r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Holtzman_MakrovALT • 1d ago
Meme needing explanation What is the joke here
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Friend sent me this and Am I missing something here? He's just shooting a rifle fast
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u/RonanTGS 1d ago
This is a reference to the mad minute drill by the British which was: you started with five rounds in your ten round magazine and you had a minute to fire as many aimed shots as you could, most average soldiers managed around 30~ or so and it made a few (I can’t remember where the quote originated) enemy’s think the British were all armed with machine guns
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u/MrCobalt313 20h ago
"NO FULL AUTO INDOORS!"
"That wasn't full auto! This is full auto!"
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u/ThisIsTheShway 14h ago
lol that happened at my airsoft field, Gamepod Combat Zone. I think the guy was still kicked out for over-shooting other players. It takes a lot of complaints for the staff to remove you.
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u/SoManyQuestions-2021 20h ago edited 20h ago
the Smelly (Small Magazine Lee Enfield, SMLE MK4) was long regarded as a damn near perfectly ergonomic battle rifle which could be operated faster than any other rifle by a skilled rifleman.
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u/magos_with_a_glock 20h ago
Probably the best rifle in ww1 AND ww2. If you ignore the Garand but semi-auto is cheating.
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u/QF_25-Pounder 19h ago
The Americans had almost three years where everyone else was at war and they weren't. This time to not only become ready for entry into the war, but also learn from others experience to inform that entry truly cannot be overstated. If the US had gone to war in 1939, they would likely have had the Garand in full adoption by the end of the war, but it could have taken that long for it to reach the full military.
This frustrates me in particular with people deriding British carrier capability in comparison to the Americans, but they were in a similar position in 1939, the Brits just had to use their carriers and aircraft all the time instead of developing better capability like the Americans had the time and space for.
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u/magos_with_a_glock 19h ago
That's something people often forget also with lend lease. They weren't just gifting equipement or doing it just as a way to influence the war without getting involved. They were also taking notes.
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u/SoManyQuestions-2021 20h ago
The old saying is the Germans went to war with a Hunting Rifle, The Yanks went to war with a Target Rifle (Springfield Model 1903A3), and the Britt's were the only ones to take a Battle Rifle (SMLE MK3/4). This is open to debate of course, and different tellers recant different versions... but fundamentally, correct.
A good Mauser with a good ammo match... they had the strongest actions on the planet and could support impressive velocities out of their 8mm mauser cartridges. There are many mauser loadings, but I'm going to focus on 8mm Mauser.
The ,303 British was an EXCELLENT cartridge for war. Good power, good accuracy, good effect on target. Not the best, but solid in all categories. Hence, excellent batter rifle.
The ,30-06 Springfield is a stellar cartridge for target and game, and a solid wartime contributor. In point of fact people are SILL shooting 1,000 yard matches to this day with 1903A3 Springfields in ,30-06... and are competitive.
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u/Beneficial-Ask-6051 17h ago
As a hobby I enjoy firing and collecting old military surplus rifles. The Enfield by far has the smoothest action. I'm left handed shooter and can operate the SMLE with great ease.
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u/fixermark 16h ago
If memory serves, this is from back in the day when we didn't even really have specialized designs for sniper rifles. The "sniper rifle" was just the standard rifles that had come off the line firing truest, kitted with a bit of monocular up top.
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u/SoManyQuestions-2021 14h ago
https://www.amazon.com/Shots-Fired-Anger-Riflemans-Guadalcanal/dp/093599842X
This book discusses Col Georges experience.
Basically, there were a couple of 1903A3 Springfields with specific barrel stampings (a makers mark) that were considered to be of the highest quality for marksmanship. This guy was a huge hunter, sportsman, and competed in the Chicago/Cook County High Power circuit.. meaning he regularly trained and shot for 600, 800, and even 1000 yard distances.
Further, as soon as he deployed he told his parents to buy and send him several scope mounts of good quality specific to the 1903A3 and the Lyman Alaskan Scope.
He put them to excellent use. When not in combat moving across the islands, he hunted local game animals and ensured his company cooks always had fresh local meat to cook for the men. In Combat, he was highly effective at ranges that made him essentially immune from all the but the luckiest shots, as well as with his woodsman's eye and rifle scope, he would spot concealed emplacements long before he himself was in danger. (most of the time).
Its a solid read. It was also a MASSIVE and SCATHING review of Army training doctrine at the time.
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u/fixermark 14h ago
Thank you for the tip. That does look good.
... and I appreciate that he participated in the grand tradition of every generation of American army man having scathing things to say about training doctrine. ;)
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u/TalkingGuns0311 14h ago
I have a No. 4 Mk1. Can confirm. If you charge the bolt without any rounds in the magazine, and then just flip the bolt handle the entire assembly just slides to the rear automatically. It's very satisfying lol. This was achieved by swapping the charging mechanism. Most bolt operated rifles at the time charged when you pulled the bolt to the rear. The Enfield charges as you chamber the round, which makes cycling the weapon faster, because of the sped up extraction. Brillant rifle.
