240.  Except in a deliberately prepared defensive position, the most accurate and only practicable method of determining the range will generally be to take the mean of several estimates.

Five or six officers or men, selected from the most accurate estimators in the company, are designated as RANGE ESTIMATORS and are specially trained in estimating distances.

Whenever necessary and practicable, the captain assembles the range estimators, points out the target to them, and adopts the mean of their estimates.  The range estimators then take their customary posts.

CLASSES OF FIRING.

241.  VOLLEY FIRING has limited application.  In defense it may be used in the early stages of the action if the enemy presents a large, compact target.  It may be used by troops executing FIRE OF POSITION.  When the ground near the target is such that the strike of bullets can be seen from the firing line, RANGING VOLLEYS may be used to correct the sight setting.

In combat, volley firing is executed habitually by platoon.

242.  FIRE AT WILL is the class of fire normally employed in attack or defense.

243.  CLIP FIRE has limited application.  It is principally used:  1.  In the early stages of combat, to steady the men by habituating them to brief pauses in firing. 2.  To produce a short burst of fire.

THE TARGET.

244.  Ordinarily the major will assign to the company an objective in attack or sector in defense; the company’s target will lie within the limits so assigned.  In the choice of target, tactical considerations are paramount; the nearest hostile troops within the objective or sector will thus be the usual target.  This will ordinarily be the hostile firing line; troops in rear are ordinarily proper targets for artillery, machine guns, or, at times, infantry employing fire of position.

Change of targets should not be made without excellent reasons therefor, such as the sudden appearance of hostile troops under conditions which make them more to be feared than the troops comprising the former target.

245.  The distribution of fire over the entire target is of special importance.

The captain allots a part of the target to each platoon, or each platoon leader takes as his target that part which corresponds to his position in the company.  Men are so instructed that each fires on that part of the target which is directly opposite him.

246.  All parts of the target are equally important.  Care must be exercised that the men do not slight its less visible parts.  A section of the target not covered by fire represents a number of the enemy permitted to fire cooly and effectively.

247.  If the target can not be seen with the naked eye, platoon leaders select an object in front of or behind it, designate this as the AIMING TARGET, and direct a sight setting which will carry the cone of fire into the target.