Indirect Firing; An Innovation in Machine Gunning

We had different sites on our guns by that time and we could fire indirect firing. You take an ordinary machine gun, you can only shoot at what you see, be a soldier, a vehicle or whatever you want. But with the Vickers and that new site that they had, you could set it up the same way as an artillery sets up his sites on aiming posts. And you aimed at the aiming posts. You didn’t, you don’t know what your firing at. Your told so many degrees at such a such a range, and while, while he’s talking you put, your put the range on the site and the degree that he was asking so that when he says, might fire five hundred rounds or whatever you wanted . Then the, the whole four would fire that amount of round. And whatever orders we’d get then from the OPIP they had to have an OPIP then. Which ordinary machine gun units, up to that time, didn’t have that. It was very handy gun to have, because you could use it at close range and you could fire indirect firing. And you clear, you clear the hill, whatever. You might be firing from behind the hill, or it could be set up there. But get an order to, to fire on something else, you still had your site, and the aiming post that you had at the front. So you still aim there put whatever the range is given, it was quite simple.