HOME GUARD SHOOTING
Sin,—May I add a few words to the most interesting article on Home Guard shooting in your number of August 14th? During the last war I spent some two and a half years as Bisley musketry officer to a battalion, and then to six or seven different brigades of every type.
Your contributor's first point is that " not a high proportion of Home Guards can be ranked as good shots." Unfortunately this is true. There is not a high proportion of them who could " take on " a German parachutist outside the range of his Tommy-gun.
Your contributor then refers to the now universal 25 yards range.
Firing at 25 yards is certainly the best system for a beginner, but of course it does not get him as far as being a rifle shot. You might just as well teach a boy spelling in a copy-book, and then expect him to write business letters. But—I appeal to any musketry instructor—if we can substitute the too yards range for the 25, then our task is virtually accomplished. Four out of five men who are good shots at zoo yards will also be good right up to 400. (After that, of course, the wind, the varying light and all the other chances will require more experience; but for Home Guard units it seems impossible to attempt more.) To become expert with a .22 at too yards does not take much longer than it does at 25, but it is the beginning of knowledge. When a man has got as far as peppering the bull's-eye at zoo with his miniature rifle, he only requires a few shots with the .303 to get accustomed to the kick of the bigger weapon.
The difficulty is to get a zoo yards range within reach of a village. But this could perfectly well be accomplished if people had the same energy with which they spent money and labour on road-blocks in May and June, 1940. And—failing zoo yards-75 or even 5o would be better than 25.
Your contributor has told us that " riflemen ought to be able to prac- tise with the rifles issued to them. At present, shooting is done with .303 rifles issued ad hoc on the firing-point." Obviously he is right in principle; but are the American .30o rifles capable of making good prac- tice on thr range? Some of them certainly are; but all of them are of a rougher make than ours. It was a great relief to many Home Guards when the .30o American rifles were abandoned in favour of the veteran British .303's. The Lee Enfield and Ross rifles are old cam- paigners, often with two or even three methods of sighting erected - on them. But fundamentally they are still good rifles.
We cannot blame our authorities for issuing the .too weapons en masse to all the Home Guard units. No doubt they were the best obtainable in May, 594o. But now, in rn42? I have been told on high authority that "England is full of rifles." Can we not get enough to provide one for any keen volunteer who has passed a standard test? And perhaps let the .300 ammunition be used for practice shots with the Browning gun?—I am, yours, &c.,
Hartwell Castle, Banbury.
GEORGE F. H. BERKELEY.
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