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The Machine Gun in
Tactical Wargames - Part I
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Whatever happens
We have got
The Maxim Gun
And they have not
Hilaire
Belloc
Having
just returned from seeing the film Passchendaele, I am struck
by how often the Machine Gun is pressed into service by motion
picture screenplay writers, directors, and producers, but how little
the role of the MG is understood by those in the entertainment
industry. Have tactical wargame designers done any better at
understanding or portraying them?
What the MG is not - the Machine Gun in the Movies
Hiram Maxim's machine is not something you stick in a corner of the
battlefield and wait for a heroic band of 4 or 8 guys to blunder
into. Generally speaking, it's supposed to be something you set up
to guard something. That can be an open flank, or it can be
an approach route, or a gap in your barbed wire. It can be a supply
route or withdrawal lane, and you can set them up to fire
indirectly. You employ them best when they fire at greater than
point blank range - one of their advantages, to, say, a pistol or a
rifle, and in interlocking arcs of fire, using a high rate of fire.
So employed, they can mow down a great number of men, or deny them
passage. Hollywood films like Legends of the Fall, Saving
Private Ryan, and now Passchendaele think that machine
guns are simply dropped off at random with 3 or 4 man gun crews, in
isolation, and left there to hunt single men or other groups of men
- and by "hunt" I mean sit there stupidly with an 80 pound gun and
tripod and big metal cans of ammo and wait to be found, sitting
behind un-camouflaged sandbags.
Machine Gun in Passchendaele. Still
image taken from the official movie site.
Passchendaele was the most expensive Canadian movie ever made, with
a budget of 20 million dollars.
The MG08 behind the stereotypical sandbag bunker was the
centre-piece of the film's opening scene.
And of
course, the heroes of the story find the MG, and destroy it, but not
before losing one or two men, which is the point of the attack and
finding the MG in the first place. In the comic books, by the way,
Sgt. Rock went through this routine about every other issue.
And despite the fact these
machine guns are always dropped off in the middle of nowhere, backed
up into hard cover with no escape for the gun crews, our heroes
(tactical geniuses, all) find themselves with no alternative but to
mount a frontal assault. The true purpose of the attack, of course,
is to get a disposable character in the script killed off and
provide a plot point. Any sensible squad leader would simply have
flanked the MG in Saving Private Ryan and attacked from the
top of the hill, using the radar station as hard cover. There were
no other Germans for miles around - that is made obvious by the fact
our hero has time for a crying scene, a Mexican stand-off between
his platoon sergeant and one of his men, and a lengthy burial of the
dead, during which no other Germans intervene.
The tactical situation in
Passchendaele is more mystifying; the rationale for attacking
the gun is even less clear than Captain Miller's - though the book
suggests that he is at this point in the war into his third year of
service and less than mentally stable. The movie is brave to
approach this subject and in many ways does it well; unfortunately,
as good as the speeches are about nightmares and guilt, the movie
falls apart in the depictions of combat and the clichéd frontal
assault on the machine gun (and the use of the term "gun nest")
don't do much to add to the pantheon of realistic movie moments. Far
better was Robert Blake's assault on Pork Chop Hill (shown
below) when he misses a Chinese MG bunker with a grenade - from two
feet away - and nearly blows his own arm off. But Pork Chop Hill
was more text book than movie. In fact, the screenplay was actually
written from one of U.S. Army historian S.L.A. Marshall's texts, and
such a film would not be commercially successful today if anyone was
crazy enough to try selling it to Hollywood.
What the Machine Gun Is -
A Brief History
Automatic firearms date back
to the early 1700s, and the first military applications were for
naval use. By the time of the American Civil War in 1861, the famous Gatling Gun was in limited use - a hand cranked repeating gun used
by land forces as light artillery. In 1881, the Maxim Gun was
invented, becoming the first true machine gun - a relatively light,
man portable, crew-served weapon firing rifle cartridges at a rapid
rate of fire. In 1914, they began to shape modern tactics as armies
in western Europe sought to maneuver for victory during the German
invasion of Belgium and France. Cavalry, infantry and massed
artillery - still employed directly in the firing line in many cases
- were still operating as they had in the previous century,
deploying in thick skirmish lines with the company of 100 to 200 men
as the basic maneuver element of the infantry. The British expressed
reluctance to introduce great numbers of machine guns, as there was
an official fear that it would "unbalance" the delicate firepower
organization of the infantry battalion - whatever that meant.
