OK, Here We Go

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

I am going to present my opinion of the series of events that led up to the WWI Marine Sniper Rifle, rather than download some humongous file. I will start my clearing up one item that I would like to see a resolution. The picture below has shown up in several places on various forums, but it was cropped for some reason (discussed by CplN previously). This is a copy of the original photo as I found it on a Russian website long ago. Today, I verified it is correct by finding it (looked at a lot of photos in the process) on the site from which the Russians pulled it. The photo is a picture of a Marine Sergeant holding a scoped 1903 Springfield. The scope is an A5 in a commercial #2 mount on Springfield Marine Bases, which just means it is on 7.2" spacing. The reason I think those are #2 mounts is that I think I can see the Grasshopper. If that is a Grasshopper, then the rest must be true.

How does one date the picture? One of the pictures I downloaded had a caption that had a date of 1917. The captions didn't transfer with the photo. But take a look at the photo. If that photo was taken in France, it could only have been taken in 1917. Why do I think that? Because of the Marine's uniform. He is wearing something he would not have been wearing in 1918 in France (unless he was giving Pershing wrap-arounds). Why is that significant? Because the WRA rifles had yet to be assembled. We know it isn't a Niedner rifle, because there would be no Grasshopper and the scope would have those big knobs. What, I believe, we have is a Marine holding a scoped team rifle, probably in France, even though there is some evidence the Marines did not take their rifle team rifles to France, and we know the Marines rifle teams were using scoped '03's with both spacings for years before the war. There is a chance it is a posed picture taken in the states, as we know posed pictures were common during WWI.



If anyone can show evidence that I am wrong, please do so. "He/She said that" won't cut it. If you disagree, please do so in a civil manner.

You are going to howl over the next few installments. We are going to visit the "Four Horsemen".

Jim

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Doyen

Take a good look at this photo. That is Captain Charles Augustus Doyen sitting between Lt. Philip Michael Bannon and Lt. Newt Hamill Hall. I do not recognize the Colonel standing behind them. Take note that Newt is holding Charles's left hand, and Charles's left hand is behind Philip's a$$. Charles's sitting position can only be described as "sweetness". I am not certain of the date of the picture, but one thing is clear, the 1st Recipient of the Navy DSM and the 1st Marine to command an Army Division may have had a secret he kept to himself and "close" friends. Doyen would later organize and take the 4th Marine Regiment to France as the Commander of the 2nd Division (RA) until 8 Nov 1917, when Pershing sent him home, with a host of other old timer generals, as being physically unfit for war duty.

Gen. Doyen was the man used by the "Four Horseman" as the required authority to organize and run the Corps sniper program. The general with the stern look must have had a soft spot in his heart. Of course, there could have been another reason, closer to home, he acquiesced to their demands.

Next - the "Four Horsemen".

Jim

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Before the Horsemen....

I almost forgot. We need to define the items we will be discussing. Unless we all agree on the definitions, we cannot progress. I presume we can avoid the 6-loop and 8-loop scope cases, as I think we pretty much hashed that one to apoplexy.

First we will define the scope base. There are many types of scope bases, but the all have one thing in common - they are the attachment point for the scope, or another way, they are the means of attaching a scope and it's adjustment mechanism to the rifle (or pistol or whatever). We are only concerned with two bases in this discussion, as we will ignore the 6" spacing bases as they add nothing to the conversation.

1. The Springfield Marine Bases - The bases discussed in Brophy, used to space an A5 at 7.2" and which require an unmodified #2 mount with Grasshopper. The modified mounts as installed by Niedner will not fit these bases.



2. The Mann-Niedner bases - These are the bases that fit the modified #2 mounts with large knobs and no Grasshopper that Niedner installed on the first 150 sniper rifles. The slot is taperer-fit and requires no screw to mount the scope.



Similarly, we are, I hope, only concerned with two scope mounts - the mount being the rectangular device that contains the adjustment mechanisms.

3. First was the commercial #2 mount with red dial markings. This mount was the "go to" commercial mount for WRA, who only had to manufacture bases for differing rifles to use the mount, thus beginning the proliferation of bases for commercial rifles. The purpose of the base was two-fold, as it attached the scope mount to the weapon, and resulted in a scope whose centerline was parallel to the centerline of the rifle bore.





4. The Modified #2 Mount (or Marine Mount) which is a commercial #2 mount modified to fit the Mann-Niedner bases. The adjustment knobs are noticeably larger, and the elevation adjustment is in inches, a click-pointer is added, and there is no Grasshopper. It is a marvelous mount, and one which I use on my hunting rifle (A5 scoped Sporter). Much ado has been made about having to use a drift to drive the scope and mount off its bases. Not true. There is an enlarged ring around the scope at the objective end. All one has to do is push the scope to the rear until this ring touches the stop ring, bump the end of the scope with your hand, and the scope comes off its bases. No need for hammer or drift, regardless of what you may have read.



