Sorry, posted about the same time as you. Thought you worked in supply. Glad that's not the case. You're just the guy for the sharp end. You never answered my question about whether your GPMG crews train for indirect area-fire. Still curious.

"You never answered my question about whether your GPMG crews train for indirect area-fire" Sorry I don't recall reading that post. In answer, GPMG crews in the Sustained Fire role train to give direct fire support, while through logging previous targets on the C2 sight (land marks for example), they can engege them without seeing them, through smoke or darkness. I don't know if you would call that indirect though, in essence they are directly engageing the enemy through a forward observers guidance. The C2 sight is also capable of aiming the GPMG akin to a mortar, but I have not been taught that yet and so can not elaborate.

"You're just the guy for the sharp end." Your use of sarcasm is improving. :) Or am I being overly paranoid?

My mistake: An infantryman pointing out the gunners irresponsible inaccuracy - no you are not paranoid: We are all out to get You - Swedish by any chance ?????

Actually, I'd say "paranoid". It was meant as a compliment. I've no doubt that you're an excellent and conscientious soldier. Thanks for the response on your GPMGs. It sounds like unobserved direct fire. By unobserved I mean from the gun position, but directed from elsewhere as a result of obscuration or darkness, as you implied. I, however, had heard of HMGs used to create a "beaten zone" downrange, from defilade, using the ballistic arc of the rounds-like cannon or mortars. Tankers used to train for indirect fire as a secondary mission years ago, actually used in SVN by a tank company who built ramps to assist with elevation of the main gun. Even then, the training was minimal and the methods rarely actually practiced, at least in the U.S. Army.

When we had M2 (50 cal) HMG in the inventory there were tabular firing tables in their kit. They had maybe a dozen pages compared to the 400+ of the cannon TFT. Just one charge & ammo type shown. I cant recall what the exact vertical interval was between ground and bullet path at max effective range tho it was high enough to clear low hills. There was no 'panoramic telescope type indirect fire sight. The general idea was to use a landmark along the sector of fire axis as refrence point and adjust R/L with the scale on the traverse bar of the tripod. Wish I'd kept one of those books too. We never practiced IF with the MG, but the artillery NCOs understood it well enough it would have taken about two minutes to figure out the setup.

"I, however, had heard of HMGs used to create a "beaten zone" downrange, from defilade, using the ballistic arc of the rounds-like cannon or mortars." Yeah I know what you mean. And I know it was done, and that the UK has the equipment to teach and do it, however I don't honestly know if it is still taught. Like I said, the C2 sight is fully capable of aiming a GPMG as a mortat (I think the British 81mm mortars may in fact also use the very same C2 sight). In any case, I shall try and find out the answer for you, as if it is still taught, it is a course I should dearly like to do. The indirect fire itself though is only good for harassing fire of course, while in WWII I believe the Germans had some success with it, what with their heavier ~180 grain 7.92mm rounds out of the MG42. Concerning the tanks shooting indirectly, if you haven't already I would advise reading up on the Iran Iraq war, where I believe the method was used a great deal, and to rather little effect!

I'd agree most of Carls first post, but he's simplified it a bit, even era is not a very good guide! You can find data sheets for UK WW2 guns on my web site http://members.tripod.com/~nigelef/index.htm (under 'Guns'!) and the Gun Intro pg gives conversion factors from imperial to metric. In the first half of the 20th Cent and before, the Brits defined 'Guns' by shell weight and 'Howitzers' by calibre. The key differnce was that guns were single charge and howitzers multi-charge but this practice started to breakdown in WW2 when the main artillery 'guns' were multi-charge. Since nothing about the Brit army has ever been simple, I guess I must further confuse the issue by reminding that some 'real' guns had a reduced charge as well as the full charge, but this didn't result in them being called howitzers! C2 sight is used with both L7 GPMG and L16 mortar (as previously posted). However, GPMG has only about half the indirect fire effective range of a Vickers MMG.

"However, GPMG has only about half the indirect fire effective range of a Vickers MMG." How come? 7.62mm is ballistically superior to .303?

I am old enough to have been taught this. We used the M10 Plotting Board in conjunction with firing tables and the tripod and T&E marking and bubbl elevel sight. It was a pain in the butt and never used. I believed it was used extensively in Korea to isolate a hill objective; provided grazing fire to the back side of the hill, etc. Don't know if there was much use in Viet Nam.