Possibly it was a reference to the fact that a great number of men
(and animals) were tasked to supporting the guns, for they were
heavy, and supplying them with ammunition was a logistical burden
that the battalions themselves had to bear to keep them firing.
Scottish troops with a Maxim Gun early
in the First World War.
The Germans were not so
reluctant, and fielded greater numbers of the weapons. During the
Race to the Sea - that period in which the Allies and their enemies
both sought an open flank - it became increasingly clear that the
defensive would be favoured in this war. Massed riflemen stopped
major German attacks at the Marne and at Mons. The grappling armies
never found their opponent's open flank and battle lines soon
stretched from Switzerland to the English Channel - after which the
armies went underground, building first shallow ditches, and soon a
system of trenches, dugouts and saps from which they would besiege
each other for four years. They wired themselves in and began to
deploy new weapons in a technological race to break the deadlock -
poison gas (Ypres, 1915), flamethrowers (Hooge, 1915) and tanks (Courcelette,
1916) were among them, but the deadlock was brought about to begin
with by the Machine Gun, which made crossing No Man's Land a
dangerous experience.
What the Machine Gun Does
- How It Works
The Canadians arguably did
more with their machine guns than anyone else on the Western Front.
They didn't just issue them to infantry battalions, they eventually
created an entire combatant corps around them, and if that wasn't
enough, they created additional units outside the corps, mounted
them on wheels, and protected them with steel plate. At Vimy Ridge,
they were used as indirect fire weapons and fired on fixed lines,
raining lead down on German reinforcement routes from over hilltops,
and the Canadians even planned to use their new armoured cars as
breakthrough weapons, replacing the cavalry and beating the Germans
to what an Allied newspaper man would call Blitzkrieg in 1939
- Lightning War. It had been a long struggle to get there; in 1915,
MGs were allocated just four per battalion, and the Canadians were
using unreliable American-made "potato-diggers", as the Colts were
known. The British had gone to France with two guns per battalion,
and the Germans had six. The Canadian Colts jammed almost as
frequently as their Ross rifles, though some battalions used them
into 1917, by which time they had been replaced officially with the
Lewis, and a new type of gun - the Light Machine Gun - had entered
the arsenal, hand in hand with a new concept in military
organization: the infantry squad.
Canadian Colt MG crew (Library and
Archives Canada photo)
What advantages did the MG
have on the Western Front? Rate of fire is the obvious one; the
Vickers which eventually came to equip British and Canadian MG units
(and remained on inventory into the 1960s virtually unchanged) could
fire 450 to 600 rounds per minute, and if equipped with a clean
supply of ammunition and enough water to cool the barrel, could fire
indefinitely with little problem. It was well made, reliable, and
well liked. But it didn't just fire a lot of bullets; it could fire
out to 800 yards in a direct fire role.
The basic unit of maneuver
in 1914 was the infantry company of 100-200 men; they moved as
blocks of soldiery, tasked with common objectives, and while
platoons existed nominally, they were for organizational purposes -
as a way of feeding or billeting them. To do battle, they lined up
in waves and marched not unlike the armies in the Crimea, or at
Gettysburg, or under Wellington. Unfortunately, the machine gun made
it clear in short order why this was no longer a good idea.
