To help remedy the situation, the EUSAK commander urged “continuous command supervision to insure the maximum return for all ammunition expended.”[263] The general made it plain that he was not changing his policy of exacting a heavy toll whenever the enemy began an attack. This course had been followed by the 1st Marine Division, but the Marines’ ability to both restrict the enemy’s creeping tactics and simultaneously fight a siege-type war was noticeably impeded.[264] [263] 1stMarDiv ComdD, Oct 52, App I, No. 19. [264] _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 5, Chap. 8, p. 8-71. As the end of October approached, the shortage of ammunition was becoming a subject of increased concern to the frontline Marine units. Daily allowances established for the last 11 days of the month were 20 rounds of 105mm high explosive (HE) and 4.3 rounds of 155mm high explosive for each tube.[265] With such small quantities to fire and further restricted by an equally critical shortage of both hand grenades and 81mm mortar rounds, Colonel Moore was almost powerless to spike the Chinese preparations for assault of the Hook.[266] Artillery fires were reserved for only the most urgent situations or for large bodies of troops. It was one observer’s opinion that the “enemy could show himself almost at will without receiving fire, and that it was impossible either to harass or neutralize his continual fortification activity, let alone embark upon systematic destructive fires of the kind he was carrying out.”[267] [265] _Ibid._ [266] For example, during the latter part of the month each rifle company in the Hook battalion was limited to 150 hand grenades. The total 11-day allowance for Lieutenant Colonel Dulacki’s 81mm mortars was 475 rounds. 1/7 ComdD, Oct 52, App. III. [267] Heinl, _memo_. As a means of compensating for the shortage of 81mm mortar and 105mm howitzer ammunition, the Marines reverted to a former method of using machine guns. This technique, employed during the trench warfare days of World War I but seldom thereafter, was considered a useful expedient to discourage enemy defensive creeping tactics as well as to deter his preparations for objective attacks. The system required emplacing heavy machine guns both on and to the rear of the MLR to fire into areas that troops used for assembly or as check points. If the target was visible to the machine gunner, he could take it under direct fire. At night, when the enemy operated under cover of darkness, the machine guns fired into zones which had already been registered in the daytime. Colonel Moore directed his units on 23 October to resort to this expedient.