World War II Infantry Tactics

The machine gun was frequently the key support weapon of the infantry battle. It aided the attack, but was probably at its most dramatically effective in defence. Machine gun fire alone was perfectly capable of halting an advance, as B Company, 4th Bn Somerset Light Infantry would discover near Mont Pincon in Normandy. Lieutenant Sydney Jary recalled:
‘The forward platoon… had barely crossed the stream when concentrated Spandau fire came from the front and both flanks. There must have been about twelve machine guns firing at one time. This devastating firepower stopped the battalion dead in its tracks. There was no way forward or around it and no way to retire.’
At longer ranges machine gun fire was no longer ‘flat trajectory’, covering all the space between the firer and the target, but rose and fell, creating more limited ‘beaten zones’ which varied in size according not only to the type of weapon but the relative elevations of the gun and target. As distance increased corrections for wind, temperature, and the elevation of the firer became more important, making supporting MG fire a much more complex subject than simply ‘pointing and shooting’.