Hi JWilly48519, good question, yes they had some Bofors 40mm, but only a limited number, and undoubtedly the pom-pom gun was also present, there was a number mounted on auxiliary ships for instance. Also some light AA units were equipped with the Lewis light machine gun.
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I did think about brigading them with the Argylls (12th Bde) and Seaforth's (35th Bde), but chickened out on that idea!
Hi Popcorn, the Australians now have their third Bde (23rd) while two fictitious Indian Bdes (35th and 41st) created from the two Hong Kong Indian infantry battalions, the single one in Borneo, and the Penang garrison battalion, plus a couple of British battalions taken from India, are now also present. I have another field artillery regt (160th) as well a two medium regiments (6th and 2/3 Australian) and the tank regiment with its own accompanying infantry battalion added.
Hi Darist61, welcome and thank you for your kind words. I try to encourage everyone to participate, so don't be afraid to ask a question or make a comment, none of us bite, unless you cross' The Bear', I wouldn't recommend that, but so long as we're respectful of others he just 'll let us meander on down the road of trying to save Singapore from its historical fate.
Hi Ramontxo, blimey mate 15 shots as well as ten pints, I'd be a week getting over that!, ohh, guns, oh OK, so I was firing from an unsupported standing position, with handguns, AK 47, pump action shotgun, that was the package, then the SMLE and a Mosin-Nagant as a couple of extras. Distance of 7 meters for hand gun, the rest were 25 metres I think. I struggled with the bolt action of the rifles, clearly its something you get use to, and they had a far greater kick than the others, I have a small bruise on my shoulder muscle where I didn't quite get it set in nicely. I think I was about 3 rounds a minute, ha ha, and thank god it was a barn door I was shooting at.
That and work the bolt in two actions rather than 4. If you grew up with the Lee action, that gets pretty instinctual, but I have had a lot of friends who are used to a Mauser style action (such as the Springfield) struggle in speed shooting because they are using motions you don’t actually need for the Lee.
I was out of the UK between 1975 and 1988 so had no idea the SMLE had an even longer service life than I thought. I guess that must be a record for a rifle?
Wikipedia says that it's still used by the Bangladeshi police, but that some antique Mosin-Nagant receivers are still used in the Finnish Army's sniper rifle, so that gets the nod.
It was the cam system of the SMLE that made it work. The Mauser action was an up, back , forward, down with the bolt. The SMLE, because of the cam system on the bolt was, up, which made the bolt slip back enough to almost reject the previous cartridge and then a simple forward and down to reload the next cartridge. I have fired the SMLE and the No 4 and can testify that the cam system made it easy to reload, and without dropping the rifle from the shoulder and losing the sight picture. I was a civilian shooter before I joined the Army and I managed to get possibles at 300 yds quite regularly. A Possible is all 10 rounds within the bullseye. Not the mad minute. But when we did do the mad minute, I did manage it about 50% of the time, despite being a weekend shooter.
The SMLE was used by the HKP/RHKP by frontier units - the rifle o choice for the rest of the force being the M1 Carbine (which I adored as you could carry it all day and not notice). The 303 was mainly used by the Indian/Pakistani polce officers as there was a slanderous view that the local PC's could not manage the weight/length of the rifle.
