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 enemy from being able to "snipe" the gunners through the loopholes.

The great variety of conditions and circumstances under which minor operations take place renders it impossible to do more than show how they may be used in certain selected instances. The machine gunner must be prepared to modify and adapt his tactics to suit the special circumstances of the expedition with which he is employed, and he cannot do better than study Callwell's ''Small Wars, their Principles and Practice'', which has been so freely quoted in this chapter.

ENCLOSED COUNTRY

This chapter would not be complete without some reference to the use of machine guns in enclosed country such as is found in the United Kingdom. Clery, in his Minor Tactics, p. 118, says that cultivated country is the most favourable to the attack, while in defence the country to the front cannot be too open. "In the first, infantry gains a succession of covered positions by means of which it comes on more equal terms with the defence. In the second, the infantry of the defence has a clear field to destroy the assailants as they approach."

Apart from civil war, the only possible occasion for the use of machine guns in the British Isles is against an invader, and it is well known to students of modern war that the prospects of a successful invasion do not depend upon the