Dear Samogon and others

The missing word is the male bird = c**k and also the process of loading the rifle ie to c**k the weapon rhymes with lock
David

As David says, prone firing was done by skirmishers in the Crimea and ACW, and accuracy was never an issue - aside from the dense smoke raised by firing black powder weapons. Indeed, firing prone only increased accuracy; the major drawback is, reloading in this position slows your rate of fire way down to about one round a minute or less, particularly if you have to force the bullet down a rapidly fouling barrel, which is why skirmish drill involved groups of four men, working in pairs, and kneeling behind whatever cover was available was preferred over prone shooting