Mad minute was a pre-World War I term used by British riflemen during training to describe scoring 15 hits onto a 12" round target at 300 yd (274.3 m) within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford rifle). It was not uncommon during the First World War for riflemen to greatly exceed this score. Many riflemen could average 30+ shots, while the record, set in 1914 by Sergeant Instructor Alfred Snoxall was 38 hits. It was rumored that a company of assaulting German soldiers reported that they had faced machine gun fire, while in fact it was a rifle squad of ten men firing at this rate. Annually, a group of British owners meet for a mad minute competition.
In the Vietnam War, the term was used to describe a drill involving intense automatic weapons fire, intended to flush out infiltrators or ambushes.
"Mad Minute" has remained in military parlance as a term to describe any short period of intense weapons fire.
Famous quotes containing the words mad and/or minute:
“The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers
Hooked in the stones of the wall,”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)