REVOLVER FIGHTING.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 September 1918, Page 6

REVOLVER FIGHTING.

. BOW A ’PLANE WAS CRASHED. . IDEAL MEANS OF DEFENCE. • The despatches of our war correspondents have made the public quite familiar with the characteristics of < ‘hows.’, field, and machine-guns, trench mortars, etc. to the neglect of a most useful, if small, piece of ordnance —the revolver.

The revolver is an “iron ration,” of fire power. An “iron ration” is the tin of corned beef and packet of biscuits which Tommy carries everywhere with him for tPhe in an emergency. Thanks to esprit de corps among his comrades in rear, however, Tommy seldom requires to eat his “iron ration,” but when he does need it he needs it mighty badly. So with the revolver. When the Colt, Webley, or Smith and Wesson are spitting out their .455 bullets, the situation is serious, for one is face to face with the Hun. and a single mistake means —well, thumbs down!

■ Owing to its being so portable and handy, the revolver, properly handled, comes into its own as an effective weapon in hand-to-hiand fighting in system, sap, wood, dugout, cellar system or house. Co-operation with the bombers often yields good results as ■one can dash in among the enemy, on top of the bomb explosion and shoot those who have not been killed or •wounded before they recover from the shock of the detonation. - Every officer, of course, is armed with a revolver. It is his sole means of defence, but it is an ideal one.

Most civilians have an idea that, given a revolver, they could hit a beer (bottle ten yards away first shot. Let them try! Nothing could be farther from the truth than to imagine that there is no high standard of. skill required to shoot well with a revolver; that because one is shooting at point blank range one cannot miss the target. For one thing, the barrel is short, and naturally the distance between the front sight and the back sight is short. too. Consequently a •very small error in aiming, and, more important still, in trigger-pressing-, will cause the bullet to go widely astray of the target.

The fact is that not only considerable skill, but also firm self-discipline, is required to handle the revolver properly, because it is t a dangerous weapon to friend as well as foe is mishandled. The most remarkable and thrilling revolver story of the war, of course, is that of the British airman who, when all his machine gun ammunition had been expended without result, fired' a revolver at his opponent and “crashed” him. Quite a lot of good work' has been done with empty revolvers; after all the ammunition has been fired, “Jerry’ ’has been bluffed into his “Kamerad” mood hjr pointing the revolver at him just as ;if it were loaded. One point, cannot he too strongly emphasised—that the way to fight witn an empty revolver is not to hold l it hy the barrel and attempt to bash In “Jerry’s” head with the buttt. That sort of thing is only found in picture plays and penny novels, and it gives away to the enemy the all important fact that you are unloaded —a fact of •which Fritz is not slow to take advantage.