Editing First day on the Somme (section)

====Infantry====
A BEF manual published on 8 May 1916 (SS 109, ''Training of Divisions For Offensive Action''), described successions of lines to add driving power to the attack, to reach the objective with the capacity to consolidate the captured ground against counter-attack.{{sfn|Griffith|1996|p=56}}{{efn|[[Paddy Griffith]] criticised [[James Edward Edmonds|James Edmonds]], the official historian, for assuming that line-formations were rigid, not capable of [[Infiltration tactics|infiltration]] and inferior to small groups or blobs, despite them being complementary forms which were used throughout the war.{{sfn|Griffith|1996|p=56}}}} In the Fourth Army Tactical Notes of May 1916, battalions were allowed to attack on a front of {{nowrap|2–4 platoons}} in {{nowrap|8–4 waves}} about {{cvt|100|yd}} apart. Supporting lines were to pass through the leading ones, to avoid excessive demands on the energy and ability of individual soldiers. Weight of numbers was rejected as a tactic; each platoon was to carry half the burden of a brigade attack for a few minutes, before being relieved by a fresh wave. Platoons were divided into functions, fighting, mopping-up, support and carrying; the fighting platoons were to press on as the moppers-up secured the ground behind them. Support and carrying platoons could pick their way through artillery barrages with the tools and weapons needed to consolidate and defeat German counter-attacks.{{sfn|Griffith|1996|pp=56–57}}

Some troops in carrying platoons had about {{cvt|66|lb}} of equipment and tools, whereas troops in the advanced platoons carried a [[rifle]], [[bayonet]], {{nowrap|170 rounds}} of ammunition, iron ration (an emergency ration of preserved food, tea, sugar and salt), two [[grenade]]s, pick, shovel or [[entrenching tool]], four empty sandbags, two [[PH helmet|gas helmets]], wire cutters, a [[smoke candle]] and a water-bottle.{{sfn|Edmonds|Wynne|2010|pp=196–211}}{{efn|In the 56th (1/1st London) Division, each man carried {{nowrap|200 rounds}} of small-arms ammunition, a waterproof sheet, haversack, iron ration and the day's ration, two or three sandbags, two gas helmets and a "proportion of wire-cutters, bill-hooks and tools".{{sfn|Dudley Ward|2001|p=31}}}} In the French army, the experience of 1915 showed that despite the power of French bombardments, infantry would enter a chaotic environment, full of German pockets of resistance and individuals who had been by-passed. By mid-1916 much of the French infantry in the Sixth Army were specialist rifle-and-bayonet men, bombers, rifle grenadiers or light machine-gun crews. Attacking waves were spread wider and companies trained to manoeuvre in small groups, to get behind surviving German defences, as {{lang|fr|Nettoyeurs de Tranchées}} (trench cleaners) armed with hand-grenades and revolvers, searched captured ground for stray Germans and hidden machine-gunners, although such methods did not come into general use until later in the year.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp=149–150}}