Massed riflemen could still
operate effectively - the British proved it at Mons, where the
pre-war Regulars, trained in marksmanship and rapid fire on their
bolt action rifles turned back German assault troops. The machine
gun was a "force multiplier" however, and where one machine gun is
good in helping stop such a charge, the MG is really a "support
weapon." It doesn't exist to do the job of an infantry company, it
supports the infantry. Therefore, multiple machine guns are better
than one, and the idea is to create interlocking arcs of fire: to
support not just the riflemen, but other machine guns as well,
creating ground over which the enemy cannot pass. It does this best
set up outside the normal effective battle range of the enemy's
rifles - 200 yards or so - and if he can deliver his fire while
covered from the enemy's artillery, even better. At Passchendaele in
1917, firing from concrete bunkers and good field works, the Germans
were able to make Allied gains costly indeed using machine guns and
artillery to good advantage.
Bill Rawling, in his book
"Surviving Trench Warfare" (University of Toronto Press, 1992) says
the following:
Open formations, however,
could be defeated by a very unsophisticated technology - barbed
wire. Artillery was short of ammunition (early in the war) and
lacked a shell fuse sensitive enough to explode within the barrier,
and the latter remained essentially untouched, forcing troops to
pick their way through clinging, piercing metal as best they could.
Caught on the wire, soldiers became targets for machine-gunners, who
could not fail to miss men immobilized by the obstacle.
The more subtle lesson here
is that machine guns are best employed in conjunction with other
weapons; the barbed wire could be used to channel the advance of
infantry into killing grounds, created by gaps in the wire, or when
enough wire barred the way, effectively slow the advance that the
machine guns' effectiveness was increased.
The MG could also be used as
a form of artillery, fired not directly at a known target but into
the air, with bullets looped on an arcing trajectory to fire over
obstacles, using "plunging fire" to descend on the enemy's rear,
interdicting trenches and roads and routes of supply, retreat,
reinforcement.
The Light Machine Gun
Ironically, one of the
solutions to the Machine Gun was another Machine Gun, at least
partially. The other solutions to the deadlock of No Man's Land had
their disadvantages - poison gas was an abject failure once the
initial shock wore off and protective equipment was developed, and
relatively few men died because of it, and
relatively few men died because of it, popular culture to the
contrary. Flame weapons inspired fear but were not available in
large numbers. The tank was mechanically unreliable and expensive to
produce. Artillery was being perfected into a truly scientific arm,
particularly by Commonwealth troops (at Vimy Ridge, the majority of
German batteries had been located and silenced in the days preceding
Zero Hour by Allied counter-battery work) but its ability to win
battles on its own was negligible.
As discussed
in this article
on the development of the infantry squad, small units began to
develop from early in the war. By 1917, the British were fielding
the Lewis Gun in infantry platoons - a smaller, man portable
automatic weapon that could deliver firepower in support of
infantrymen moving in small bunches, either firing their rifles,
using grenades (hand-thrown Mills bombs or firing rifle grenades),
or even bayonets (or more exotic hand-to-hand weapons such as knob-kerries)
but above all, maneuvering in close under the weight of fire of the
Lewis, with its multi-man crew lugging panniers of ammo. The French
and Americans would introduce LMGs/automatic rifles late in the war
also, and the Germans experimented with the LMG too, as well as with
sub-machine guns, an even more portable weapon firing pistol
ammunition - larger bullets with shorter range for true close
quarters combat. The best way for infantry to defeat the enemy was
to seek him out, in small numbers, and then defeat him locally with
overwhelming firepower - using artillery where possible, and the
light machine gun. The pattern established in 1917-1918 would remain
unchanged in its basic elemental concept to the present day, though
individual firepower increased with the creation of the assault
rifle during the Second World War and the dissemination of either
semi-automatic or fully-automatic battle rifles after 1945.
The Lewis LMG.
But the Machine Gun is still
there; it is now known as a GPMG, or General Purpose Machine Gun,
the first such true GPMG being the German MG34 and MG42 of the
Second World War, so known because it could operate as a light
machine gun right in an infantry squad, fitted with a bipod and an
assault drum, operated by a single gunner and carried into an attack
on an enemy position - or it could be fitted to a tripod, equipped
with telescopic sights, given a virtually unlimited supply of linked
ammunition, and set to fire on fixed lines, even by remote control,
at the touch of a remote trigger, to produce grazing fire along an
axis of advance or down a pre-set fire lane to deny an avenue of
approach to an enemy, the MG 42 firing up to a mind-numbing 1200
rounds per minute - 20 bullets a second!
