British marksmanship standards

Having just come into possession of a Enfield No. 4 Mk 1* made by Long Branch in Canada. Naturally, I've been doing research on this little jewel and ran across the "Mad Minute" drill where the soldier had to put at least 15 shots in a 12" by 12" target at 200yds. in one minute. Apparently, experienced soldiers could double that but 15 hits was required to qualify. The record was by a British NCO who got 38 hits at 300yds! Horrendously excellent shooting, I think.

Now, my question: I know this was a pre-WW1 standard but was it also a standard in the WW2 era? If not, what were the marksmanship standards in the Commonwealth?

 

a couple of threads over on 2talk
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/58744-11-rounds-in-4-seconds-from-a-lee-enfield-303/
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/56158-marksmanship/

 

Thanks, dbf! Those were interesting. If I'm interpreting what's being said in those threads correctly, then the "mad minute" was a WW1 thing. That perhaps sometimes carried over to the next war. I'll be interested in what others say.

 

i remember once posting this on ww2talk

In 1966 my family and I had a holiday in Lido di Jeselo, in Italy.

One evening we all went out to the local fairground and stopped at a shooting booth.

I soon spotted that the rifles being used were very similar to the old Lee Enfield pattern but obviously adapted to load .22 slugs and so when my teenage daughters started geeing me up to demonstrate what a good shot I was I took the bait.

Owen, on this site, once accused me of never throwing anything away. In this case I have to give him right because the target was still pasted in my Holiday Album of that trip !

Given that the light was poor, given that the sights had probably been "doctored", given that I hadn't fired a rifle for at least twenty four years I don't think I did too badly, did I?

Attached Thumbnails
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/6841-whats-your-shooting-like/

Ron

 

I have the impression that by WWII, British Army training was concerned more with accuracy than with pure rate of fire ( of course, in 1914 the rifle fire of the BEF was famously confused with machine-gun fire).

I don't have the exact reference to hand, but IIRC one of the personal accounts in Martin Middlebrook's 'Arnhem 1944' cites the ability of the paratroopers to be able to routinely 'put ten rounds inside 8 inches at 400 yards' using the Mk IV Enfield over iron sights.

 

Martin

I fired against the enemy only once in my whole army career.

My weapon was a .30 browning machine gun and at the time i was less interested in accuracy than getting as many shots off in as short a time as possible.

I would guess that most small arms fire was used in this manner.

When I have a bit more time I will find my detailed account of this event and add the link.
(Actually found the posting itself which I have now added. It starts with my Diary entry)

Friday 13th April 1945
Moved over Santerno. Some M.G. nuisance and one H.E. about twenty yards away. Bags of prisoners, Kiss from Signora. "Liberatoris !". Chasing after tedeschis with 30 browning blazing!

http://www.bbc.co.uk.../a2017630.shtml


The Browning machine gun referred to was rarely fired in anger, the exception being on this one occasion when I nearly killed Hewie our Stuart Tank driver.

We had been on the move all day and the Germans were surrendering left, right and centre. To our left, about two hundred yards away, German infantry were climbing out of slit trenches with their hands high and we were gesturing to them to get behind us and to make their way to the rear.
Suddenly someone to our right opened light rifle fire at us and Busty (SSM ‘Busty’ Thomas) lost patience and yelled at me "Let the bastards have it!" Hewie swung the tank to the right so we could face the new threat and I started firing non-stop, without giving Hewie a chance to drop his adjustable seat down below the level of fire belching from the Browning. A horrified Busty yelled: "Get down you stupid bastard!" and to my immediate relief Hewie disappeared from view before I could hit him.

Ron

 

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember old soldiers talking about being required to hit dinner plates at 200 meters --offhand with either a springfield or a garand. others talked of 500-meter hits on man-sized targets with either the garand or the m-14. the fn-fal/l1a1 had iron sights calibrated to 600 meters.

I don't hear much about that kind of shooting nowadays with the 5.56mm. i'm guessing standards with the .30 was more in keeping with actual distances experienced in older wars, and to maximize the potential of the .30 caliber round.

 

That's a great group no matter the range, especially offhand with a warn out carnival rifle.