So, you may be asking by now - if you have read this so far, rather than deciding 'TLDR' - where does the mission report come in? Patience, not long now! 'Pairs fire and manoeuvre' is what skirmishing's commonly called in the days of two four-man fire teams. When the rifle group needed to start skirmishing on its own (typically in the final assault), or just if we needed to move 'tactically' (US 'bounding overwatch') we could move in turns, as odds and evens, better spread out than if people were moving in an 'interleaved' fashion, which was normally the 'official' drill for skirmishing. There were variations of course and one I was taught - and preferred when I was acting as a section or patrol commander - was, having numbered off my rifle group, to put odd numbers on the left in any formation, and even numbers on the right. I was quite chuffed to find on Youtube a while back a Services Kinema Corporation training film that nicely illustrates all of this in action - and that I found I still remembered nearly by heart! We trained and practiced section attacks using 'Section Battle Drills' - Preparation for Battle, Reaction to Effective Enemy Fire, Winning the Fire-fight, The Assault & Fight-through (sometimes taught as two distinct drills) and Re-organisation. The rifle group, under the corporal who was section commander, was five or so men armed with the magnificent SLR, supplemented by smoke and fragmentation grenades and a couple of 'sixty-sixes', disposable AT rocket launchers. The former was typically three men, the lance corporal section 2ic (second-in-command) and the number 1 and 2 on a GPMG (spoken as 'gimpy'). In my day, infantry sections were organised into a 'gun group' and a 'rifle group'. When in contact with the enemy, or when advancing to contact, one team moves while the other fires - or covers, from a position from which it can fire. So a section operates in two teams, called fire teams these days. To move in the face of his fire, you must supress him, and win the fire-fight. To get close enough to the enemy to destroy him, you must move. The foundation stone of those tactics is section attacks - the drills the infantry use to accomplish their mission in battle, which is to close with the enemy, day or night in any weather and in any terrain, and destroy him, or force his surrender.įire and movement, or fire and manoeuvre, is the foundation of modern infantry tactics. And by the end of World War 2, the section's tactics had evolved into the same basic form they still follow today. Since at least the time of the Romans, whose legionaries were organised into squads of about eight men who trained, ate, slept and fought together, the infantry section ('squad' in US Army terms) has been the very building block of larger units. Section attacks - ask anyone who's had even basic infantry training, and they will tell you it's the point all the training comes together - the weapon handling and marksmanship, camouflage and concealment, tactical movement, formations, field signals, target indication, fire control orders and all the rest of it. Hey, you! Get down off that effing skyline! He is incorrectly referred to as "Herr Major".Real-world infantry tactics in the Arma2-based Iron Front: Liberation 1944.After all of his men were killed, Volkmann fled on a motorcycle, but was chased by Charlie, who shot him and killed him.
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He knocked Volkmann over a fruit seller's cart as he escaped and got the child to safety. Major Hecht, who had by this time joined the resistance, ran over and took the unprepared Volkmann by surprise, punching him and taking the boy away from him. He was in charge of all of the SS on the Greek island, and along with his subordinates Haupsturmführer Reistoffer and Obersturmführer Braun kept the islanders in a grip of deadly fear.ĭuring a firefight between the SS and the Greek partisans following the liberation of the prison camp Stalag VII Z, Volkmann took a young boy hostage and attempted to use him as a human shield. In occupied Greece 1944, Sturmbannführer Volkmann was a Schutzstaffel officer.