Rifle (?) on tripod (?)

[Moonraker]

This

is an enlargement of a small photograph taken at Lark Hill Camp on Salisbury Plain in 1916.

OK, it's not a tripod, as there seem to be five legs, which seems quite a lot to support a rifle. What's going on,please?

Moonraker

[Andrew Upton]

OK, it's not a tripod, as there seem to be five legs, which seems quite a lot to support a rifle. What's going on,please?

Rifle aiming display most likely - qualified instructor sets up rifle on target, students are able to come up and look through to see how they should do it in future. Lots of legs mean it doesn't get knocked off target easily. If not that it's possibly something to test shots and adjust sights to improve accuracy of individual rifles.

[Thunderbox]

There are two tripods. The front one is the standard Enfield rifle rest used for small-arms training (the rifle is not fired from the tripod, but just aligned with the target so that students can see the correct sight picture); the rear tripod appears just be some sort of elbow rest - as demonstrated by the reclining soldier!

[TonyE]

As others have sai, this is a rifle aiming rest. the student aligned the rifle with the target and the instructor checked his aim. It was often used with an aiming device which used a piece of glass to allow the instructor to view the sights as seen by the student.

I don't have pictures of one mounted on an SMLE, but here is one on my Pattern '14 rifle.

We were still using these in the early 1960's when I was a cadet armourer at school.

Regards

TonyE

[squirrel]

The soldier on the left appears to be holding a sighting disc in his left hand - also for checking the aim of the trainee.

[Moonraker]

Thanks for that. According to the inked annotation on the photo's back the two men are Sergeants Marden and Pease and the pic was taken on April 10, 1916.

The photo was one of five I acquired recently and another one, also taken at Lark Hill in April, shows men of the 2/5th York & Lancasters; their cap badges looked very much like those in my scan, above.

Moonraker

[green_acorn]

As a former Australian Small Arms Coach who has forgotten all of the terminology and often ahzy with the detail, thoroughly agree with the responses. Dare I say the photo was taken during the first series of dry "Holding, Aiming and Firing" drill practices the new recruits went through, standing rather than the prone position (Which was how I did it it as a Recruit and Infantry Trainee) in an attempt to simulate a trench firing position. The Sgt on the left stands a number of feet in front and sights through a small hole in the centre of the disc back through the rifle sights to check the recruits sight picture as he goes through the action of taking a sight picture on the aiming disc, taking a breath then slowly releasing the breath he come back down onto the target, squeezing the the trigger. A surprisingly accurate predictor of how accurately the recruit will shoot on the range and in battle.

Loved the picture of the coaches mirror, I still have my plastic one for the L1A1 SLR that slipped over the folding rear leaf sight somewhere.

Cheers,

Hendo