[gyvel]

Perhaps the overstuffed Ordnance Board members were thinking of "marching fire," since most of them (as has been pointed out) were still fighting the Civil War, but I suspect that once in the field, any good officer worth his salt would have figured out right away that it was suicide, and only used the devices for the more practical benefit of close range trench sweeping. In the end, the 12 ga. trench guns proved to be much more effective.

I firmly believe that officers in the field had enough common sense to know that there was no "marching" of any kind across No-Man's Land and that it was crazy and suicidal.

Both of my maternal grandfathers (biological and step) served in the First World War. Unfortunately, my bio. grandfather died the year before I was born, and my "step" never talked about it.