machine guns. That is a very odd choice for an airplane because of the way the Digger operates. It is based on the old Winchester lever action rifle, but with the lever hinged under the barrel and connected to the bolt by a linkage system. When the gun fires, gas escapes through a small hole in the barrel, striking a cup at the front of the lever. This forces the lever arm to swing down 90 degrees. A heavy spring then swings it back up. As with a lever action rifle, the linkage to the bolt forces the bolt to slide back and forth, during which movement it chambers, fires, and ejects cartridges in rapid succession.
I've shot a Digger before. It requires a good deal of room for the arm to swing freely. The gun earned its nickname because the original tripod mounted ground gun had a tendency to settle into soft dirt while firing. As a result the lever sometimes scooped up dirt and tossed it about, leaving a trough in the soil.
During WWI the Digger was used mainly for training by the US Army, but the Marlin-Rockwell Corporation developed an aircraft variant (Model 1917) that replaced the swinging lever with a more conventional gas tube and spring-loaded piston (as in the BAR). This eliminated the problem. However, the photo you show appears to be the original swinging lever gun. I was never aware these were ever put on an airplane. Necessity truly is the mother of invention.
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@danbenson7587 I'm both a pilot and former bird hunter. You are making a great number of assumptions. What are you going to see from a 1000 feet up? If you are directly over the enemy line of trenches, you will be subjected to both observation and ground fire. If you are ahead of or behind the trenches, you must employ slant range, which restricts your observation of enemy troops.
The best way to strafe a trench is with enfilade fire, meaning you must fly parallel to and above the trench. You are not heading in the direction of your on lines; you are flying along the same basic course as the trenches, so you remain over enemy lines at all times.
If you attempt to attack from behind and perpendicular to the trenches, you have placed yourself behind enemy lines and are now firing into defilade where your enemy is better protected from you.
Not all of your adversaries machine guns are placed in forward firing positions. Some guns will be arranged to provide protective overwatch, interdicting crossfire, and aerial interception.
The German M18i machine pistol saw limited use in the very late stages of the war as an individual weapon primarily in trench raiding. The Thompson SMG was never used in WWI. Gen Thompson called it a trench broom because he envisioned it being carried by individual soldiers to clear trenches with massed fire. He later coined the more popular term submachine gun.
Massed fire is not the same thing as sustained fire. A soldier on foot cannot keep up a steady stream of fire as he slowly advances across no-man's land. He must pause to reload and his number of reloads are limited. He must coordinate his advance with other soldiers so that one or more of them is placing suppressive fire on the same enemy strong point at all times until they can enter the trench and begin working their way through it. If the trenches are more than 100 yards apart, the supporting fire from any SMG will be inaccurate and very dispersed. The Russians tried this tactic in WWII and found it worked at close range and during urban fighting, but in open terrain or against a well entrenched enemy it was next to useless.
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