Great Britain. Army. Royal Tank Corps; Tanks (Military science)
_On the third morning_, close observation of a certain sector,
involving sketches and notes, was undertaken, and visibility
practices carried out. Later, the students were taken for an
“observation march,” and having described the features of the
country they had traversed, they had to write a report upon the new
sector which they had observed in the morning, and upon this report
they were later questioned.
_On the fourth day_, a new sector was visited, upon which they had
previously made notes from a map. These notes they had to compare
with reality, and to notice whether their imagination had been
faulty. A lecture on obstacles commonly found on approach marches
followed, and one on aerial photographs with practical work. Night
work followed, with special reference to the study of the stars.
_On the fifth day_, oblique and other aerial photographs were
compared with the actual ground, and a lecture was delivered
summing up the special points of the course.
Sometimes, however, during the “Savage Rabbit” period, lectures were
possible, and for these occasions a rather new type of discourse was
evolved, in which the broader aspects of Reconnaissance and of the
study of country were dealt with.
Local history was recalled:--how men had lived and fought in the
villages and cornfields that lay immediately about them; how that great
abbey church that stood alone was erected by a group of pious merchants
as a thankoffering for their town’s escape from the plague; how to this
little town the Revolution had brought a Committee of Public Safety,
and how it had held its red assize in the coffee-room of the Hôtel de
l’Europe, or how Bonaparte had lain at this or that château on his way
to the Camp at Boulogne.
Or again, the lecture might be more strictly military and concern the
place of Reconnaissance amongst the arts of war, and the action and
reaction of one arm of the Service upon another--the ever-present
trilogy of wire, trench and machine-gun, new theories of artillery
work, the latest fashions in tactics or the effects of the latest
poison-gas.
Then, where some isolated Tank Company or even section lay ready day
and night by its machines and lectures were impossible, an itinerant
instructor would set the exiles little schemes to carry out.
The two following exercises are typical:--
“Two small parties of officers go at different times to positions
from which a good view is obtainable. They pick out landmarks,
etc., and their peculiarities, taking notes or making sketches.
From these notes or sketches each party writes out three or four
questions on landmarks, general observation, routes taken, etc.
On their return the two parties exchange their questions, answers
are written, and these answers returned to the writers of the
questioners to correct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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