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This Provisional Machine Gun Firing Manual contains the following sections: General Scheme, Individual Instruction, Combat Firing, The Theory of Fire, Targets and Ranges, Miscellaneous, and Courses for Organizations Not in Regular Service. The following topics are discussed: use, care, and repair of machine guns; mechanics of the gun; physical training; sighting, positioning, and aiming drills; use of field glasses, range finders, mil scale, sights, prismatic compass, clinometer and hand level; determination of ranges on the ground by eye, from a map, from troops already engaged, measured directly on the ground, by sound, by range finder, and through range estimators; recognition and designation of service targets; known distance practice; record practice; determination of sight setting; instruction field firing; indirect fire; overhead fire; night firing; individual qualification tests; firing problems; drill exercises; the conduct of field-firing exercises; the critique of field-firing exercises; combat practice record; ballistic qualities of machine guns; rates and volumes and their relation to effectiveness; adjustment of fire; target for obtaining sight setting of machine guns, known distance targets, and field targets; class A range, machine gun range, class B range, and range regulations; classification, insignia, and extra compensation; and syllabus of combat training.
The U.S. Army evolved into a truly modern fighting force during World War I. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, the infantry was its primary offensive arm. Training focused mainly on target practice, bayonet charges and marching drills. Antiquated tactics emphasized massive attack waves relying on ferocity to achieve battlefield objectives. Heavy casualties resulted when inexperienced American troops encountered entrenched German veterans trained in the use of modern artillery and machine guns. By war's end the American Expeditionary Force had progressed along a bloody learning curve, developing sophisticated techniques--small flexible formations, fire-and-maneuver and infiltration--for breaking the trench warfare stalemate. Eventually, the AEF integrated new weapons like poison gas, tanks and aircraft into its offensive tactics and pioneered the mechanized combined arms warfare still practiced by the U.S. Army. The exploits of the Fifth "Red Diamond" Division exemplify this critical period of development.