Reply #165: British school of musketry

[one-eyed fat man]

In British military rifle qualification with the Lee-Metford, and later, the various Lee-Enfield rifle was an exercise known as the "mad minute." The point was to simulate repelling an assault and the requirement was to get as many hits as possible on a 200 yard silhouette within a minute.

The minimum passing score was 15 hits on a silhouette target at 200 yards in 1 minute. This was required of any cook or clerk. A well-trained rifleman to perform the "Mad minute" firing 20 to 30 aimed rounds in 60 seconds, making the Lee-Enfield the fastest military bolt-action rifle of the day.

The all time aimed fire record with a bolt action rifle was set in 1914 by a musketry instructor in the British Army—Sergeant Instructor Snoxall—who placed 38 rounds into a 12-inch-wide target at 300 yards in one minute.

First World War accounts tell of British troops repelling German attackers who subsequently reported that they had encountered machine guns, when in fact it was simply a group of trained riflemen armed with SMLE Mk III rifles