This Provisional Machine Gun Firing Manual contains the following sections: General Scheme, Individual Instruction, Combat Firing, The Theory of Fire, Targets and Ranges, Miscellaneous, and Courses for Organizations Not in Regular Service. The following topics are discussed: use, care, and repair of machine guns; mechanics of the gun; physical training; sighting, positioning, and aiming drills; use of field glasses, range finders, mil scale, sights, prismatic compass, clinometer and hand level; determination of ranges on the ground by eye, from a map, from troops already engaged, measured directly on the ground, by sound, by range finder, and through range estimators; recognition and designation of service targets; known distance practice; record practice; determination of sight setting; instruction field firing; indirect fire; overhead fire; night firing; individual qualification tests; firing problems; drill exercises; the conduct of field-firing exercises; the critique of field-firing exercises; combat practice record; ballistic qualities of machine guns; rates and volumes and their relation to effectiveness; adjustment of fire; target for obtaining sight setting of machine guns, known distance targets, and field targets; class A range, machine gun range, class B range, and range regulations; classification, insignia, and extra compensation; and syllabus of combat training.

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