Extra Mas 40 production orders.

Let's suppose that in the run up to WWII France placed orders for the MAS 40 in Britain, either with BSA or Vickers. Deliveries are required to begin by June 1940. Now obviously come June 40 these rifles are not going to be handed over, also Britain has a slight problem with the Army having left most of it's equipment in France. What to do with them and the production line?
 
same thing that happened to the MAS 36. Its put into the hand of german garrison units stationed in france. No further impact.
 

Deleted member 1487

There is probably no way to get the Brits to make that, their industry was trying to meet the needs of their own military, while the French economy was larger as it was and was the only one besides the Swiss that had 7.5mm barrel making equipment. I doubt the Brits wanted to invest in a different set of equipment just to make a limited amount of French guns.
 
Let's suppose that in the run up to WWII France placed orders for the MAS 40 in Britain, either with BSA or Vickers. Deliveries are required to begin by June 1940. Now obviously come June 40 these rifles are not going to be handed over, also Britain has a slight problem with the Army having left most of it's equipment in France. What to do with them and the production line?

Short term, assuming sufficient ammunition is on hand re arm portions of the British Army and or arm the home guard ?

Longer term, arm the free French forces ?
 
Commando's and Para's? Like the Tank Corps a separate supply chain for there specialist units shouldn't be too hard to handle.
 

Deleted member 1487

Commando's and Para's? Like the Tank Corps a separate supply chain for there specialist units shouldn't be too hard to handle.
It would be if they'd have to create an entire production line for non-standard ammo and rifles from scratch during a shooting war. If you want that the French should contract that out to US companies with the British taking over the orders after France falls.
 
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Commando's and Para's? Like the Tank Corps a separate supply chain for there specialist units shouldn't be too hard to handle.

Seperate supply chains are a pain no matter what the branch. Simply isn't worth the bother.

Works for the germans occupying France, not do much for the Brits.
 
It would be if they'd have to create an entire production line for non-standard ammo and rifles from scratch during a shooting war. If you want that the French should contract that out to US companies with the British taking over the orders after France falls.
Hypothetically the orders are placed around the time of Munich making use of production facilities that had been standing idol since 1918, including for ammunition. France's rifle situation was chaotic and an extra source of modern rifles would have been welcome. At least the British had rifles in storage that could be issued without modification.
 

Deleted member 1487

Hypothetically the orders are placed around the time of Munich making use of production facilities that had been standing idol since 1918, including for ammunition. France's rifle situation was chaotic and an extra source of modern rifles would have been welcome. At least the British had rifles in storage that could be issued without modification.
The MAS 40 wasn't ready until 1940 for mass production. The Germans took a look at it after they conquered the country and decided it wasn't worth it to manufacture the design.
 
That's true, but the timing means that in late 1938 early 1939 the design was at the stage where it just needed a little fine tuning, nothing that would prevent tooling being ordered and production facilities being set up. Also the addition of extra people with fresh eyes could speed up the final finishing of the design by a few months, though admittedly it could also have the opposite effect.
 
I thought the reason the Germans didn't produce the MAS 40 was due to the fact the French disguised the 40's production line as another 36 line. So the Germans didn't really notice since the 36 and 40 were designed to share as many parts as possible. It would be possible for a production line to be set up in the UK given that they were already producing other calibres than 303 including 8mm Mauser for the Tank's Besa machine guns.
 
I thought the reason the Germans didn't produce the MAS 40 was due to the fact the French disguised the 40's production line as another 36 line. So the Germans didn't really notice since the 36 and 40 were designed to share as many parts as possible.
That's right and they put it into full production as soon as the allied armies liberated the production lines in 1944.
 
It would be a pain in the butt, but if MAS 40 was in mass production in the UK they could explore necking the case out to .303 and adopting it as their new cartridge. Alternatively if tooling for .276 Enfield barrels exists then maybe necking it down to this caliber. But this would mean converting Bren and Vickers guns as well and changing calibers in a major war doesn’t have a great track record.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yet it was done for the 8mm Mauser chambered weapons
For weapons and a caliber introduced pre-war with the intention of ultimately converting to the caliber across the board. WW2 got in the way of that. Hence why the SLEM-1 was designed in 8mm Mauser in 1944.
 
For weapons and a caliber introduced pre-war with the intention of ultimately converting to the caliber across the board. WW2 got in the way of that. Hence why the SLEM-1 was designed in 8mm Mauser in 1944.
There is an example of Britain introducing both entirely new weapons using non standard ammunition during WWII, if fact during Britain's darkest hour. The Lanchester and Sten SMGs using the 9mm Parabellum round. Prior to 1940 Britain had no SMG's and used no 9mm ammunition. There was probably some commercial production of 9mm Parabellum before the war but that will have stopped in September 1939.
 
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Deleted member 1487

There is an example of Britain introducing both entirely new weapons using non standard ammunition during WWII, if fact during Britain's darkest hour. The Lanchester and Sten SMGs using the 9mm Parabellum round. Prior to 1940 Britain had no SMG's and used no 9mm ammunition.
They were testing some out and producing 9mm ammo for the tests, so it wasn't as if they had none of the machinery in place. BSA was just waiting for the go ahead to produce the BSA-Kiraly.
 
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