We are side tracking a bit, but I think if it was not for the Boer war the British army in WWI would have been in a real bad shape. So bad in fact that it might have ended with the Eiffel Tower being a fast food joint called Krout on a stick. Second Boer war is interesting to look at. First time the british faced a well armed well trained enemy with modern weapons. And the dutch farmers almost won again. Only weight of man power saved the British. Modern artillery, modern smokeless center fire rifles, machine guns, trenches....all of it we would see again 10 years down the road.
The british learned some lessons on that one and it must have shocked the hell out of them because learning marksmanship went from nothing to something. Modern larger weapons got a real push, and some changes to the Lee rifle, metford/enfield.
Check out British muzzle loaders channel on youtube, guy is a bit of a nut, but he does know his subject. Some of the videos he does the same qualification as they did back then, he does it in the correct uniforms and kit as well....good stuff. That might be something fun for you "long range" guys to do. It is really fun, no scope allowed.
Skip to ~6:00 to see what I am talking about. There are some longer range things he does in other videos.
