Earlier this week I shot some interesting targets. I stumbled across them on www.rifleman.org.uk and decided to try them out for myself. The photographs above show three Solano targets shot at 25-30 yards, the Solano system was widely used during the First World War to train British troops on small rifle ranges. I shot these targets with my contemporary .22lr converted Martini-Henry (see image #1). While the grouping I shot isn’t amazing by any stretch they were shot fairly rapidly as prescribed and from standing (they were originally to be shot from prone). While some of the hits are difficult to make out the majority fell within the target with probably half falling within the inner two ‘rings’.
During the late 19th and early 20th century miniature rifle ranges were set up by rifle clubs across the country to encourage shooting and teach marksmanship skills to men living in urban areas where they would normally have little opportunity to shoot. These could be set up outdoors or more frequently indoors with makeshift and specially built ranges detailed in the British Army’s Musketry Regulations.
Plan of a purpose built miniature (.22) rifle range from the Musketry Regulations (1910)
These civilian ranges were inspected and certified by the Army, with the Musketry Regulations stipulating how they were to be inspected and even having an example copy of the certificate that could be awarded.
Because of the complexity and expense of finding suitable sites and setting up 500+ yard ranges miniature 30 yard ranges were increasingly used by the British Army at drill halls and depots. During the First World War depots behind the lines often established 30 yard miniature ranges using a variety of targets, including those laid out in the Musketry Regulations which were often elementary figure targets and scaled down versions of the full sized classification targets used on large army ranges.
British troops shooting at a makeshift miniature rifle range, at the School of Musketry at Hythe, c.1915 (source)
The Solano system was developed by Captain E.J. Solano, an Engineer officer on the Imperial General Staff , unlike more conventional figure targets the Solano system used a triangular ‘ring’ layout which puts the emphasis on hitting not the upper body of the target but the legs, crotch, stomach and surrounding areas. This was because Solano realised that men would often be engaging moving targets - the selection above simulate men advancing at 400 and 500 yards. By aiming for the legs and lower body it is hoped that the target will advance into the rifle fire and be struck in the torso. As a result the target below which shows a target lying prone at 300 yards, the 5 ‘ring’ encompasses the head and chest of the figure as he is not moving.
Prone target at a simulated 300 yards (source)
In 1915, the Solano target system was officially approved by the Army Council for use in miniature range practices in addition to the Army’s older standard miniature targets. One of the best sources on Solano’s system is a book he wrote for the privately published Imperial Army Series on musketry in 1915. In this he detailed the various practice details which could be shot with the targets to train men to snap shoot, rapid fire and suppressing fire. The targets were realistically coloured and could be stationary or moving and ranged from targets simulating an infantryman kneeling at 200 yards or a mounted cavalryman at 400 to a field gun in action or infantry advancing in column at 2,800 yards.
Table from Solano’s Imperial Army Series book ‘Musketry’ detailing the various targets available
The system’s most basic ‘elementary targets’ were simple triangles which trained soldiers in how the new system worked. From these they progressed onto figure targets like those shown above. The system was not devised for deliberate, precise fire but rapid snap shooting and as such the centre triangles, representing the most valuable areas of the target are fairly large to encourage grouping.
In ‘Musketry’ Solano explains that “triangles have been substituted in these targets for concentric circles… because they have a truer relation to the shape of the human figure in both lying and upright positions.” As a result Solano argues that in training with triangular targets soldiers will put “a premium upon a low point of aim and from the first inculcates in men, as a habit, this vital principle of marksmanship in war.” - In other words it encourages men to aim low at attacking targets.
A Solano landscape target at a drill hall (source)
The Solano system also included landscape backdrops to place targets in battlefield contexts which could be used for practicing the direction of fire and recognition of targets. Solano’s targets continued to be used during the interwar period with the targets seeing use in training during World War Two.
Above photographs taken by the author
‘The Solano Miniature Range Targetry System’, www.rifleman.org.uk (source)
Musketry Regulations Pt. II (1910)
Imperial Army Series - Musketry, E.J. Solano (1915)