These technological marvels
are often the key to a company fighting position. They are generally
organized into a separate weapons company within a battalion, or
perhaps a separate weapons platoon within a company. The British and
Canadians pooled them at the Divisional level in the Second World
War. Wherever they were kept, the troops knew how important they
were - and they were assigned to units and sub-units in recognition
of their important role rather than simply cast adrift in the
wilderness, as the movies would have you believe.
Exceptions - Movie Silliness
in Reality and in Wargames
Of course, there are always
exceptions to the rule, and sometimes, movie silliness is based on
reality. That scene in Saving Private Ryan where Miller is throwing
60mm mortar rounds? It was based on the story of Technical Sergeant
Beauford T "Andy" Anderson, a Medal of Honor recipient who performed
the same deed on Okinawa. Not a bad scene, but freeze frame it and
ask yourself why he didn't just use the grenades the prop guy stuck
on his web belt instead. Or why the director chose to emulate such a
rare event. Medals of Honor are generally given for the uncommon
rather than the common. SPR also depicted a blind charge by armour
down a narrow corridor into the teeth of Allied infantry resulting
in a costly defeat. Critics have pointed at this and said "would
never happen." But - never say "never" because strange things happen
on battlefields, and at Arnhem, just such a charge occurred. SS-Hauptsturmführer
Viktor Graebner mounted an armoured attack over the bridge over the
Rhine - as narrow a corridor as the street in Ramelle - and paid the
ultimate price for his aggressiveness. The charge was shot to pieces
on the northern ramp by the British paratroopers ensconced in
buildings at the far end. The charge is depicted in the Advanced
Squad Leader module named A Bridge Too Far, and the action can be
reasonably simulated in other tactical games.
The aftermath of Graebner's charge; at
the top of the image are wrecked German vehicles littering the north
ramp of the Arnhem bridge.
The hand-thrown mortar
rounds, on the other hand, probably come under the heading of
"chrome". Chrome is that grand old term from the old days of
wargaming, referring to rules
added for historical flavour or to capture individual
peculiarity. Coming from the shiny metallic trim once applied to
automobiles, the word suggests something eye-catching but having no
real practical value.
Chrome sets the old board
games apart from the new generation of computer games only in that
paper games can be modified at will, restricted in large part only
by the imagination of the user. A sophisticated fan base and
increasingly open-ended games are changing this. Panzer Command
allows for modification of the game's unit data, for example, and
for those with the skills to do so, a game like Operation
Flashpoint allows almost unrestricted ability to add not only 3D
models but scripts and routines to power all sorts of (unofficial)
additions to the game.
So this brings us back to
that machine gun in the church. Could it have reasonably happened?
Never say never, but once you overload your movie with stretches of
tactical logic, you've lost the verisimilitude you need to connect
with a knowledgeable audience.
The Machine Gun in Tactical
Wargames
There are few tactical games
dealing with First World War combat; Soldiers and
Trenchfoot being the most common and both date back several
decades. It is probably more useful to examine all of tactical
gaming as a whole (and by tactical gaming, as always, I refer to
commercial, board wargames dealing with "modern" land combat as my
area of focus, a narrow field I make no apologies for restricting my
gaze to - and especially not with this subject in mind). We can
trace the evolution of the depiction of the MG in tactical wargames,
as the problem of how to accurately portray the unique
characteristics of the Machine Gun, and the advantages it brought to
the battlefield (and the disadvantages inherent in the weapon) are
illuminating.
We'll examine some of these
on a game by game basis in Part II.
Did You Say
Disadvantages?
The first machine gun
sections in British and Canadian service in 1914 were composed
largely of ammunition bearers. In 1917, even the Light Machine Gun
section required several ammo bearers to carry the heavy panniers
for the Lewis to keep the gun in action. By 1939, though, LMGs were
integrated directly into rifle squads, often firing the same
ammunition as the battle rifles carried by the bulk of men in the
infantry companies, and few tactical games portray in-battle
logistics.
