An object-lesson to illustrate this superiority of the machine gun has been carried out during each course at the South African school of musketry under circumstances most favourable to the rifles. The record of one such test, carried out on September 21st, 1904, between a Maxim gun mounted on Mark III. tripod and 42 rifles (Lee Enfield), was published. The machine gun was worked by two sergeant-instructors, while the 42 rifles were fired by students who were all, at least, 1st Class shots before joining the school, and who for five weeks had been receiving daily instruction in musketry, and had just completed a course of firing both on the ranges (Table B) and in field-firing, and had gone through a course of judging distance. The range was unknown--the number of rounds unlimited, and the rate of fire “rapid.” The time was limited to one minute, and the firers were allowed to charge their magazines before starting. The targets were figures representing infantry in line extended to two paces. The following was the result: Rounds Figures Percentage fired. Hits. Percentage. hit. of loss. Rifles 408 62 15·1 27 54 Maxim 228 69 30·2 32 64 The small number of rounds fired by the Maxim was due to the necessity of picking up the range by firing small groups of five or ten shots and observing the strike of the bullets. What is most interesting is that although the rifles fired nearly twice as many shots as the machine gun, the latter made actually more hits, while the percentage of loss inflicted was 10 per cent. greater. The actual range was 1,000 yards. A similar experiment was carried out during the annual training for 1908 in the U.S.A. between 42 “sharpshooters” and a Maxim at the regulation “L” target. The ranges were 600, 800, 1,000 yards; the sharpshooters fired an average of 750 rounds at the three distances and made an average of 429 hits, which gave a collective figure of merit of 59·09. The machine gun also fired 750 rounds, made 601 hits, giving a collective figure of merit of 79·54, being 22·45 in favour of the machine gun. The troops were armed with new rifles, and fired the new “S” bullet, while the machine gun used the old pattern ammunition and a barrel that had fired at least 7,000 shots. The gun squad had no previous practice at this target, and the gun was fired by different men at the several ranges. The collective fire of the troop was “slow aimed,” while the fire of the machine gun was “rapid continuous” for the number of rounds at each range. The machine gun took 30 seconds to fire 250 shots at each range, or a quarter that of the troop.[1]