Accuracy Specification for the Lee Enfield

[Peter Laidler]

I learned my lesson while writing the Sten gun book. I started from fresh and ignored all that had been written before and by the end of the first week, with the actuial original trials tests reports in my mitts, realised what a pure load of utter horse-shi........, er....., horse-manure had been written thus far. Some of the most absolute fairy stories that had been spewed out and then repeated and added to time and time again......... In fact there were SO many what I'll call myths (you'll call then be some other less diplomatic name I'm sure.....) that I eventually I was forced to write a whole new chapter debunking them individually.

And do you know what.........? Some people STILL tell me that they'd cock and fire as the static line of your parachute pulled the main parachute from the pack! OR that they's fire off a whole magazine......... Oh, don't get me going!

[Paul S.]

I once knew a professor who said that history is often distorted by fable. ...

Reading Peter's post above, I suppose that now long passed professor could have said fable becomes 'fact' (with retelling and the passage of time) and 'fact' becomes history and not been wrong.

[Gil Boyd]

now that did make me laugh

[spentprimer]

Reading Peter's post above, I suppose that now long passed professor could have said fable becomes 'fact' (with retelling and the passage of time) and 'fact' becomes history and not been wrong.

All the old guys here are recalling a line that Jimmy Stewart had in the old black and white movie THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE that basically says the same thing.

[Mk VII]

"This is the West, Mister. When fact becomes legend, we print the legend".

[5thBatt]

Lets be clear here, there was an issue with the POA vs POI of the Longlee due to a lack of individual sighting of new production rifles, this should not get lost in all these claims of myths etc.

[Paul S.]

There is no doubt that there was a POA/POI fault. Whether it was the barrels or the sight that were the cause is also open for debate. One wonders whether similar faults were found with the Boer Mausers. That has not been mentioned, nor has whether having a more intimate knowledge and greater experience with his individual rifle than did his typical opponent allowed 'Jan the Boer' to call his shots better and 'aim off' better to make his mark.

What I find telling however, is the following from The Boer War (Page 610, Thomas Pakenham, 1979, Random House, New York) where speaking of Byng, Robertson, Birdwood, Allenby, French and Haig, the author writes:
'The central tactical lesson of the Boer War eluded them. The reason for those humiliating reverses was not the marksmanship of the Boers, nor their better guns and rifles, nor the crass stupidity of the British generals - all myths (my emphasis) which the British people found convenient to believe. It was the smokeless, long-range, high-velocity, small-bore magazine bullet from rifle or machine gun - plus the trench - had decisively tilted the balance against attack and in favour of defence.
The world learnt this lesson the hard way: in the bloody stalemates of the Dardanelles and Flanders.'

[RobD]

I agree with all those points, Paul S.
As regards POI / POA: My MLE Mk 1 (no star) issued to a Cape colonial unit has the fixed barleycorn which is quite obviously sited over to the left. It also has the field correction, of a replacement rear sight slide also obviously off to the left. Without this rear sight, it would shoot about 2 ft to the right at 300 yds.
All my Boer Mausers (and several others I have shot) shoot exactly to the point of aim - and having a dovetail foresight any windage error would have been corrected decades ago.

As regards myths: One place where the Boer-as-marksman legend was re-born (having originated at Majuba - but that's another long story) was Spioenkop - the "acre of massacre". When you read accounts of scores of British in the main trench at Spioenkop all killed by shots in the right temple, it certainly sounds like uncanny Boer marksmanship. But when you walk over the ground, look at the trench, look at period photos, and see where the Boers were shooting from 400 - 1000 yds away, you'll note that (a) a huge volume of rifle fire was coming directly down the line of that straight, shallow trench from the right (b) the soldier's head was exposed (c) non-lethal wounded were taken down the hill. But it's a long climb down so the dead were not carried away. Leaving dead, head-wounded men on the summit for the numerous gruesome photographs the next morning. The legend suited the psyche of both sides -which I can sum up superficially as "Trust in God and the Mauser" and "Lions led by Donkeys".