David Reynolds

Comment Threads

• Antonia T Tiger commented on Wag that puppy
  Bayonets and rifles aren't what they were. The combination a British soldier was carrying, a hundred years ago, was considerably more dangerous to an enemy. The rifle was 44-inches long, extended with a 17-inch bayonet blade. The current L85 is only 31-inches long. I don't know the current drill, but in the Lee-Enfield era, and earlier, it made use of the bayonet and butt. Kipling mentions that in one of his poems. Ho! My! Don't yer come anigh, When Tommy is a playin' with the baynit an' the butt. Whatever the limits of the current rifle, and it's a dangerous...
• Arnold commented on Wag that puppy
  My Grandfather survived the entire Great War after having joined the Durham Light Infantry in the first wave of enthusiasm...Join Up LADS or You'll Miss IT!! - And - despite his qualifying for a small non indexed linked pension for gas injury he was recruited to guard railway stations with his trusty SMLE during WW2. Don’t know about Bayonets but he believed in keeping the enemy at a distance and he told me of This Technique... " Published on 14 Feb 2014 This short video shows how to charger-load a Lee-Enfield and how to cycle the bolt rapidly while maintaining...
• Antonia T Tiger commented on Wag that puppy
  I know about the Mad Minute. The minimum standard for a British Army infantryman in August 1914 was 15 hits in 1 minute on a 12-inch target at 300 yards. The record, set by Sjt Alfred Snoxall, is 38 hits. The basic methods were still being taught to soldiers at the end of the Second World War, but the standards of the 1914 professional soldier were black-belt level. My own grandfather said a few rude things about the American units he was attached to in 1918. Too many of them, he said, would get themselves shot. The British Army learned...
• raito commented on Wag that puppy
  I wouldn't characterize the Boyd loop as simply as 'hit the other guy first' or 'make 2 moves to his 1'. Nor would I discount the fact that the Boyd loop was originally intended to be applied to dogfights in which both physics and the capabilities of particular aircraft cannot be exceeded. I think a better characterization would be: You and your opponent are both running OODA loops. If you can run yours faster, for any reason, then at some point your opponent is using old information, at which point what you are currently doing looks like magic to him,...
• John commented on Wag that puppy
  Great post! Sam Harris wrote a couple of blog articles about self-defense which were also very insightful. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-pleasures-of-drowning...