Thought both did at that point.A quick search suggest NZ regularly imported wheat post-war. Are you thinking of Australian wheat?
OK, Wheat from OZ and SA then
Thought both did at that point.A quick search suggest NZ regularly imported wheat post-war. Are you thinking of Australian wheat?
So were the UK Troops dumbfounded upon receiving Thompsons and then STENs over 1940-41?
Use Libgen to get a copy.
Though it is unclear in the text when exactly the recommendation was made by the context of reports in the foot notes it was in early 1943 over a year before the Normandy landings. The discussion of the post-war period is how the wartime experience generated the push to adopt the EM-2 rifle and a new series of MGs based on the .280 cartridge.
That's the thing, the M1 Carbine wasn't new to the British in 1943, they had already received it. The 'field army', that is in this case the home army that had been out of combat since 1940 for the most part, had over a year to train with it before going into combat and was in the midst of training anyway with an evolving Battle Drill training system.Even 12 months is a short time to put a brand new individual weapon into service across a field army in wartime. The US experience with the M-16 is instructive.
That's the thing, the M1 Carbine wasn't new to the British in 1943, they had already received it. The 'field army', that is in this case the home army that had been out of combat since 1940 for the most part, had over a year to train with it before going into combat and was in the midst of training anyway with an evolving Battle Drill training system.
The M16 was an entirely different situation, a uniquely American SNAFU with small arms. Look at how the US introduced the M1 Carbine IOTL in 1942...there weren't issues adopting it despite developing it from scratch in less than a year. The M16 problem was a bureaucratic one that is pretty unique in how it was handled.
It was a mass issued small arm produced in the millions and used for decades after WW2. No my position wasn't that it would replace the Bren (and infantry rifle couldn't replace an MG in it's role; at most the Bren would be pushed into a weapons squad at the platoon level to make rifle squads standard on one weapon so the MG isn't holding back the rest of the squad), nor replace the weapons of any non-infantry unit except for perhaps tanker crew, as the folding stock paratrooper M1a1's would fit in tanks pretty easily and then allow for the replacement of the Sten.The M1 was a sidearm replacement for the US Arm; your position, I thought, was the M1 should have been used as THE standard infantry individual weapon - replacing all the SMLEs, Stens, and Brens - for what became 21st Army Group, which amounted to more than 20 British, Canadian, and Polish divisions.
Okay, hope that works out for you.
That why some say the Garand and Johnson did not have protruding magazines.You are forgetting the biggest impedance to introduction of a new weapons system in the British Army.
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The time taken by the Brigade of Guards working out the new arms drill.
Nah, they'd just have to dig out the drill manuals from the old Martini Henry Artillery Carbines.You are forgetting the biggest impedance to introduction of a new weapons system in the British Army.
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The time taken by the Brigade of Guards working out the new arms drill.
Nah, they'd just have to dig out the drill manuals from the old Martini Henry Artillery Carbines.
In India and New Zealand as a reserve arm, which I think means last ditch in the event of invasion arm.Didn't some of the "local" home guards across the Empire still have Martini–Enfields in .303, as late as WW II?
Mixing a lower powered .303 into the mix is a terrible idea. It complicates logistics even further, there are going to be risks that the rounds could be mixed with normal .303 which might make a Bren or Vickers fail to cycle at the worst time possible.
Yes, if they go with lower powered .303 'PDW' they must be "use only if very desperate" for the Brens, but if you're specifically issuing ten rounds in the mag plus dedicated stripper clips to each bolt-carbineer's forward chest pouch, I don't see why it's not perfectly manageable for these poor bloody squaddies to be taught not to load them in Bren mags (just make them roundnosed bullets, for instance, identifiably not .303 Mk VII). It's not the tsar's peasant Russian army, you know. See marathog's post at 64 for how complicated the ammo supply was IOTL.
As for the Vickers? Those are either divisional assets, or else pretty specialist weapons for airborne/commandos. They're the most well trained when it comes to teams supervising their weaponry. They're not going to mistakenly load PDW ammo instead of Mk VIIIz into MMGs belts.
But if they simply chamber the bolt carbine for .30 carbine/hot .35WSL/8.5x26mm-06 wildcat/9x30mm, whichever is being chambered in the autocarbine, then this is all a moot point, innit.
Once again I must reiterate: a British Empire that undergoes small arms reform because it's fighting a tougher war into the late forties is doing so from a pretty good warfooting vis-a-vis materiel, because it would have chucked in the towel if it wasn't in a position to continue doing well supplied offensives, it's those other people who have problems in reliably bringing stuff to bear.
Even then, ignoring my hypothetical timeframe, I have a hard time understanding why people think the doctrinal problem preventing a smallarms reform in OTL's over-by-'45 war is anything other than that, doctrinal. Administrative. Political.
I don't see the 'can't actually be physically done in this here industrial war' limitation.
If the BREN gun shot off all the ammo, it's likely the barrels have all been shot out.The thing is it was British doctrine that if a unit was running short of ammo for the Bren then the infantry would sacrifice their remaining rounds for the LMG. In the situation you described then suddenly some of that desperately needed ammo is unusable in its primary and most effective lethal weapon. More people were killed by MG fire than rifle fire even in the US army which was the only one wholly equipped with a semi-auto rifle in 1944.
If the BREN gun shot off all the ammo, it's likely the barrels have all been shot out.
Doctrine or not, it's hard to find examples when Squaddies would shuck rounds from strippers to reload empty MG magazines.
It's a theoretical that rarely seemed to happen, like that goofy Italian(or Japanese) MG that could use rifle clips, a feature rarely used that compromised the overall design of the weapon
With each Squaddies having a 300M FA carbine, likely things won't get as desperate in the first place for the need to keep the LMG fed in those examples.Well it did happen in WW2 around Kohima particularly and certainly in Korea on Gloster Hill, the PBI were handing over all of their ammo to both the BREN and Vickers gunners.
They were even used in action in Somaliland after the Italians took over.Didn't some of the "local" home guards across the Empire still have Martini–Enfields in .303, as late as WW II?
It's a theoretical that rarely seemed to happen, like that goofy Italian(or Japanese) MG that could use rifle clips, a feature rarely used that compromised the overall design of the weapon
The thing is it was British doctrine that if a unit was running short of ammo for the Bren then the infantry would sacrifice their remaining rounds for the LMG. In the situation you described then suddenly some of that desperately needed ammo is unusable in its primary and most effective lethal weapon. More people were killed by MG fire than rifle fire even in the US army which was the only one wholly equipped with a semi-auto rifle in 1944.
If the BREN gun shot off all the ammo, it's likely the barrels have all been shot out.
Doctrine or not, it's hard to find examples when Squaddies would shuck rounds from strippers to reload empty MG magazines.
It's a theoretical that rarely seemed to happen, like that goofy Italian(or Japanese) MG that could use rifle clips, a feature rarely used that compromised the overall design of the weapon
I believe I too have watched Bloke On The Range's youtube video about the Bren, his video with British Muzzleloaders about WW2 web gear carrying capacity, and his video for TFB's channel where he does a walk-and-gun reloading a No 4 from stripper clips that he's carrying in a vintage bandolier.The thing is it was British doctrine that if a unit was running short of ammo for the Bren then the infantry would sacrifice their remaining rounds for the LMG.
In the situation you described then suddenly some of that desperately needed ammo is unusable in its primary and most effective lethal weapon.