UK adopts the 7.5mm French rifle round.

[Zen9]

I can see it becoming a family of weapons.
SLR
DMR
Sniper rifle
LMG

The design is very safe and operates over a wide variety of ammunition loads/quality.

It's clear there is room for improvement in components.

It's quite concievable that a select fire and intermediate calibre versions would be developed.

It's fairly safe to assume this would be able as a system to handle. 276 Enfield or .280 Ross.
As it would .276 Pedersen.

BTW British Army evaluated the 8mm Mauser round and felt it was a retrograde step as the Ballistics of the 7mm was better.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Isn't there a TL about the British adopting the Farquhar Hill Rifle kicking around here somewhere?

EDIT: Found it here...

 

[edgeworthy]

At what point do we start suggesting the Beardmore-Farquhar LMG?

https://modernfirearms.net/en/machineguns/great-britain-machineguns/beardmore-farquhar-eng/
https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/111317574457/beardmore-farquhar-light-machine-gun

With a feed system that uses a drum and stripper clips!
(And comes in a 0.5 Vickers variant)
... changing this to a Box or Link Feed system?
Thus skipping the Bren and BESA altogether.

 

[Some Bloke]

Isn't there a TL about the British adopting the Farquhar Hill Rifle kicking around here somewhere?

EDIT: Found it here...

I remember this, shame it stopped.

 

[Some Bloke]

I can see it becoming a family of weapons.
SLR
DMR
Sniper rifle
LMG

The design is very safe and operates over a wide variety of ammunition loads/quality.

It's clear there is room for improvement in components.

It's quite concievable that a select fire and intermediate calibre versions would be developed.

It's fairly safe to assume this would be able as a system to handle. 276 Enfield or .280 Ross.
As it would .276 Pedersen.

BTW British Army evaluated the 8mm Mauser round and felt it was a retrograde step as the Ballistics of the 7mm was better.

Ye olde FN-FAL?

 

[Zen9]

More like a British SVT/AVT....only with a rotary two lug bolt...shades of AK...although really we should say shades of Lewis...

I really like the primary and secondary extraction system, this thing ought to operate well with almost any standard of .303. As long as the internals are kept free of dirt it ought to operate very reliably.
I also like the potential of say having magazines that 'could' have an additional dust cover, keeping dirt out the mag until it's inserted. Mechanically that's quite do-able even then.

Easy to imagine short barrel versions for jungle use, long barrel with a detachable scope for sniper use, changeable barrel for LMG, alternative bipods, foregrips, maybe extend the screw in positions.

It seems fairly plausible to move to a three lug bolt.

 

[yulzari]

The French counterpart to the British Rifle .303 Pattern 1918 (the Farquar Hill) was the Fusil Automatique Mle 1918 RSC in 8mm Lebel which was a Mle 1917 (as served in WW1) with the problems solved. There was a shortened carbine version. A comparative trial between them would have been interesting. Both were semi automatic rifles and both were in pre 7.5mm form.

Had WW1 unfortunately continued into 1919 both types would have served in considerable numbers with their respective troops as they were ordered in quantity.

 

[Zen9]

I suspect that the RSC 1918 would make a better sniper rifle thanks to the threaded lugs.
Chamber it in the 341 (8mm bullet on a necked down 345 cartridge) and we're bang on Assault Rifle territory.

 

[yulzari]

I suspect that the RSC 1918 would make a better sniper rifle thanks to the threaded lugs.
Chamber it in the 341 (8mm bullet on a necked down 345 cartridge) and we're bang on Assault Rifle territory.

Only the OP is that the British adopt the 7.5x54mm as does France so other cartridges are not relevant, whatever their virtues.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Only the OP is that the British adopt the 7.5x54mm as does France so other cartridges are not relevant, whatever their virtues.

In that case the British introduce the BREN gun and No4 rifle in this calibre - probably rechamber the Vickers as well although it was using a slightly different .303 Ammo - the type 7Z so it might not?

