To realise the full potential of the military rifle, breech-loading instead of muzzle-loading and magazine capacity in place of single shot were required. Many a weird-and-wonderful form of breech-loading was tried and when the choice was made, the British found themselves in the 1870s with a rifle - the Martini-Henry - that could not be properly adapted to magazine-loading. But they fought the First World War with one of the finest rifles ever employed - the SMLE that fooled the Germans into believing they were facing machine guns instead of rifles!