FRENCH INFANTRY TACTICS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2938, 25 November 1916, Page 9

FRENCH INFANTRY TACTICS

SPECIALISTS WITH NEW WEAPONS (Keuter's Telearam.) London, November 23. The new infantry tactics, whereby fewer men are employed, but aro much more powerfully armed, are described by Router's representative at French Headquarters. Hand grenades, rifle grenades, and macliine-gun rifles, he states, are largely displacing rifles and bayonets as the main weapons. The users of the new .weapons are called specialists. A demonstration showed -that the hand-grenade throwers are trained in groups, and combine like a football team. They are interspersed with light infantrymen whose duty it is to protect them at close quarters and clear tho way at difficult moments. Themethods made greater demands on the intelligence and initiative of the men, especially where waves of assault are nccessary, when speed arid combination are of essential importance. The_ demonstration showed that an attacking line is able.to bring a terrific and impassable fire to bear. An equally .convincing lesson .was in the art of smothering places where groups of tlie enemy are holding out after the wings have been driven back. The value of the new tactics is evidenced by the fact that the French had fewer casualties, in .the first four, months of tlie Sonime. offensive than in the few days of fighting in the Champagne last year. Furthermore, tho casualties in the advance south' of the Sonime and at tlie recapture of Douaumont and Thiaumont were well under half the number of prisoners taken. New methods are also_ being taught to the Artillery and Engineers.