Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
My great-great-uncle John Harris (one of the few people on my stepmonster's side of the family worth anything) was a Marine in World War 1. (He unfortunately died about 15 years ago at the age of 99.) Seems the Germans one day sent an officer under a flag of truce to the the Marines' lines. The German commander was highly pissed at the Marines' "ungentlemanly" behavior -- the Marines would start an engagement by consistently picking off Germans at 600-800 yards. Not just a sniper or two, but the whole Marine unit!
I think the German commander was just pissed because his troops couldn't shoot as well.
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Paul,
I ran across a hardbook on WWI that talked about the Germans rifle practise taking place at indoor ranges and at ranges of no more than 100 yards. US Marines and Army, prewar, trained at up to 1,000 yards.
The Germans, while not as bayonet-happy as the French (is anybody more bayonet-happy than the French?), believed that the bayonet would overpower the rifle. They also believed that the true man-killer was artillery and machine guns.
So when the Germans ran into the 2nd and 3rd Divisions of the AEF, there are so many accounts from both sides of how American rifle fire at unheard of ranges, slaughtered attacking Germans.