WI: Triple Entente standard rifle cal. 1910

[stephen the barbarian]

i've seen a number of wi's that deal with small arms of ww2 and the cold war,
but none dealing with ww1

so,
wi:
russia, france, and great britain create a board of enquiry to standardize the caliber of their respective rifles and heavy machine guns

guide lines;

the board is looking for a full power rifle cartridge,
must be able to convince politicians and army brass of advantages
must use available cartridge tech
the only nations who get a say are russia, france, and great britain
please do remember that the decision is as much a political act as a martial act​

questions;(yes these questions are separate from each other for a reason, i do believe that the answer to each one of them could be different)

what is the best cartridge they can recommend?
what is the cartridge they are most likely to recommend?
what is the cartridge that the entente is most likely to adopt?

what is the immediate result?
what will be the effect on ww1 procurement?
what will be the post war effect?​

 

[Crowbar Six]

7mm Mauser for the win. It's rimless, it's flat shooting, it's available and it's a known quantity.

 

[SwampTiger]

7.62x54R because it is used by one of the members. 6.5x50 SR would be the best choice.

Either way, the members would not agree due to the high cost, national pride and lengthy change over schedule.

 

[marathag]

276 PATTERN 13 ENFIELD

As early as 1908, the Chief Superintendent of Ordinance Factories in Britain recommended to the Director of Artillery that .256 inch caliber ammunition to a new design should be made up for trail to gain experience with high velocity rimless cased ammunition. These ammunition trails had been extended by 1909 to include .276 inch ammunition. The British War Office also had ideas that the .303 SMLE did not have a long term future in the British Army. The Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield designed a new rifle, at this point the Pattern 1911, around two calibres; the .276 and the .256. The .256 was found to be inaccurate and the .276 was adopted in mid-1911 for further testing. Problems with pressure and jacket fouling in the bore resulting from the high velocity round led to the cartridge being redesigned.


Numerous changes to the rifle and the cartridge led to eleven Pattern 1911 and Pattern 1912 rifles being manufactured. At the end of 1912, it was decided to put the latest incarnation of the design into limited production for troop trials in 1913 and 1,000 were ordered from RSAF. By the end of 1912, 508 rifles had been completed, and by the end of January 1913, 1,251 had been manufactured. The rifle was distributed to the army as the Rifle, Magazine, Enfield, .276-inch. The trials took place in Britain, Ireland, Egypt and South Africa and at the end the Chief Inspector of Small Arms recommended a number of changes, which resulted in a quantity of 6 improved Pattern 1913 rifles being manufactured between March and April 1914. The outbreak of World War 1 led to the abandonment of the effort to introduce a smaller caliber rimless cartridge for purely practical reasons.

http://www.cartridgecollector.net/276-pattern-13-enfield


Move this up a few years

 

[jsb]

russia, france, and great britain create a board of enquiry to standardize the caliber of their respective rifles and heavy machine guns

You start with,
8×50mmR Lebel (8×51R Lebel)
.303 British (7.7×56mmR)
7.62×54mmR

the board is looking for a full power rifle cartridge, OK

must be able to convince politicians and army brass of advantages
The easy part is that everybody wants a none rimmed round..... especially British after SA war and French due to the oldest case not fitting very well in magazines....

Bad part is the cost is huge!....!!!!

what is the best cartridge they can recommend?
what is the cartridge they are most likely to recommend?
what is the cartridge that the entente is most likely to adopt?

Well the options are,
1- take one and keep it for all 3 = not going to happen due to A) pride/NIH, B) they are all semi-obsolite c) new would be better
2- something new rimless and 7-7.62mm ?
3- convert one of the above to rimless or semi-rimmed?
4 pick some super magnum that's totally wasted in WWI......(the better it is a target rifle the more it will be liked by "The Small Arms Committee")

what is the immediate result?
what will be the effect on ww1 procurement?
what will be the post war effect?
Nothing, nothing and nothing....

well OK not to be mean but,
1- no way would it get past troop trials with three national involved.....1910-14 is to short even for one GB in OTL
2- it will get abandoned come WWI
3- OK will make a nice super sniper if they go with "276 PATTERN 13 ENFIELD"

 

[tomo pauk]

7 mm Mauser fits the bill, indeed. Politically it is a neutral choice - it is not used by any of the 3 countries. Technically - it is still a full-power cartridge, shoots very flat (supposedly it was called 'ballistician's delight'), so it will be a very useful sniper cartridge.
Immediate result is that soldier might be carrying more for same weight allowance (important even more for machine guns). Less recoil, so follow-up shots are easier to do. More ammo can be held in magazine, especially when compared with rimmed cartridges that all of the powers were using.
Once the move is made for semi-autos or automatic rifles, it is a much better choice than the more powerful .303 or 7.62x54R, so we'd probably see the Fedorov making it's avtomat (or semi-auto) in that cartridge. Chauchat, Lewis and BAR too might benefit from lower recoil and more ammo. Later, Soviet AVS-36 might be a success.

 

[jsb]

7 mm Mauser fits the bill

Totally agree but by 1910 its far to late to do anything for summer 14.....

That raises the interesting idea of what would happen if just GB had picked an existing design instead of going thinking about .276 Enfield?
7mm or 8mm Mauser or .30-06 Springfield would both be available and might if started earlier (ie 1905+..?) might actually have an effect in time?