I can still see the BESA adopted in 7.92 Mauser...I mean Enfield...7.92 Enfield...as the reason for adopting it probably still exist ITTL

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

In order to convert a Lee Enfield you have to
1. Change the Barrel
2. Change the Magazine
3. Change the Bolt head

Only step 1 requires an armourer, and I suppose it would be possible to send out kits to units rather than having to return rifles to the factory for conversion if you had to do it in a rush.

Squaddie disassembles rifle and hands barrelled action to units armourer who changes the barrel then hands the rifle and assorted bits to squaddie for assembly while he works on the next rifle.

 

[Zen9]

Change how many barrels and bolts? Listening to Ian on Forgotten Weapons the round was devised quite quickly but the semi-auto rifle took quite some time. Too long really.

I don't see how the British Empire choosing to ditch umpteen hundreds of thousands of bolts and barrels to use this new ammunition is going to accelerate the French SLR effort. Or their own for that matter.

How does it change any outcome?

It might...in some way shift decisions after WWII. But it's too powerful a round when thinking is turning to intermediate rounds like the .276 and .280.
NATO is going to still choose a variant of 308 Winchester thanks to the US and certain officials hiding all the evidence for intermediate rounds at the back of a Pentagon filing cabinet. Cheer on by Mac Arthur

 

[fastmongrel]

Squaddie disassembles rifle and hands barrelled action to units armourer who changes the barrel then hands the rifle and assorted bits to squaddie for assembly while he works on the next rifle.

It was an armourers job to remove and replace the wood from a Lee Enfield. You can make the rifle shoot round corners very easily if you screw up the barrel to nosecap bearing surface and even worse the action to stock, its a very skilled task to do. A squaddie taking his rifle apart would have spent the next month running round the barracks till the Regimental Armourer got tired.

 

[jsb]

For me the low hanging fruit for Britain is to go ....

Let's suppose that post WWI Britain worked with France to develop a new common rifle round resulting in the OTL 7.5mm round. Britain then needs new weapons with which to shoot it. It can and probably will adapt existing weapons to begin with, but that would only be a stopgap. I'd expect the Bren to still emerge as Britain's new LMG but a medium machine gun and rifle will also be needed, what are the best options?

What about simply having the 30-06 accepted at end of WWI by Britain and France, say US offers them a deal where by they get the large number (2M ish) of M1917 Enfields surplus in return for spending the development money on paying off more of the US war debts?

All three then have the same small arms cartridge and simply develop a belt fed BAR as the light MG in 20s and a joint semi auto project in 30s? With an emergency MAS36 also being built when its realised that France cant wait for the ITTL Grand/MAS39 trials to finish......

 

[Cryhavoc101]

What about simply having the 30-06 accepted at end of WWI by Britain and France, say US offers them a deal where by they get the large number (2M ish) of M1917 Enfields surplus in return for spending the development money on paying off more of the US war debts?

All three then have the same small arms cartridge and simply develop a belt fed BAR as the light MG in 20s and a joint semi auto project in 30s? With an emergency MAS36 also being built when its realised that France cant wait for the ITTL Grand/MAS39 trials to finish......

This is the perfect answer if the future was known - however that's a catch 22 isn't it? If the future was known it would be different! They had just fought the war to end all wars and I don't think that rearming for the next one was hot on their list of pretty much anything

So Britain and France don't need 2 million rifles - they have an extensive war industry configured for their own needs and millions of their own rifles.

The British have a good rifle in the SMLE, over a million P14s (a .303 version of what the US turned into the M1917 built in the same factories). A very good LMG (best in class) in the Lewis and a very good MMG (best in class) in the Vickers.

The French are in a similar position and both have millions and millions of rounds in their respective calibres.

As for the M1 garand production never really caught up with demand until 1943 with some fighting units (such as 'Chemical Mortar' companies) going ashore at Torch armed with Springfields.

The Marines at Guadalcanal and the soldiers fighting in the Philippines were not issued with M1s and I have seen pictures of some soldiers as late as 1945 in Europe still armed with Springfields.

