mrw311 - AnthologyMain MenuIntroductionThe Gatling Gun and Machine GunsRifles and HandgunsIronclad Battleships and Torpedo TechnologyThe Boer WarsStagnation and Fear of DestructionAnxious, Fictional Accounts of the FutureBibliographyMatthew Werkheiserbaf3c422a98f36dbd4c83c180176ff0854fcbc18
One Cause of Our Defeats - the Service Rifle
12016-11-27T03:20:01-05:00Matthew Werkheiserbaf3c422a98f36dbd4c83c180176ff0854fcbc18664plain2016-12-14T01:34:54-05:00Matthew Werkheiserbaf3c422a98f36dbd4c83c180176ff0854fcbc18During the First and Second Boer Wars, the British military found themselves frequently shocked by the fighting capacities of the Boer fighters, the latter being often times equipped with superior rifles to those possessed by the British soldiers. Baillie-Grohman begins here by critiquing the overall poor marksmanship of the average British soldier before going into a somewhat brief history of the evolution of the British service rifle, highlighting Britain’s persistence in maintaining the use of smoothbore flintlocks while several other nations upgraded to new, rifle-bored, percussion-cap rifles. He ultimately concludes that the Lee-Metford service rifle was inferior to the United States’ 1895 Navy-Lee and the Germans' 1888 Mauser, both of which were frequently seen in the hands of Boer soldiers, not to mention that the British soldier was a poor shot at the necessary distances to hit the enemy. His criticism, though mainly technical, also signals a growing awareness of the British perception that they were falling behind technologically – there are many points within the argument that highlight Britain’s military failings in light of the superior technologies of other nations.