John Breed, Diary and Training diary, item 126

• March 30, 2017 00:48:35 Cheryl Ellsworth

  The depth of the zone may be increased by bursting the

  shrapnel higher than usual, so as to make the bullets carry

  further. But this increased depth is obtained at the expense

  of effect on the men in the front line which it is especially

  important to produce.

  A deep bullet zone means a flat trajectory requiring a high

  velocity and therefore a heavy gun, it also means a heavy

  bullet, reducing the number of bullets in the shrapnel,

  therefore it is not surprising that opinions differ considerably

  on this point, the Germans for instance, consider that we

  are misled by our experience on the open Veldt of South

  Africa, into believing that attacks will always be carried

  out in very thin and very deep formations, they hold

  that in a close country the firing lines will be dense,

  and therefore they sacrifice depth of effect in order to get

  a large number of small bullets into their shrapnel giving

  an increased effect on the Enemy's front-line

  
  

  But it must be remember that the Germans converted

  15 PR is a low velocity gun (MV 1525 fs) and is
  

  incapable of any great depth of effect.

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