Polybolos

[ambrosius]

OT, but still has some relevance to do with tactics and weapon choice: I have a friend whose uncle was in WW2 and carried a Bren gun. Apparently, if it looked like they were going to be captured the rule was to bury it and pick up any other available weapon, as the enemy hated it so much that any captured Bren gunner was shot on the spot. The thing I understand about its use is that it was no good for area fire, which was how the US troops used their BARs and thus Patton called the Bren a godawful weapon, probably as it didn't operate the same way. But possibly British troops used different combat tactics which made the Bren more useful to them.[/i]

OT again (and the last of the Ellis family wartime exploits) but my
grandad said he would set his Bren/machine-gun post up on the _flanks_
of his own lines. That way, when the enemy line approached his own
line, he was firing _along_ the enemy line. So that (whichever kind of
MG you use) you don't need to worry so much about a narrow field of
fire. As, whatever shots miss/pass through the first man hit the next,
as they drop, and so on. It also means they have to worry about fire
coming from more than one direction. Though I doubt the polybolos
was powerful enough to do that.

Ambrosius