All the mounts and Corps applications used the same WRA A5 scope.

Now if we can all agree these are the items we will be discussing, we can proceed. If not, let's discuss the issues in a civil manner. If you disagree, post your contrary evidence and we can hash it out. If you just disagree on principal, you can do that too; although I am not sure what that accomplishes. But I am game.

Jim

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Horsemen 1 & 2



The 1916 USMC Rifle Team was arguably one of the finest rifle teams ever assembled. It was the original Dream Team of the shooting world. They won more matches than any team in history. There was a good reason for their success, and that was the combination of their team Captain and their Team Coach. Their Team Captain was Captain William Garland Fay and their Coach was Captain William Dutly Smith, both outstanding shots in their own right, and both either were, are would be, Distinguished Shooters.

As the winds of war stirred, it was not by chance that the United States Marine Corps would have one of the finest sniper rifles, ever conceived, to issue to their snipers in WWI. Those superb sniper rifles did not appear to be the product of a group of gregarious old-line officers, sitting around a table, smoking fine Cuban cigars and planning a great war. The very fine Winchester A5 scoped 1903 Springfield sniper rifle was indeed the conclusive product of lofty thought, and a great deal of experience behind a trigger. This is the story behind the 1903 Springfield with a Winchester A5 scope mounted in a highly modified #2 mount (known as the Marine Mount) on Mann-Niedner bases.

The picture on the left below is of Garland Fay, and on the right is Dulty Smith in his sitting position.



If one searches through the leaves of history, one will discover that in August of 1916, Marine competitive shooter and Rifle Team Coach Captain William Dulty Smith, Distinguished Shooter in 1913, had Winchester A5 scopes mounted on two 1903 Springfields by America’s premier gunsmith, A. O. Niedner of Malden, Massachusetts, utilizing the new Mann-Niedner tapered bases. That same month, Marine Distinguished Shooter Captain William Garland Fay, the Marine Rifle Team Captain, had Niedner mount a Winchester A5 scope on a 1903 Springfield on Mann-Niedner tapered bases. As a Lieutenant, Garland Fay had won the President’s 100 trophy in 1916 with a score of 290. Major Smith would soon become the Commander of the Rifle Range Detachment at the Quantico Overseas Depot, under whom all future AEF Scout Snipers would train. Major Fay would become Range Officer and Commander of Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would personally train the first hundred snipers chosen from the 9^th Regiment for the Overseas Depot Scout Sniper School for a period of two months prior to their arrival at the Depot. The very first WRA assembled sniper rifles, with the highly modified Marine Mounts and Winchester A5 scopes on Mann-Niedner tapered bases, along with 8-loop A5 russet scope cases, would be issued to the prospective snipers by Captain Fay at Guantanamo Bay on 4 March 1918.

Nothing had happened by chance.

Captain Fay was an interesting guy, coming from a very prominent family in high society. His father was Wirt Fay. Captain Fay, gentlemen farmer, would man some of the nicest duty stations in the Corps, and attain rank at a very rapid rate. He would Captain one of the finest rifle teams in history. Captain Dutly Smith was Fay's best friend socially, and Captain Smith was an outstanding rifle team coach. What made the two different from previous team leaders were their innovative teaching techniques, and their absolute dedication to team shooting. One of their finer innovations was to use scoped rifles in trigger pull practice to minimize "shake" during the trigger pull. They had noticed that magnification of the target also magnified the effects of shake. Their favorite scope was the 5-power A5 in #2 mounts modified for Mann-Niedner bases (not the modified Marine Mounts). They both had noticed the same thing their good friend Townsend Whelen had noticed, that removal and replacement of a scope mounted in Mann-Niedner bases did not result in loss of zero, a very important characteristic for paper punchers – and snipers. Both became life-long advocates for the Mann-Niedner system of mounting a scope. Below is an excerpt from an article written by Townsend Whelen.



Both Fay and Smith became customers of A. O. Niedner. Their devotion to detail, and the use of the finest equipment available, paid off by enabling one of the best rifle teams to ever take the field. Much ado has been made about the delicacy of the A5 and its narrow field of view, but the team shooters knew that 95% of the shots, a sniper had to make, was but a few hundred yards across No-Man’s-Land; and sniper’s didn’t use their rifles for clubs in combat. In their minds, the criticisms were just a bunch of drivel from the unknowing.



This is a page from Niedner’s Work Book (courtesy of the late Michael Petrov), showing transactions with both Fay and Smith. There were other transactions with various Corps rifle team members. I suspect it wasn’t long before the Rifle Team armorers could duplicate Niedner’s work, although there may have been patent or other issues preventing such work. I don’t know, and neither does anyone else living. The 1916 Rifle Team had their telescopic sights installed by Niedner.

