Читать книгу Shoot to Kill - Ion Idriess - Страница 6

CHAPTER II

The Rifle

THE rifle is a deadly weapon. In the hands of a marksman it still is one of the deadliest weapons in warfare. It is the easiest to come by, and is a one man weapon. It will be the weapon of large numbers of the Regulars, and of the Auxiliaries.

Learn to shoot straight. That is the one thing that counts. Every man will treasure his rifle, for at any moment it may save his life, a fact that the regular soldier fully realizes. The auxiliary soldier, if his leaders plan their job well, will within a few hours learn the few axiomatic principles of his rifle, and realize the necessity of keeping it clean and ready for instant action. The main thing he must really work for is to learn to shoot straight. As he will be in deadly earnest about this he should master the art quickly indeed.

First, realize the tremendous fighting power of the rifle. By you and your comrades first understanding your weapon you become not only better soldiers but your battalion becomes a fighting power to be reckoned with. You cease to be a loosely strung mob of auxiliary pot-shotters; you develop into a fighting battalion capable of holding up an enemy battalion. But at the same time, by virtue of being guerrilla and understanding guerrilla tactics, you hold the immeasurable advantage of being able to split up into fighting groups, then of coming together again as the action demands. If we thus increase the efficiency of every battalion of the Auxiliary Army then an enemy will soon find he has bitten off more than he can chew.

A poor rifleman would only kill an enemy by luck or accident, even at fairly close range. At 500 yards such a rifleman might fire 1000 shots and not hit his man. And if that man were a slightly better shot, he would kill the poor rifleman.

A battalion of poor rifle shots could be wiped out by fifty trained rifle shots.

Thus, if you get up against a better rifle shot than yourself then out you go—for keeps. If your battalion of 1000 men get up against a few better rifle shots then out the whole battalion goes—for keeps.

Moral. Learn to shoot straight. Then learn to shoot straighter still at varying distances under varying conditions. It will then be you who will live to tell the tale and fight another day. And exactly in proportion as you live and fight so will your families and country be safer, and the enemy’s man power dwindle away.

A good rifleman may kill his man first shot, or he may kill him in ten. He and his mates are then safe at least from that man, and he has only used up ten bullets. So that ammunition does not worry him for the present. If he were a poor shot and had lived long enough to use up 1000 rounds, then ammunition would worry him for the enemy may appear all around him and most of his ammunition will have gone.

It is not always possible to hurry ammunition to a regular firing line. Groups or sections or platoons or individuals of an Auxiliary Force may find themselves fighting under conditions where the only ammunition the individual can depend upon is what he carries in his own bandolier.

Hence, a good shot not only saves his life by shooting his enemy quicker, he also saves his life a second and third and fourth and fifth time by still having sufficient ammunition to shoot other enemies as they may appear. Think it out for yourself. There are numerous reasons why you should become a crack shot as quickly as possible.

Imagine your complete battalion in action. They are poor shots, each man uses up one hundred bullets before he kills or cripples a man. Thus the battalion has used up 10,000 bullets to put one hundred of the enemy out of action, By that time the enemy, if better shots, have just about wiped out the battalion—unless it is holding a prepared position where ammunition previously has been stacked.

Actually, if the battalion knocked out a hundred of the enemy for 10,000 bullets it would be fair shooting according to the statement that it takes a ton of lead to kill a man. Which proves what poor shots the armies of the world really are. Hence, if every individual of every battalion of an auxiliary army concentrated on becoming a good rifle shot then battalion for battalion they would actually be superior in fire power to a regular army.

Auxiliary Forces organized and trained only in those few things that matter would become of tremendous value to their country, and to our regular army. The regulars of course would have the artillery and tanks and planes. Working in conjunction with efficient Auxiliaries throughout the continent the country would become impregnable.

I have stated that the battalions in any regular army are, on the average, poor shots. That statement is true because the authorities have always begrudged ammunition for firing practice. Hence the full striking power of the soldier is not developed.

For our Auxiliaries we must insist on abundant ammunition for firing practice. This country has been turning out ammunition for years past; now new factories at vast cost to us are turning out ammunition at high pressure, turning it out in shiploads. Hence we should have abundant ammunition to defend our own homes and country.

Forty thousand Boer farmers held up the might of the British Empire for three hard years simply because they were armed with rifles which they knew how to use. From boyhood each man had had practice by shooting the game which gave him meat.

Any man can learn how to shoot straight. First grasp the reason for a few very simple rules then get into practice straight away.

Any man among us is capable of seeing a man’s head resting on the skyline 1000 yards away. So our eyesight is all right, no need to worry about that. The next thing to cultivate is a steady mind which to a great degree masters steady hands and body.

Let me explain a bit what steadiness means. It is that, on the instant of firing, your rifle sights are movelessly in direct line with the target. If it be a man’s head then it will be a very small target at 1000 yards. But if the range be correct and the sights be movelessly and perfectly aligned then the bullet will hit its mark.

If not you can fire 1000 shots and never hit the mark.