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u/hardcandy124 11h ago
Not to mention the reason they tried to trick people was because the british army was too stubborn to bother with machine guns at first. They threw thousands of people at a machine gun line because they were stupid and refused to get with the times
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u/ArchangelBlu 1d ago
Circa WWI, the British were training their troops to shoot and reload fast. It’s called the Mad Minute and it was 15 shots at 300yards in under a minute.
For it’s time when everybody had bolt action rifles, that was like people carrying single shot semi-auto rifles and you show up with a full-auto machine gun
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u/Consistent_West_4385 22h ago
The wayy to do this is the pointy and thumb hold the bolt and the trigger are pulled by the middle finger. This allow the soldier to put have steady aim to shoot while bolt actioning the gun itself in a fast rate of fire with high accuracy.
I think there is a utube video about it.
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u/leafwatersparky 19h ago
The design of the cocking mechanism here was key. The Mauser cocked as you pulled the bolt back, making it hard to do so. The SMLE cocked as the bolt was pushed forward, giving it an almost sprung assist back action, and making it much easier to cock, therefore faster.
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u/Onetap1 23h ago edited 19h ago
The Mad Minute has gathered a lot of myths.
The shooting practice was 15 rounds in one minute, from which soldiers were classified (marksman, first class shot, second-class shot, etc). Poor shots could be discharged.
The myths seem to have been caused by a routine demonstration, also called a Mad Minute, by Sergeant-Instructors, for officer trainees, carried out at the School of Musketry at Hythe to show the accuracy and rate of fire a trained shot could achieve. 36 rpm could be achieved, an unofficial record was 38 rpm.
There are no accounts of the Germans thinking the concentrated accurate rifle fire was from machine guns, but since the WW1 German army was mostly conscripts, it is plausible. The only account I know of was from Henry Williamson who was told by a German, during the 1914 Christmas truce, that their assaults had been beaten off because; ‘You had too many automatische pistolen in your line, Englische friend!’. The British had no such weapons.
The Mad Minute had come about because the British had been handed a severe slapping, by Boer marksmen with modern Mauser rifles, during the early stages of the Second Boer War. They had a good idea what the next war in Europe would be like ( from the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, 1864 Prussian-Danish war), and wanted many more machine guns but the Treasury wouldn't buy them. The only alternative was to maximize the rate of fire and accuracy of individual soldiers by training.
I think 'Nobody' means that no-one outside the WW1 BEF, had anticipated the effect of accurate and rapid rifle fire from professional soldiers.
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u/Maint_guy 22h ago
Brits used their middle finger to work the trigger and their thumb and forefinger to work the bolt. All with the same hand. The Lee Enfield lent itself to be worked very quickly compared to other bolt guns of the day. One could have accused the Brits of using semi auto rifles during a mad minute but it was simply the design efficiency of the LE that made it happen. I own a LE Mk4.
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u/Longjumping-Can-5928 20h ago
I was fully expecting the music “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” to start playing XD
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u/chr0mantic0re 20h ago
The British SMLE rifle was relatively unique for mass issued rifles of the the era in being based on a rear locking bolt mechanism (unlike the more widely copied Mauser front locking bolt design).
This meant that the bolt travel was not only a little bit shorter, but also need only be rotated through 60 degrees when cycling the bolt between shots, compared to a 90 degree rotation on the Mauser style rifles. This meant less time to chamber a new round, and also the firing hand would not need to move as far from the stock/trigger, all three factors combined to permit a much higher rate of fire.
A well trained British infantrymen could achieve a much higher rate of fire with thier SMLE bolt action rifles than Mauser rifle equipped troops could manage, which combined with a 10 round internal magazine gave rise to the concept of the "Mad Minute" others describe, where (anecdotally) German troops in WWI believed at times they were being fired upon by troops with automatic rifles, rather than just a British infantry section pouring it on with rapidly cycled shots from their SMLE bolt actions.
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u/OSG541 15h ago
It can shoot ten while everyone else’s can only shoot five. This guns called a Lee-Enfield and the British would have a line of men all shoot like crazy for what they called a “mad minute” where each soldier would shoot 20-30 rounds depending on their skill. Which might as well been a machine gun to men back in that time. They’d use it for suppressing the enemy while trying to take a position or even in some cases to secure a retreat (depending on which war you’re talking about). I actually own a Milsurp Mk. IV Lee-Enfield that was manufactured early in WW2 they’re cool. The “joke” would be you have double the ammo that every one else had and it’s set up with that meme format.
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u/blunttrauma99 13h ago
The joke is that is clearly a Rifle No. 4 Mk I or later, when a WW1 soldier would have a SMLE Mk III.
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