How often do we hear commanders say they are practically defenceless without machine guns and anti-tank weapons?

Yet they have hundreds of men armed with the finest weapon of all - the rifle!

For general use there is nothing to take its place. Nothing so universally deadly; nothing to beat it in attack and defence.

Fire Control is one of a series of training books written in 1942 by Colonel G. A. Wade for the newly-recruited Home Guard. This reproduction from the Royal Armouries' archive shows how the Second World War trainees learnt to handle their rifles and strategically engage the enemy.