Post Boer War British Army Recommendations.
- Thread starter Peg Leg Pom
- Start date
The Lee Enfield performed poorly in the Boer War. It was heavy, cumbersome, slow to load, short ranged and inaccurate compared to the Mauser. The Maxim was also too heavy.
There're good reasons the army won the argument for their replacement.
the brits had one from 1903 to 1907,
they were produced by Rexer Arms Company, financed by Henry de Morgan Snell
what went wrong was that the licence only allowed rexer to sell guns to the uk, but they started exporting them
the danes sued, won, and took possession of the tooling
marathag
Banned
Same long recoil system he patented in 1900 for what became the Remington Model 8, with the addition of a lighter rotating bolt
Is this the long-Lee you are referring to? I guess the SMLE came out after the Boer war.
I think that's a fair comment.
Short of introducing some form of conscription allowing for a larger pool of trained reservists, with the extra funding required to support, arm, clothe, house etc all those extra men I cannot see a better result than the Haldane reforms.
It is, and the SMLE was only ment to be a short term stopgap until the new 7mm rifle the Army wanted was ready.
Riain
Banned
I'd only play with the Haldane reforms in detail; group the MGs into a brigade commanded at the division like the did in 1915 and how the German Regiments had a MG company. I'd also set up a proper Army/Corps command structure rather than having the division as the basis and having 2 higher HQs; the Army could have the Cavalry division, 6" Howitzers and 2 Corps could have 3 Infantry divisions, 3 x 60 pdr batteries and a Cavalry Brigade. An Army-Corps structure like this, complete with heavy artillery commanded at the higher levels would likely mean the BEF deploys en masse and is somewhat more effective from Mons to the Marne, rather than starting with 4 infantry divisions and having another 4 drip-fed in by October.
With 14 Territorial divisions and the world's largest Navy for home defence I don't think conscription would get up, it was in Australia but not Canada so was a pretty rare beast in the British Empire back then. However I think plans could have been made to rapidly expand the size of the Army in the event of war, hopefully to avoid the pigpile that occured IOTL.
With the mk VII bullet developed post Boer War (Wikipedia gives 1910) it was a stop gap that lasted two world wars.
I'm not sure if this is serendipity, or a warning for the British soldier to be wary of the phrase "it's only a temporary measure until the kit you want is ready!"
Riain
Banned
In August 1914 only 41 60 pounders had been built and 13 of them were in Canada and India so the 7th and 8th divisions deployed to France in October 1914 without their 60pdr battery.
From Wiki:
"......in 1902 the Heavy Battery Committee was formed comprising officers experienced with heavy and siege artillery in South Africa and presided over by Colonel Perrott who had commanded the Siege Train there. In early 1903 their first report dismissed the 4.7 inch (120 mm, used in South Africa) and the 30 pounder (used in India) from further consideration because they lacked firepower........
..........in 1905 the design for the BL 60 pounder was accepted.........
.........Unfortunately, in 1900 the Secretary of State for War had announced a plan to give "Volunteer Position Batteries 4.7 inch guns", he also extolled the merits of 4.7, (which the army knew to be misleading) and in 1902 and 1903 Parliament voted to equip 60 Volunteer batteries with a 4.7 inch, despite the 60 pounder being in development. The 4.7 inch had many weaknesses as a field equipment, but it had captured the public's imagination. However, in 1903 a heavy brigade RGA was formed by converting three siege companies and equipping them with 4.7 inch guns. The following year a second brigade was formed from three more RGA companies. These regular army brigades were part of the corps artillery, although their equipment was an expedient. .........."
This would be a good incident to avoid, if it was avoided then the 60 pounder would have been far more prevalent in the British Army.
From Wiki:
"......in 1902 the Heavy Battery Committee was formed comprising officers experienced with heavy and siege artillery in South Africa and presided over by Colonel Perrott who had commanded the Siege Train there. In early 1903 their first report dismissed the 4.7 inch (120 mm, used in South Africa) and the 30 pounder (used in India) from further consideration because they lacked firepower........
..........in 1905 the design for the BL 60 pounder was accepted.........
.........Unfortunately, in 1900 the Secretary of State for War had announced a plan to give "Volunteer Position Batteries 4.7 inch guns", he also extolled the merits of 4.7, (which the army knew to be misleading) and in 1902 and 1903 Parliament voted to equip 60 Volunteer batteries with a 4.7 inch, despite the 60 pounder being in development. The 4.7 inch had many weaknesses as a field equipment, but it had captured the public's imagination. However, in 1903 a heavy brigade RGA was formed by converting three siege companies and equipping them with 4.7 inch guns. The following year a second brigade was formed from three more RGA companies. These regular army brigades were part of the corps artillery, although their equipment was an expedient. .........."
This would be a good incident to avoid, if it was avoided then the 60 pounder would have been far more prevalent in the British Army.
Auto-5 was semi-automatic shotgun. Too bad John Moses didn't make a version in .303 rimmed.
Australia didn’t get conscription for overseas war until after WWII. Boyhood conscription was to train rural horse and middle class engineer boys so they’d be prepared for repression. Both referendum failed in WWI and the NSW IWW and Trades Hall took the state into general strike.
Papua may confuse people but it was Australia in WWII. Also there was an existential crisis felt by the nation so they accepted Choccos dying in Australian jungle.
Boyhood conscription != manhood conscription for foreign service
Papua may confuse people but it was Australia in WWII. Also there was an existential crisis felt by the nation so they accepted Choccos dying in Australian jungle.
Boyhood conscription != manhood conscription for foreign service
Riain
Banned
Once the troops are in service and the situation is dire enough peacetime niceties like not deploying these or those troops overseas fall way pretty quickly. The 1st Oxfordshire Yeomanry regiment deployed to France on the 22nd of September, the first territorial unit to do so a mere 7 weeks after the British declared war. The first Territorial Division deployed in its entirety in June or July 1915, again despite peacetime restrictions on deploying the Territorial Force overseas.
If Britain has similar peacetime conscription as Australia it wouldn't take long for these units raised for home defence to be deployed to France.
I thought that the Canadians liked their Lee-Enfields and did well with them. I understood that the SMLE was developed from the calvary version of the rifle. Was it the rifle or the operator that had the problem? I thought that musketry practice was one of the recommendations that came out of the war.
The Magazine Lee Enfield had a number of problems (Long Lee). The Rifle was too long for easy handling and the Carbine had a savage recoil. Both were inaccurate as the soldier could not zero the rifle, that was set at the factory when the front sight was fixed on the barrel. The Rifles were slow to reload as though it was intended that they use spare magazines these were never issued and they had no charger clip guides. The Carbine had too short of a range and even the rifle was outranged by the Boer's Mausers on the open Veldt. The Magazines were prone to damage and feeding problems as well. Nothing was major and all could and would be fixed but all the problems added up to such an extent that the Army wanted something new.