The larger MGs, however, are
a different story. Squad Leader created a fairly elegant system of
"portage points" for the various weapons and equipment types that an
infantry squad might be expected to carry into battle, which
factored in the weight of ammunition, tripod, and accessories for
the MGs. The expansion "gamettes" created "dismantled" status, which
reduced the portage load on infantry, imagining the guns broken down
into component parts. When SL was replaced by Advanced Squad Leader,
they recognized that the German GPMG, when removed from its tripod,
was still a serviceable LMG and allowed it to be fired as a weapon -
a nice bow to reality that some might call chrome, though all the
information one needed was right on the counter and it required no
special or complicated rules.
Logistics reared their ugly
head in the development stream of Combat Mission;
specifically, the question of whether or not units equipped with
heavy machine guns should be permitted to use a fast movement
command. "Running" with an HMG became a bone of contention. Equally
contentious was the question of whether or not British and Canadian
troops ever actually used the tripod for the Bren Light Machine Gun.
Sometimes, the research isn't the hard part and neither is the
implementation; the hard part is the point of decision in between
the two.
Other Myths and Movies
Readers may remember that
"silly" scene in the Carentan episode of Band of Brothers, where the
Sherman tank commander is riding into battle blasting away with the
.50 while standing on the back of his tank. In actuality, it wasn't
silly. In fact, standing on the back of the tank was the only way
you could fire the .50 at ground troops. There is a misconception
that the Browning gun on the turret of the Sherman was there for
close protection. It wasn't; it was an anti-aircraft weapon. You had
to exit the turret to use it. Canadian Sherman tanks rarely kept the
Browning in 1944-45; in fact, the 4th Canadian Armoured Brigade
specifically ordered the guns removed. One source suggests that
Brigade headquarters expressed concern that tank commanders would be
exposed to hostile aircraft by so doing; the risk of exposure in
dismounting the turret to use the gun was considered too great.
Sherman tank in France. The tank
commander has dismounted to use the .50 on enemy infantry across a
river. (US Army photo)
The AA MG on the Sherman has
been contentious in both board and PC games. In ASL, it is a weapon
of great power, but there are no special rules depicting the hazards
in using it against troops beyond the normal "crew exposed" rules
that cover all exposed tank commanders. A Canadian tank commander,
trained to expose just the top of his head above the rim of the
turret, is given the same advantages of vision and cover as an
American tank commander blazing away with the turret Browning, which
we know had to be done from outside the turret altogether.
In Combat Mission: Beyond
Overlord, the AA MG on the Sherman was similarly quite potent
and often could be found knocking out enemy armoured vehicles before
the main gun. The ballistics are consistent with real life - the .50
round was a potent one and punching through the thin rear armour of
a Hetzer or any of the armour on a Sd Kfz 251 halftrack would not
have been a problem - but doctrinally it would have been unlikely
for a tank commander to leap out and blaze away with the MG rather
than "button up" and let the main gun do the work of the tank. The
abstract nature of the game's mechanics worked against the realistic
portrayal of this doctrine.
My Final Word:
While modern combat appears
to have changed a lot since 1917, many aspects of it have not; the
employment of machine guns is probably one of those things that has
stayed relatively constant, at least in principle. While infantry
are performing many more different tasks on the battlefield in the
modern "Three Block War" environment, when it comes time to employ
the Machine Gun in full-intensity conflict, an infantry unit will
still use the principles pioneered for it in the trenches, and later
developed in the Second World War. Game designers have struggled
with how best to capture the effects of this unique weapons system.
Film makers have been quick to capitalize on the reputation the MG
has gained as a leading causality factor in the infliction of
casualties, second only to artillery, even if the depiction of the
MG on film has been more sensationalistic than real.
My Question To You:
Before we start the
discussion on a game-by-game basis, which one do you think has
presented an interpretation of the Machine Gun in modern battle that
seems to be the closest to being accurate? Is it possible that, like
artillery, getting it too close to accurate would simply be a
game-killer? |
