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A History of Military Rifle Calibers: The Infantry Magnums, 1902-1914
The paradigm was established by the 1870s: Future infantry combat would focus on a combination of entrenchment, and long-range concentrated fire from well-drilled units to defeat the enemy beyond his own effective range. The arms race for a smaller-caliber, lighter-weight cartridge accelerated, but it was the Americans and the British that would discover a need for an even higher performance round that could outmatch any fielded by their enemies. Two key conflicts were the Second Boer War, fought between the British Empire on one side and the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State on the other, and the Spanish-American War, fought by the United States versus the Kingdom of Spain, most importantly in Cuba and the Philippines. These two conflicts shared one common feature: The opposing sides of each were chiefly armed with advanced quick-loading 7x57mm caliber Mauser rifles, firing high-sectional density 173gr round-nosed bullets at a nearly 350 ft/s muzzle velocity advantage versus the .303 and .30 caliber rounds fired by the British and Americans.