As war loomed on the horizon, the two men realized sniping would play a decisive role in the coming conflict. Believing they could make a significant contribution to any war effort, they began to conceive a sniping program that would train the finest snipers in the world. The two Captains would join forces with two other officers in an effort to equip the Marines with the finest sniper rifle possible, plus they would provide the best training they could for the Marine snipers before they were committed to the trenches.

The question being, how did two lowly Marine Corps Captains pull off such a deed and maintain control over the process?

Horsemen 3 & 4 up next.

Jim


PS
It appears this thread is of little interest to anyone. Posting these dang pics is a pain in the rear for me. If no one is interested, I have better things to do.

[Jim in Salt Lake]

If you keep posting this stuff, I'll keep reading it. Can't say about others but I like your posts. Put enough of yours and others together and there's a book. It seems that in any war up to and including Vietnam, sniper programs grew from the bottom up. In such a top down organization (US Military), it always amazes me what low level officers and non-coms can get accomplished and I like reading about these stories.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Outstanding, Jim. Hang on, as it gets better. I thought about writing a book, but I am getting old and I know I will never do it. The least I can do is try to keep bad info from being disseminated as fact. I will provide my info freely, no water marks or blurred or cropped photos. I got a lot of help in my project, and the least I can do is use what I do have to help others. My only hope is that I can present it all in a manner that others can understand and follow the process.

Jim

[PWC]

Looking forward to the next iteration of this string. Please don't feel that because no one has rushed to comment, that your 'stuff' isn't appreciated. Although I'm listed as a junior member, I have been reading this site for more than 20 years. I never missed posts from the Major and Gunny Fisher. Yours have a similar 'feel'.

Maybe why you may feel there isn't a big response (yet) is because it is hard to argue /comment against facts and a well thought out presentation. I believe you have the silent majority's attention.

[p246]

Keep going I'm reading and soaking it up

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Horsemen 3 & 4



Meet General Thomas Holcomb, Commandant, and veteran of Belleau Woods, who was and is prominently identified with the development of rifle shooting, and served as Inspector of Target Practice in the Marine Corps from October 1914 to August 1917. While serving in that capacity he was promoted to the rank of Major in 1916. He was a member of the Marine Corps Rifle Teams of 1901, 1902, 1903, 1907, 1908, and 1911, and of teams representing the United States in the Palma Trophy Match in 1902 and 1903, as well as being a Distinguished Shooter.



Holcomb’s best friend was Lt. Col. Douglas C. McDougal, yet another Distinguished Shooter, who early in his career was ordered to Headquarters Marine Corps where he served until the early part of 1911. His principal duty while at Headquarters was an instructor in rifle marksmanship, and he was Captain of the first Marine Corps Rifle Team to win the National Match.

From August 1917 to July 1918, then Major McDougal was assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps as Inspector of Target Practice, replacing Holcomb in the position. In July 1918, he was ordered to Quantico, Virginia, for duty with the 13th Regiment, and in September of that year sailed for France, as second in command. He returned to the United States in August 1919, and from September 1919 to January 1921, was in charge of ordnance material at the Depot of Supplies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

One of the keys to the success of their endeavor was control of the position of Inspector of Target Practice. To be honest, I am not certain why the appointment to this position was so important, as I could find very little information about the position; but Holcomb picked Fay and Smith to run the 1916 Rifle Team from this position. Holcomb and McDougal would give Niedner the job of assembling the first 150 sniper rifles from this position, as well as placing the first order for sniper rifles from WRA, and essentially controlling all communications with WRA. Somehow, the sniper program came under the purview of and became the responsibility of, the Inspector of Target Practice. As such, Holcomb and McDougal had almost total control of the sniper program from top to bottom. If they could influence Doyen to use his position to ensure the transfers of each of them to their "key" positions, the die would be cast.

The two officers would join Captain’s Fay and Smith to form a coalition to design and get constructed a sniper rifle that would give the Marine snipers the best equipment that could be fielded. They constituted a focused and determined group of advocates for the sniper rifle they themselves conceived. Each man was known for his superior intelligence and dedication to the Corps, particularly Fay and Holcomb. Their inter-communications were unusually precise and concise.

You have now met the “Four Horsemen”, the men responsible for the USMC A5 sniper rifle of WWI. Next, convincing Doyen.

Jim

[clintonhater]

Please don't feel that because no one has rushed to comment, that your 'stuff' isn't appreciated.

