With British Snipers to the Reich by Captain C. Shore

Author:Captain C. Shore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781594346
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

THE 10-SHOT MAGAZINE

Many riflemen hold the opinion that one of the blessings of the British service rifle (the S.M.L.E. or the No. 4) is the 10-shot magazine, and one of the questions I have been asked frequently is “How did you find the ten-round magazine?” I think the majority of men who fought in N.W. Europe will agree that it was not a rifleman’s war. It could have been; the fault lay in the fact that far too much emphasis had been laid on firepower, and the average man armed with a rifle as his personal weapon did not fully understand its powers nor was he capable of using it as it should have been used. There were very few riflemen in the full, acute sense of the word. But having this “fire power consciousness” when rifles were loaded they were filled to capacity; any man would get more of a psychological kick out of having ten rounds in his rifle than five. It is no exaggeration to say that the true use of the rifle was mainly restricted to snipers and sniping.

In many cases in actual practice I personally doubt whether this magazine-filled-to-capacity fetish was a good thing. The magazine springs in the No. 4 were notoriously fickle, and at a critical moment it was quite likely that there might be a “jam.” In rapid fire practices on ranges in England there were very frequent cases of sticking magazine springs, resulting in many “hot and bothered” shooters. (It was surprising how many men suffered from a mild attack of nerves similar to “buck fever” when on the firing point!) There was much swearing as the individual saw his chances of winning the inevitable sweep fade as the result of getting away only a couple of shots instead of ten. (The magazine springs of the S.M.L.E. were good, but then this rifle has always been regarded as a true craftsman’s job.)

Many range rapid fire practices were a waste of time and ammunition since a large number of men were of little use in normal slow firing practices. But, on the other hand, there were occasions when men put up better scores firing rapid than when firing normally. In some cases this brought to light the fault with the individual—dwelling too long on aim. Many of the rapid practices were fired at 300 yards range and I have had examples of men putting eight or nine shots in the bull and inner rings (bulls and inners together counted the maximum points in rapid shooting) when they could rarely do better than magpies in application shooting from that range. Taking far too long on aim was a common fault, resulting in high nerve tension and unsteadiness and in many cases men I trained improved 100% when the fault was pointed out to them.

Unless there was a collective target it should not have been necessary for a sniper to use a number of cartridges—the first for the individual target should have been the

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