Indeed if it hadn't been for the M1 Carbine being such a good weapon that it was used in the front lines - there would very likely have been 'non-riflemen' members of fighting companies, engineers and artillery still armed with the Springfield and likely the Eddystones

So M1 production struggled to arm the US Army until mid/late war let alone anyone else until then.

Just want to say at this juncture that I think the M1917 Eddystone was one of the finest bolt actions of the period - really confused why the US kept the much older Springfield design over it?

 

[jsb]

really confused why the US kept the much older Springfield design over it?

Better competition rifle on the practice range......

This is the perfect answer if the future was known - however that's a catch 22 isn't it? If the future was known it would be different! They had just fought the war to end all wars and I don't think that rearming for the next one was hot on their list of pretty much anything

So Britain and France don't need 2 million rifles - they have an extensive war industry configured for their own needs and millions of their own rifles.

The British have a good rifle in the SMLE, over a million P14s (a .303 version of what the US turned into the M1917 built in the same factories). A very good LMG (best in class) in the Lewis and a very good MMG (best in class) in the Vickers.

The French are in a similar position and both have millions and millions of rounds in their respective calibres.

I dont think it actually needs hindsight,
- US has lots of now unneeded rifles
-GB wants a none rimmed rifle and has experience with the P14 so should find supporting 1917 easier than a totally new rifle and the Vickers can be rebarrelled easily. The would also want to replace LMG as OTL anyway this just splits the development cost.
-France definitely wanted to lose the 8mm as soon as it could afford to post WWI.

(not that I think the inter war would actually agree something like this, if they did they don't really need to worry about WWII anyway the French police simply tell the German army not to enter the Rhineland after US/GB offer to back France if needed)

As for the M1 garand production never really caught up with demand until 1943

But with a joint program sharing the development cost would it not be quicker?

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Better competition rifle on the practice range......

Of course!

Myth of the Rifleman

But that being said John Moses Browning's spiritual love child aka Gun Jesus says that the Eddystone is better

And it should be - its had all of the experiences from the Boer war etc built into it - better sights providing better accuracy developed in 1913 - basically the British took the best of everything they had come across and produced the p14 setup production in the US which was then leveraged to produce the M1917 in greater numbers than the Springfield.

The Springfield is a copy of 'not even the best mauser' - the Spanish mauser they came across in Cuba (which out shot their Kragg armed Infantry) - the M1893 - so a design 20 years older than the Eddystone

Doesn't make any sense.

 

[marathag]

really confused why the US kept the much older Springfield design over it?

Because everything from Springfield Armory was considered blessed, best that could every be, and the rest NIH trash. P17 was from shortage of rifles, and Savage was already making the P14, there was no way for Ordnance to kill that.

But after the war....

all the P17s went to storage while quietly sweeping under the rug that most of the first million M1903s had crap heat treatment on the receivers, and could blow up.

 

[stephen the barbarian]

really confused why the US kept the much older Springfield design over it?

3 reasons,

1. the 1903 was set up the way ordinance wanted,
2. the us army owned the 1903 outright, from data package to production line, the 1917 data package(s) was owned by the brits and lianced during the war, continued production of the 1917 likely would run into legal headaches
3. edistone and remington production was done off of one data package, winchester did theirs off of another for a while, this lead to a number of parts not being interchangeable (note: still better than the p14, all 3 production lines used different data packages)

Savage

did not produce m1917's production was done by winchester, remington, and edistone(owned by remington)

savage made lewis guns

 

[Zen9]

Really considering it was the UK that came to France's aid. It's the .303 or Japanese metric rimless 7.7mm that makes most sense.
So while the French developed a technically superior full power ammunition, it's a dead end when the future was closer to the Italian outcome of their 7.3mm. Post WWI.

While previously it was the .276 Enfield and Bertier (?) That was seen as the future prior to WWI.

And as if this isn't too confusing already, the French .341 was pressaging the 8mm Kurz.