It is a simple, a perfectly natural result. If you have a sheet of paper then put two dots upon it wide apart. You can connect those two dots by means of a ruler. Align your ruler perfectly and movelessly then draw a perfectly straight line along it. And you have connected dot with dot. But if your hand trembles then the ruler moves just slightly and your line misses the dot.

Well your rifle is the ruler and the invisible line speeds from the rifle muzzle to connect the dotted target. Hence, it is not eyesight alone that makes a crack shot, but steadiness of hand and body as well.

Realize those two simple facts and you are far on your way to becoming a crack shot. Then follow up with a little practice on the range and you find yourself beginning to know your rifle. Soon after that and you will be a crack shot.

A man’s rifle is like his dog, his horse. Dogs are dogs, horses are horses, but every animal even of the same breed is very different. So with a rifle. It is the same as any other rifle of the same brand but it is still different, it has its own individual ways. That is why keen rifle shots love a favourite weapon. They know it, know its ways, know its feel, know its little peculiarities. They will always shoot better with that rifle than with any other weapon.

If your rifle is thoroughly tested for you (which the section leader must insist upon) and proved accurate, then cling to that weapon. Don’t change it if you can help it for it will soon become “part of you” and will do good work for you. Every man of the Auxiliary Forces should insist that his rifle is tested for perfect accuracy before it becomes his especial weapon.

Thus, steadiness is of vital importance to a rifle shot, your life will depend again and again upon steadiness under all manner of breath-taking conditions immediately you come into action.

I have said that to cultivate a steady mind practically means that already you are master of a steady body. Let us prove that statement. Under stress of excitement the uncontrolled mind is liable to race, which causes the heart to beat faster, the hands to twitch or tremble, the body muscles to quiver a bit. The nerves do it, the mind warns “danger!” and the nerves react with a consequent excitement and probable unsteadiness of the limbs.

Hence if at a sudden alarm you raced out into the street to find a parachutist just on the point of landing, your first shot would probably miss him. Then you’d fall a victim to his Tommy gun. If an enemy came on you suddenly at night out in the open, you would miss him when you flung your rifle up and pulled the trigger. That is, if you do not possess “steady nerves”, which really is mind control.

Hence, in your daily work, in moments of bad temper or excitement, practise mind control. Just remember it often and it will become subconscious. It won’t stop you shaking under sudden excitement but a second later it will, if only you’ve remembered it enough. Your heart may keep on hammering for a while but you’ll lift your rifle with a much steadier hand, your breathing almost instantly becomes controlled, you have the power then to take what is called a “cool aim”.

And it is the cool aim which hits your enemy before he hits you.

I’ve seen this mind control (call it what you like) exercised by many a man many a time in the firing line. Just walked along coolly under hot fire (because under the circumstances there was absolutely nothing else to do), just walked quietly along showing no excitement whatever. It has happened to me. And I have been so scared that I’ve wished the ground would open up and swallow me.

That automatic mind control has saved many and many a man from showing fear when under hot fire. It comes naturally after a time if you come to cultivate it, and this is what makes the deadly shot when under fire. He is thinking only of his target and of hitting it; his mind is concentrated on that one job.

If the enemy springs his invasion stunt he is going to cause all the excitement he possibly can, for panic and fear and uncertainty and shaky bodies will help him tremendously. But if every individual fighter of all our forces aims with a cool aim then the enemy will simply be annihilated, no matter what his numbers.

This efficiency which comes through steadiness applies not only to the rifle shot, but to the machine gunner and bomb thrower also. Think a lot of what I’ve said about practising not to allow the mind to become excited, there’s a very great deal in it.

After average eyesight and a steady body there is one more rule which the rifle shot should understand, then quietly cultivate. The knack of holding the breath perfectly for three seconds. It is the last thing you do just before and as you take the second pull, that tiny pressure which releases the trigger and sends the bullet on its way.

If you do not realize the reason why and then learn to hold the breath for three seconds while the body is utterly moveless then all the careful sighting, all the practice in the world will never make you a crack rifle shot. You will become a rifle shot certainly but never the marksman who nearly always gets his man.

The reason is simple. Your body is solid as a rock. Your rifle sights are perfectly aligned on the target. You have taken the first pull even but—you are still breathing. Well, that faintest movement at the critical moment almost certainly will move the rifle muzzle but the merest fraction of an inch and—you miss the target.

A man’s head at 300 yards is small enough, at 1000 it is small indeed. I’ve seen many a soldier miss a man in full view at 300 yards let alone a man’s head at 1000, which is a general front line range. When your sights are aligned on a man’s head at 1000 yards it takes but the merest wisp of movement of the rifle muzzle to cause the bullet to fly just wide of the mark.

If your body and grip is firm and moveless, if aim is correct, if you hold the breath at the moment of firing and all of you and the rifle are perfectly still, the bullet must fly to its mark.

Grasp the vital necessity of steadiness before you practise shooting, and you have laid the foundation to becoming a good shot. It only needs practice then and very soon you will consistently hit the bull at 1000 yards. And the extreme confidence which such good shooting will give you will mean that 1200 then 1500 yard shooting will become easy, while 500 yards, 200 yards (close range shooting) will become child’s play.