Britain changes rifle calibres between the World Wars

Reading through Tony Williams and Max Popenker's book on assault rilfes renewed interest in an old question of mine.

At two points before WW2, one around 1913 and the second during the late 20's/early 30's, the British Army was looking at rifles chambered for a full power 7mm cartridge.

The first was an overly powerful round that led nowhere.

The second was the .276 Pedersen.

The Pedersen was developed to take part in the USArmy's self loading rifle tests of the early 1930's and was used by both the Pedersen Rifle itself, and the rival Garrand. Eventually the Garrand won, in part because American authorities decided to stick with the 30.06 round and the Pedersen could not be chambered for this.

Still both weapon and ammunition were of interest to the British military and both were produced and tested here, along with the White Rifle.

So what if when the Americans decide against the .276 the British decide to continue with it and produce their own weapons to fire it?

France, Italy and Japan all changed the calibre of their standard rifle ammunition between the wars so it's possible Britain would have too.*

So what weapons would the British use, I don't think the Pedersen would be adopted because of it's waxed cartidges or the Garrand because of it's en bloc loading system, so perhaps a version of the Lee-Enfield chambered for .276, or a modified Garrand with charger loading, or perhaps a completely new design?

How would this effect things like aircraft armament? Would the eight .303 Brownings of British fighters be replaced by .50 Brownings because 7mm x 51mm is too small to effectively bring down an enemy bomber?

Also what knock on effects would this have later? Would Britain be prepared to increase the size of their standard calibre from the tried and tested 7mm x 51mm to 7.62mm x 51mm? After all the Pedersen had shown it could kill a man just as well during the war, so why add weight and recoil?



*France from 8mmR to 7.5mm as the 8MM round was old, overly large and difficult to work in automatic weapons.

Italy from 6.5mm to 7.35mm and Japan from 6.5mm to 7.7mm as they felt their bullets didn't have enough range or stopping power.
 
A No.5 Rifle, or 'jungle carbine', chambered in the Pedersen round makes a lot of sense for equipping a large conscript army. Though I don't know if the War Office has that much sense at that time.

Another possibility to kind of bring British small arms into line with a US that has adopted the .276 Garand is to just reduce the loading of the .303 to make it as powerful as the .30-30. Sure, it doesn't increase the amount of ammo a squaddie can carry, but it does mean that infantry doctrine for both armies is centred around moderately powered rifles with low recoil.

What was the US plan for the BAR if the .276 had been taken into service? Was that weapon to be re-chambered, or would it mean a squad automatic firing a more powerful round than the standard rifle (.30-06), kind of like the M16 and the M60 during and after Vietnam?
 
The US sticks with the 30.06 as it's standard round here while Britain adopts .276.

I think GB would only have adopted the .276 round if America had, regardless of how promising the White rifle designs were. There had been a lot of small arms co-operation in the First World War between the two countries, particularly with the P14 and M1917 rifles--such co-operation wouldn't have been possible between weapons systems of vastly different calibres (I don't think it happened again in WWII, but I'm looking at this from the perspective of nineteen-thirties military planners at Whitehall).
 
I think GB would only have adopted the .276 round if America had, regardless of how promising the White rifle designs were. There had been a lot of small arms co-operation in the First World War between the two countries, particularly with the P14 and M1917 rifles--such co-operation wouldn't have been possible between weapons systems of vastly different calibres (I don't think it happened again in WWII, but I'm looking at this from the perspective of nineteen-thirties military planners at Whitehall).

AFAIK there was no cooperation between Britain and America over the P14 and P17. The P14 was designed in Britain and built by American factories in the British .303 round and then it was simply rechambered for the American 30.06 when America entered the war.
 
AFAIK there was no cooperation between Britain and America over the P14 and P17. The P14 was designed in Britain and built by American factories in the British .303 round and then it was simply rechambered for the American 30.06 when America entered the war.

Contracts from His Majesty to US arms manfacturers>contracts from POTUS to same manufacturers for differently chambered version of rifle already being made for His Majesty. Not quite the invisible hand of the free market.
 
Actually there was a pretty simple alternative to the waxed cartridge - use fluted chamber ala the H&K G-3. Actually chamber fluting was used by the Italians back in WWI. Not that waxed casings were bad. They were much like surface coating for cars today.

The Pedersen was promising. But for me the existing Italian 6.5mm Carcano was just as good. The Italians should have adopted a spitzer bullet for the 6.5mm instead of going to a heavier caliber. It was almost the perfect round. I think the updated Carcano would perform well against anything today.

As for RAF air armament, they should use the .50 Vickers until the 20mm Hispano-Suizas are produced.
 
IMO, there was an even simpler solution: a ".276x1.5in" (7x40mm), necked down & shortened from the .30-'06 case. Bottlneck case solves feeding problems & headaches of waxed cases, lower power solves the recoil issues of full-auto fire.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Actually there was a pretty simple alternative to the waxed cartridge - use fluted chamber ala the H&K G-3. Actually chamber fluting was used by the Italians back in WWI. Not that waxed casings were bad. They were much like surface coating for cars today.

The Pedersen was promising. But for me the existing Italian 6.5mm Carcano was just as good. The Italians should have adopted a spitzer bullet for the 6.5mm instead of going to a heavier caliber. It was almost the perfect round. I think the updated Carcano would perform well against anything today.

As for RAF air armament, they should use the .50 Vickers until the 20mm Hispano-Suizas are produced.

Wow...I've got to say that I didn't expect you of all people to be a gun nut. I'm not sure why, but you just didn't strike me as the person.

Of course, I'm the one with a Yugoslav-modded Mauser behind him and I honestly have no opinion one way or the other about this, so I guess it's to each their own.

I'll agree with you!
 
Ok bear with me I have Hearts of Iron on the brain & I'm waiting for HOI 3 to come out around August time.

POD 1936

Much more serious alarm over Rhineland, French mobilise but do not cross, Hitler calls bluff, remilitarises, France complains but does nothing.

Decision taken to "Modernise" rather than re-arm (think big speech about Britain not wanting war but being ready for any threat).

Britain adopts a modified Pedersen design as the PENSLR (Pedersen ENfield Self Loading Rifle) .276, insists on detachable magazine ala SMLE for cleaning purposes, later gets used as a rifle with a detachable box magazine.

However, more questions are raised as to rearmament as a whole. Now that the .303 is obsolete where does this leave machine guns?

Will the BESA 12.7 be adapted to a 50 calibre Vehicle/Heavy machine gun?
What will happen to the Bren? will it retain the top loading configuration (probably but if Britain is more serious about rearmament ITTL & takes an earlier interest in design and development ...)

With rearmament/modernisation underway what will become of the Navy?
 
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