kuk army shooting school

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Frequentants
Rifle shooting range 1908

The kuk army shooting school was an establishment of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces . It was divided into the instruction battalion , machine gun school, and test and research department .

The task of the shooting school was to train officers and NCOs in fire control , the use and handling of handguns and handguns, as well as machine guns. Bayonet fencing, gymnastics, the management of gymnastics games, sporting events and officers' sport shooting were also on the curriculum.

history

construction

After the end of the war in 1866 , the leadership of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces had to start rethinking. The Imperial and Royal Infantry , equipped with a muzzle-loading rifle and still trained in the linear and assault tactics of the Napoleonic era, was almost at a loss to the modern-run and armed (thus faster-firing) Prussian units.

Machine gun 07/12 "Schwarzlose"

As a first consequence, the Army Rifle School was established in Bruck an der Leitha in 1868 - already with a view to the conversion of the army to the Werndl system in 1869 . It had become essential to improve training and to increase the knowledge of weapons technology, especially since in 1886 the previous Werndl single loader was replaced by the Mannlicher multi-loading rifle . The shooters had to familiarize themselves with the handling of this rifle and the principles of division fire, studies and tests had to be continued, the provisions and regulations changed, and the soldiers' personal equipment had to be adapted to the new requirements.

extension

Since the previous institution no longer met these requirements, a reorganization and renaming of the kuk Army Shooting School took place in 1887 . Due to the lack of trained instructors, the troops were unable to be trained in effective fire control. However, this was absolutely necessary, which is why the teaching program offered was gradually expanded more and more on its own.

In 1908 , after many years of testing and trials at the shooting school, the Schwarzlose machine gun (military designation machine gun 07/12 ) was introduced. Since they had failed to train the appropriate instructors in time, the newly established machine gun departments lacked the trained officers and non-commissioned officers and were forced to do this immediately. Since the Austro-Hungarian administration, known to be very thrifty, had been very reluctant to make funds available, the courses at the shooting school had only been held in the framework that was considered absolutely necessary. However, this changed in the face of the military and political crisis in the Balkans that followed the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 by Austria-Hungary . Although the financial resources were increased only insignificantly, the army leadership felt compelled to support the school with all possible means. This led to the fact that the army shooting school succeeded in the winter of 1908/09 in spite of extremely difficult conditions in training the personnel needed for a possible mobilization case .

Mannlicher M 1890 multi-loading rifle

Test departments

All of this led to an expansion and enlargement of the institution until it finally took on its final form in 1909. From then on, it was an extremely practical training facility with an attached test and research department. On the test site and laboratories assigned to her, tests and studies were carried out in all areas relating to weapons and ammunition, ballistic issues, and the personal equipment of the shooter and the troops. The task was also to prove the theoretically determined values ​​in practical field tests. For this purpose, the working groups of the departments traveled to all parts of the monarchy , both in the high mountains (a station of the rifle examination committee was at the Ortler summit) as well as in the Adriatic and the Hungarian lowlands . The experiences made in this way and also through the follow-up of the progress of the arms and shooting industry in the other states flowed into the corresponding regulations and shooting regulations.

Results

In various courses, around 1,000 army and navy officers were trained annually in theoretical and practical fire control, and some of them were prepared for use as weapons officers . About 50 staff officers were trained for their extensive service with the troops, and a number of troop commanders were informed about the innovations in all areas of arms and shooting. The proportion of foreign officers who took part in the courses was also not insignificant. Among other things, Turkish, Spanish, Romanian and Chilean officers were trained. The tactics instructors and those of the gunsmithing and weaponry at the cadet and corps officer schools were prepared for their teaching activities, the frequenters (participants) of the building construction course were given practical instruction on the construction and securing of elementary firing ranges. The latter was a detailed instruction, combined with practical instructions for creating, setting up and securing combat shooting ranges and target representations.

In addition, around 1,500 NCOs from the army and navy received their training qualifications for military service every year .

source

  • FML Rudolf Stöger-Steiner Edler von Steinstätten: The kuk army shooting school . Article in Moderne Illustrierte Zeitung , double issue 10/11, Vienna June 1, 1914, Siegmund Bergmann (Ed.).