Exactly. But knowing nothing about these arcane and esoteric matters beyond what I'm reading on this site, there's nothing of value I can add; but I'm definitely interested in them.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

The Plan

As it began to be evident that America would join the war in Europe, the “Four Horsemen” began in earnest to formulate a credible scenario to train snipers. They knew early on that the longest lead time would be the scopes. McDougal was chosen to interact with WRA to ensure the changes they wanted to make would be, at least, on paper – nothing official as yet. Holcomb would handle all issues dealing with Headquarters Marine Corps and acquisition. Garland would devise a training regimen and interact with Doyen, and Smith would assist Fay and design the ultimate sniper rifle using nothing but the best (available) components.

They devised a list of requirements for the rifle:
1. The rifle would be a 1903 Springfield of match quality (star gauged with quality inletting and trigger).
2. The scope would be the Winchester A5, the best scope physically available.
3. The scope would be mounted in Mann-Niedner bases, as the #2 had zero problems after a dismount .
3. Fay wanted the elevation click adjustments to be in “yards” instead of “minutes” to aid in training country boys.
4. All wanted bigger knobs and click adjustments due to issues all had during their past matches.
5. The stock would be marked in such a way as to quickly identify which barreled action it matched.
(Niedner’s mark was below the receiver bridge on the stock, WRA’s just in front of the crossbolt on the port side).
6. Every rifle would be identical in every respect.
7. The snipers would use match ammunition.
8. Each sniper would retain possession of his unique rifle until he was unfit for service, completed his enlistment, or achieved the rank of Sergeant Major.
9. Each scope would be issued with a case, dim light adapter, and a rubber eyepiece.

Holcomb and McDougal would oversee WRA’s assembly of the rifles to strict tolerances.



I hope Tom doesn't mind me using his icture, but it is such a beautiful set, and this is what a WRA rifle and scope, as issued, looked like.

Fay would convince Doyen to transfer each of them into a position from which they could best oversee the program. Fay wanted to transfer to Cuba to take advantage of the superior range and fine weather. He would only pick and train snipers who qualified as Expert. He would immediately commence their range training until such time as OSD opened for business. Snipers would be trained in small 50 to 100 man batches to help maintain the quality of instruction.

Dulty Smith would be transferred to OSD to be in charge of the Rifle Range Detachment to oversee every facet of sniper training (there would be a delay). Holcomb was Inspector of Target Practice at Headquarters Marine Corps, and in perfect position to oversee the implementation of the sniper program. But Holcomb wanted to go to France, and had been promised Command of a battalion or regiment to be formed in the event of war. He would go to France as Commander of the 2/6. McDougal would replace Holcomb as Inspector of Target Practice if, and when, Holcomb departed for combat duty. All would depend on Fay convincing Doyen that the program was needed and the plan feasible.

Right in the middle of all their planning, America declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. It was time to act.

So, why did the Horsemen pick Captain Fay to make the attempt to sway Doyen to not only support their plan, but to be an active participant in its implantation? The reason was very simple; Augustus Doyen was married to Claude Fay, Garland’s older sister. Another of Garland’s sisters was married to John Pendleton, the Marine for whom Camp Pendleton is named. Fay was confident he could convince Doyen to implement the sniper program as the Horsemen envisioned it. Doyen was aware he would command the 4^th Marine Brigade when it formed as well as in France. Doyen not only agreed with the Horsemen, he thought the program to be of essence, and wanted his 4^th Brigade to be armed with the same sniper rifles. Now you know why Niedner was picked to mount the 150 scopes on rifles prepped and supplied by the Corps. WRA was pressed for time, but would supply the scopes and modified mounts to Niedner as soon as they were completed so the 4^th Brigade could be armed. The 4^th Marine Brigade snipers were to be trained at the BEF sniper schools in France.

The game was afoot. Up next – Cubans.

Jim

[clintonhater]

What was the "dim light adapter"?

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

What was the "dim light adapter"?

A device that fits on the eyepiece that had a yellow lens that gives more definition in poor lighting conditions. It is not easily installed or removed, in my opinion. You must remove the eyepiece lens to install or remove it. I just leave mine on all the time. I've only seen two or three of them in the last 10-years.

Jim

[clintonhater]

A device that fits on the eyepiece that had a yellow lens that gives more definition in poor lighting conditions. It is not easily installed or removed, in my opinion. You must remove the eyepiece lens to install or remove it. I just leave mine on all the time. I've only seen two or three of them in the last 10-years.

Jim

I've seen none in the last 50+ yrs! Nor even heard of them! I do, however, understand the principle, because Leica made a yellow lens accessory that was a friction-fit over the range-finder lens for use on cloudy days. Had one on my pre-war Leica III, and it made a noticeable improvement under such conditions. Should have been equally feasible to mount such a lens in a separate cap that fitted over the A5 eyepiece.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

How about a photo of one? I don't have a document for it, you will just have to take my word that I'm not faking the photo!

Jim