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MARKSMANSHIP HISTORY, THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES

Started by Cav1, April 30, 2008, 09:51:12 AM

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Cav1

As noted in the Boer War post, the lessons so painfully learned on the African veldt were taken to heart by senior British Army commanders; Lord Roberts lost a son when they found out the Boers' Mausers could out-range the English light artillery, and General Methuin could have lost a leg when hit at long-range during the Modder River battle. It was Metheun who insisted upon prioritizing, "Good shooting, accurate judging of distance, and intelligent use of ground."

In addition to military concerns, mavericks such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, helped to form the first (yes, before ours) National Rifle Association in England to promote rifle marksmanship. Kipling's short story, The Parable of Boy Jones, tells the story of the marksmanship programs of the new rifle clubs, and sounds almost like Fred wrote it. You can find the story free on-line.

Dedicated shooting ranges sprang up all over the country. Due to the dense population of the British Isles, many of these were reduced ranges utilizing .22 adapters and reduced size targets. Hmmmm.

With their new & improved Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle, British soldiers began training hard in marksmanship. The British Army being a poor stepchild to the Royal Navy, live ammunition budgets were not increased. So the Tommies spent many long hours dry-firing at small marks on the barracks' walls. Now, where have we heard that before?

The standard they strove to reach was called the "Mad Minute". Unlike the Vietnam-era Mad Minute, which involved as many misses per minute as possible, the pre-WWI British Mad Minute involved the most hits per minute. The soldier was required, with a bolt-action Lee-Enfield, to fire 15 shots per minute, and put them all into a two-foot circle at 300 yards.

When WWI broke out, the small British Expeditionary Force was sent to France to assist the French and Belgians. The German Kaiser supposedly referred to the BEF as "a contemptible little army", so the cheeky soldiers adopted it as their own and called themselves "The Old Contemptibles". With both the French and Belgians in retreat early in the war, the Old Contemptibles were thrown into the breech to halt the German advance.

At Mons, eight batallions of German infantry crashed into two batallions of the BEF. The Mad Minute began. One German officer described it: "Well entrenched and completely hidden, the enemy opened a murderous fire...the casualties increased...the rushes became shorter, and finally the whole advance stopped...with bloody losses, the attack gradually came to an end."

Private Smiley of the Gordon Highlanders described the British end of things. "Poor devils! They advanced in companies of quite 150 men in files five deep, and our rifle has a flat trajectory up to 600 yards. Guess the result. We could steady our rifles on the trench and take deliberate aim. The first company was mown down by a volley at 700 yards, and in their insane formation every bullet was almost sure to find two billets. The other companies kept advancing very slowly, using their dead comrades as cover, but they had absolutely no chance."

At Mons and then again at the First Battle of Ypres, often against overwhelming odds, the Old Contemptibles ground the German advance down with their rifles. Near Oburg, a few companies of the BEF stopped an entire German regiment, and were froced to retire only when two additioin regiments attacked them. When the flanks (not held by British forces) caved in, 2nd Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers covered the retreat. This single batallion, although nearly decimated itself, held the line against nine enemy batallions.

In an after-action report, one Prussian officer estimated that the British had at least 28 machine guns per batallion. In reality, they had only TWO machine guns per batallion. All that firepower came from bolt-action rifles in the hands of men well-trained in their use.
"One hundred misses per minute is not firepower. One hit per minute is." The Guru, Jeff Cooper

socalserf

Cav1,
You sure can tell a strory.
(I quoted the wrong battle didn't I.)
"we cannot improve what we do not measure."


Cav1

For those who might be interested in the full text of The Parable of Boy Jones (aka the Rudyard Kipling Appleseed) try here...

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/LandandSea/boyjones.html
"One hundred misses per minute is not firepower. One hit per minute is." The Guru, Jeff Cooper