 

[AdA]

Best possible result would be for all three nation to adopt the Vickers as a HMG and the SMLE as a battle rifle. To give the Russians something adopt 7,62x54R in all countries. To talk the French into it just let them test the new rifle against the Lebel.
If they really wanted a new rifle the end result would probably be a P13 in 7,62R, which is likely to be a good thing.
The best thing about it would be that it would show the Germans that the three countries were serious about fighting a long war together.

 

[tomo pauk]

Totally agree but by 1910 its far to late to do anything for summer 14.....

That raises the interesting idea of what would happen if just GB had picked an existing design instead of going thinking about .276 Enfield?
7mm or 8mm Mauser or .30-06 Springfield would both be available and might if started earlier (ie 1905+..?) might actually have an effect in time?

7mm Mauser was an existing design by 1895.

 

[Crowbar Six]

I think the .276 enfield was considered a bit hot.

 

[jsb]

7mm Mauser was an existing design by 1895.

But the OP above is 1910.....

 

[jsb]

The best thing about it would be that it would show the Germans that the three countries were serious about fighting a long war together.

Might this not start a preventative 1910 war by Germany/AH/+ to try and win before it becomes impossible?

 

[tomo pauk]

But the OP above is 1910.....

All good and well.

Dear weapon constructors, for the next few decades this empire/republic & it's allies will use this new & shiny round. The one who wants to earn money will better start working around the clock to design a new weapon. We'll see you in 9 months, to see who can deliver.

 

[marathag]

I think the .276 enfield was considered a bit hot.

Thinking much of the same problem as the 6mm Lee Navy, high velocity with early smokeless powder. Cordite MkI was not a forgiving doublebase powder. It's replacement, Cordite MD, really wasn't much better

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I think the .276 enfield was considered a bit hot.

The trend was toward 'hot' rounds that were nearly point blank shooting out to 800m, as least per the French rifle program. They had really interesting designs, both rifles and cartridges, but kept pushing toward extreme, long range performance. Though it seems both the French and British settled on their own 'hot' 7mm rounds (in Russian Fedorov was pushing his own 'hot' 6.5mm), but independent developments, as the Entente Cordiale was not actually a formal alliance and more of an understanding against Germany if push came to shove. I don't think anyone was actually all that interested in standardizing, as they wanted complete independence to do as they pleased without cooperating with anyone.

Thinking much of the same problem as the 6mm Lee Navy, high velocity with early smokeless powder. Cordite MkI was not a forgiving doublebase powder. It's replacement, Cordite MD, really wasn't much better

The problem of the Lee Navy was barrel metallurgy; at the time the US was behind the Europeans and tried to get a bit too hot for what they could reliably produce in terms of barrel wear resistance. They eventually caught up by WW1, but by then they focused on the .30-06 for standardization.

 

[Not James Stockdale]

I wouldn't be surprised if 8mm Mauser was selected because it was already so common in Europe. The French anticipated the opening stage of their war being a massive, rapid assault, so maybe they would want to be able to use captured German ammunition.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I wouldn't be surprised if 8mm Mauser was selected because it was already so common in Europe. The French anticipated the opening stage of their war being a massive, rapid assault, so maybe they would want to be able to use captured German ammunition.

They had settled on a native 7mm round IOTL pre-WW1, but hadn't done more than get the first batch ready by the time the war started and cancelled their plans (same with artillery modernization for the larger caliber howitzers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meunier_rifle
It was in 7x59 Meunier:

The rimless 7x59mm Meunier round was substantially more powerful than 8mm Lebel.

The 7x59mm Meunier had a muzzle velocity of 3,412 ft/s (1,040 m/s). It had a steel core as well as the 7x57mm (7.2x56.95mm) adopted the same year and retained later for the Meunier rifle of 1916 with a velocity reduced to 2,690 ft/s (820 m/s).

Seems silly that they just recreated the 7mm Mauser in the end, and by the time it was ready it was too late.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

But the OP above is 1910.....

Op says they decide to go to a common round, not that they have to develop one. By going to the 7mm Mauser they skip years of development and only have to redesign existing weapons to shoot it. By doing so they might have the new round entering service by summer 1914, but their existing rounds will still predominate. Caught mid change over they then have to decide whether to continue with the change or not. I think Britain would, (due to the small size of the Army and production of the new round and ammunition already being underway). I don't think either France or Russia can due to the size of their armies.

 

[marathag]

The problem of the Lee Navy was barrel metallurgy; at the time the US was behind the Europeans and tried to get a bit too hot for what they could reliably produce in terms of barrel wear resistance. They eventually caught up by WW1, but by then they focused on the .30-06 for standardization.

Little bit of both, 'Rifleite' was an early singlebase flake powder to get around the issues of early Cordite, but it had the problem of inconsistent performance from lot to lot.

DuPont developed the MR Powder, for Military Rifle before WWI, and IMR, for 'Improved' by adding stabilizers and graphite coating to the cylindrical powder as a response to early powder issues

 

[Deleted member 1487]

If Fedorov had gotten his 6.5mm round ready in time, do you think that might have been a player in this situation?
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/07/13/original-6-5mm-cartridge-fedorov-avtomat/
The French played around with the 6.5m and even 6mm calibers, but opted for something larger and heavier for the resulting range...but if the Russians are going with it, might they consider it?

Britain was the least committed to the Entente pre-war, so it would seem that the tighter Russo-French relationship would be more likely to yield a single cartridge program and potentially even a self loading rifle as well. It is a bit surprising that the Russians and French hadn't worked on a joint program, but perhaps that just wasn't done in those days. Perhaps had they tried or at least Fedorov been in contact with the French while developing his own cartridge/rifle they could have turned something out pre-war.