The Predator Mad Minute

By in movies, war theory, weapons

Last night I put Predator on in the background while I was working on some projects. I have probably seen the movie a good fifty or so times and I still notice little cool things about it.

I looked up from the work table at the scene where Bill Duke’s character Eliot rushes up on the recently slain Blain (Jesse Ventura) and sees the eyes of the Predator. He picks up “Ol’ Painless” the minigun and starts to ventilate the jungle. He is soon joined by the team in a massive shoot-out at the unseen Predator. I always thought this was a great scene for all of the different weapons the team took out on the mission.


I had no idea these kind of shenanigans could serve a tactical purpose.

My first clue came from the Predator entry in font of all true knowledge in the universe, Wikipedia:

Eliot starts screaming and immediately opens fire and is joined by the remaining members of the unit. In what is known as a “mad minute”, all members of the team saturate the jungle with bullets. They stop firing and to their shock, are unable to find any bodies.

So learning more, I found out that a ‘mad minute‘ is a real military term, having come from the British:

Originally, “Mad Minute” was a pre-WWI term used by British riflemen for the act of getting 15 aimed bullets into a target at 300yds within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford rifle).

Now for someone that grew up shooting all of the weapons of the pre-WW2 British Army, I have to say I am pretty ashamed at having never heard of this before.

But wait – there’s more!

Mad Minute is a military tactic used to surprise enemy snipers when their location is unknown. If there are too many possible positions to determine where the enemy fire is coming from, each likely enemy position is assigned to one or more soldiers. Upon receiving the signal, all simultaneously fire a specific number of rounds. The tactic has a long history of effective use; it also has strong secondary value as a morale booster.

The name “Mad Minute” comes from the experience of “madness” during the time of heavy firing upon various targets without knowing the exact location of the enemy, leading to heavy use of ammunition.

Hell, I even found a video on YouTube showing a ‘mad minute’ with a surplus British SMLE rifle (WW1 vintage). Too cool!

I had no idea our post-paintball-game antics had a real tactical purpose.

Thanks, Wikipedia!