Paintings for training
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Title (Dublin Core)
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Paintings for training
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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Teaching Machine-Gunners to Fire at Art. How paintings worth thousands, the work of famous artists, are used to develop skill in gunnery
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Caption 1: The aims of war are to aim so as to score. A faithful reproduction of a landscape gives the gunner a sense of distance and proportion not otherwise easily acquired
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Caption 2: Machine-gunners learn from artistic reproductions of the terrain how to judge of distance
and of the interrelation of objects. Art with a capital A helps them to become experts
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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EVERY war has called in artists to
help the fighters. Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto
Cellini did their bit in their time, and now
come the Academicians of our own day,
‘whose ambition it is to paint landscapes
at which soldiers will be glad to aim either
cannon or machine guns. These scenic
targets are works of art in every sense,
for they must come from the skilled hands
of masters of perspective and atmosphere
and must be so ably composed that they
serve just as well as long reaches of hill
and dale and rolling uplands. The Art
War Relief, an organization which has
been enlisting noted painters for this all-
important work, announced that the
canvases of students and amateurs were
not available.
Artificial Landscape Targets
Most young men are city or town bred.
Hence few of the soldiers of our national
army have a clear idea of distances in
nature. As many of the cantonments
have not been placed amid scenery like
that which marksmen are likely to see
“somewhere in France” or “on the way
to Berlin,” artificial landscapes are pro-
vided on which they can practice. The
paintings are too valuable for cannon
fodder or even for machine-gun feed, but
they serve wonderfully well in giving the
illusion of panorama. The series which
have been painted by H. Bolton and
Francis C. Jones, both veteran members
of the National Academy of Design, are
typical of the kind of art which is now
in league with war. Some of these pic-
tures were used by machine-gun com-
panies at Camp Upton near Yaphank,
L. IL, before their departure for over-
seas.
Distance and Proportion
As the machine-gunners “lay on” their
pieces in front of this pleasing mark they
must keep in mind two things—range and
close designation. The middle distance
in the painting carries the normal vision
back about 2,500 yards. The mountains
far in the background are supposedly
eight miles away and therefore out of
range. The canvas is covered with
houses and churches, bridges and culverts,
and even a winding stream. The gunners
aim their weapons at these various ob-
jects. The commander comes up behind
them and points out errors they have
made in sighting due in part to their un-
treined eyes and in part to their lack of
familiarity with the mechanism.
How many men are there who grasp a
description and act at once upon it? The
officer gives the command, “Lay on black
rock left clump of trees—three fingers!"
Instantly the sergeant must repeat this
order and see to it that the smooth barrel
is 80 adjusted that it will guide bullets in
the direction named. The quick under-
standing of the description of objects in a
, landscape can be developed by the use of
the imitation terrain of paint. The
firing of machine guns effectively is
quick, sharp work and all the training
of eye and brain which can be im-
parted stands the soldier in good stead
in an emergency.
So exact are these high-art targets,
owing to the co-operation of the military
authorities and the designers, that even
the complicated problems of strategy can
be solved quickly by their use.
Grain Field a “Nest of Death”
After the marksmen have become more
experienced they are assigned to devising
ways for routing snipers out of hidden
retreats supposed to be in all these mimic
landscapes. The purpose is always to kill
as many of the enemy as possible with the
smallest amount of ammunition. Assume
that there is in the center of one of the
painted transcripts of nature a waving
grain field, all golden in the sun, and en-
veloped in a mellow haze, as an art critic
might see it. The machine-gun captain
considers it as a yellow nest of death in
the midst of which are certain big and
deadly wasps, the stings of which are
laying low comrades of another command.
He cannot see exactly where the buzzing
pests are straddled, but no time is to be
lost. He gives the command to “traverse
the field,” which means that his gunners
so divide the whole expanse of nodding
stalks among them, that the zones
reached by the rain of bullets account for
every square foot of the suspected area.
The variation of fire is made by causing
the individual gunners to tap their pieces
gently, so that a difference of two inches
at the end of a barrel becomes a large
space with the widening angle reached in
a distance of a mile or so. The method of
tapping can be learned readily in front of
one of the brush creations and a man who
is quick of eye and hand may soon be-
come very proficient.
Useful in Estimating Trajectories
The counterfeit countrysides serve just
as well as the real ones in estimating
trajectories of projectiles intended for a
certain locality and in the mastering of
much of the theory of gunnery practice.
The mistakes of the tyro can be con-
stantly corrected. As the canvases are
becoming more and more exact in their
proportions, they are considered already
as among the indispensables. A British
officer on seeing some of these examples
of American skill at Camp Upton recent-
ly, remarked that if the Allies had had as
good ones they would have been able to
have killed more Germans,
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Contributor (Dublin Core)
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John Walker Harrington (writer)
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1918-06
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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866-867
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public Domain (Google digitized)
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Filippo Valle
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Alberto Bordignon (Supervisor)
Popular Science Monthly, v. 92, n. 6, 1918
