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From an article on the military use of Winchester 1897 in the old Handgunner Ltd:
"Trench raiding was what th gun was intended for, hence the name. But it could also be quite devastating against the massed infantry attacks characteristic of the Great War. Paul Jenkins recalled one incident in which the '97s were used to give concentrated fire across a section of front after the rifles and machine guns had done their best:
When those shotguns got going -- with nine .34 calibre buckshot per load, six loads in a gun, 200-odd men firing, plenty more shells at hand -- the front ranks of the assault wave simply piled up on top of one another in one awful heap of buckshot-drilled men."
If one man with a pumpgun is a dangerous adversary, what of two infantry companies with shotguns in a day of bolt action rifles?
The article discusses the German diplomatic protest against trench guns, but a picture caption under a buckshot shell and US marked shotgun says it well enough: "Krauts hated buckshot, which blew the points off their funny little hats."
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