for a section of infantry (60 men) can protect an entire machine-gun detachment (six guns)."
In order to see in more detail how machine guns should be employed with infantry and the limitations of their tactics, it will be necessary to follow the sequence of the infantry combat in attack and defence, and to assume such situations as seem likely to arise.
ADVANCED GUARDS
The action of the infantry of an advanced guard will follow the same lines whatever the dimensions of the force, and the battalion is a convenient unit with which to deal. There are four battalions in a brigade, and three brigades in a Division; consequently the Divisional General will have six batteries of four guns each, or 24 machine guns, under his command. We will assume that the battalion we are dealing with forms the advanced guard of its brigade, and that the Brigadier has given it a battery of four machine guns, two of which will probably belong to the battalion.
Field Service Regulations, 1909, page 79, says: "An advanced guard is divided into a vanguard and a main guard. . . . The special duty of the vanguard is reconnaissance. It will therefore generally be composed of the advanced guard mounted troops, with or without a body of infantry as a support. By day, when the country is open and the advanced guard is strong in
