What is it about?
Throughout the written history of the Great War, there is an account of one million rounds being fired from a single machine gun company during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This seemed far-fetched so the authors sought to explore the realities of the account and the logitical requirements for it to have happened.
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Why is it important?
Veteran testimony and accounts are often the backbone of military history. This account has been repeated so many times and in so many publications that it had become accepted without question. It's an extraordinary feat to have done so, both mechanically with the machine guns and for the men who were serving in the company; however, it needed challenging and exploring to determine whether it happened.
Perspectives
For me, understanding the logistical requirements of firing one million rounds was important. It's valuable to comprehend the true problems of machine gunnery in that they are not just about getting a small number of guns to continue to work mechanically for a period but there's a bigger picture of the build-up to such an event.
Richard Fisher
Cranfield University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: One million rounds fired in 12 hours? An analysis of the account of six guns of the 100th Brigade Machine Gun Company at High Wood in August 1916, First World War Studies, September 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/19475020.2019.1651667.
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