WWII British Semi Automatic Battle Rifle

[fastmongrel]

Why not have GB join the program in 31 so they both get it working and issued by 39

Good luck getting the British Treasury to spend money on the Army in 1931. Maybe when the money starts flowing in 1937 Enfield could send a team to the St Etienne Arsenal to work with the French team and get an Anglicised version ready for production.

 

[tomo pauk]

Don't venture for new and expensive, if small 2pdr AT gun, and plenty of money is saved.
If the 6.5mm Arisaka round is 'allowed' here, perhaps making the semi-auto version of 'Avtomat Fedorova' could give the British the required rifle years before ww2 starts.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

This one Idea I toyed around with.
With the war going on with its neighbours the FN design team do some contingency planning incase Belgium is drawn in. In April with the Germans willingness to invade neutrals demonstrated they begin implementing then by moving the design team, examples of their planned new rifle and the drawings to Oostende and quietly (incase the Government finds out) contact the British Embassy letting them know where they are and what they have with them. On May 10th they again contact the British and are told to wait for instructions. When the Dutch Surrender they are told a ship is being sent to evacuate them to England the next day. On arrival in Britain they are sent to Vickers to continue work on their rifle. Early in 1941 it is decided to equip the new Commandos and Parachute Regiment with the new rifle, Brens in the original caliber and Besas on tripods. Following the Fall of Crete and based on a theory that had they had more firepower the island could have held it is decided that all troops in Britain are to be armed in the same way as the Commandos and Paras. Troops in the Desert and Far East are to retain the old weapons to maintain compatibility with other Commonwealth and Empire forces. Canada switched entirely to the new weapons. Following the Fall of Singapore and the Malay Barrier Australia decides to change over to the new weapons and by the end of 1942 is ready to begin issuing them to troops not currently engaged with the Japanese. New Zealand requests that Britain supply the new weapons to its troops prior to the invasion of Sicily following the surrender of the Axis forces in North Africa. The entire 8th army is reequipped prior to the invasion of Sicily. By then only the troops in India and Burma retain the Lee Enfield and are being supplied from Indian sources.

 

[fastmongrel]

This one Idea I toyed around with.
With the war going on with its neighbours the FN design team do some contingency planning incase Belgium is drawn in.

How close to production was the FN rifle in 1940.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

From what I've read it was about ready. I assume a lot of the drawing were destroyed to prevent the Germans benefiting and the reason it took till 1949 to produce was a combination of dealing with the effects of the occupation and having to redo a lot of the work. In this case I have there be a planned evacuation so the drawings and prototypes survive.

 

[pdf27]

From what I've read it was about ready. I assume a lot of the drawing were destroyed to prevent the Germans benefiting and the reason it took till 1949 to produce was a combination of dealing with the effects of the occupation and having to redo a lot of the work. In this case I have there be a planned evacuation so the drawings and prototypes survive.

The other issue is that after 1945 the world was awash with cheap firearms - making and selling new ones immediately after 1945 was a losing proposition.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Good luck getting the British Treasury to spend money on the Army in 1931. Maybe when the money starts flowing in 1937 Enfield could send a team to the St Etienne Arsenal to work with the French team and get an Anglicised version ready for production.

That seems reasonable and as the British would be skipping the intermediate bolt action rifle may speed up the introduction of the semi automatic and have it ready for the B.E.F.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Yes but GB is still broke post WWII and has both GB and some German tooling in this TL...

Yes but despite being broke they did develope the Enfield .280 British!

It existed and until Churchill became Prime Minister again the UK had fully intended to rearm with one of several firearms designed around it and the Enfield No9 rifle or EM-2 and the Taden (effectively a Belt fed Bren gun) was briefly officially adopted in 1951

Also in the offing was the 'Original' FN FAL designed around the .280 British (later modified to 7.62x51 NATO)

and the FN FAL Bullpup (My favorite) - which despite being the 'short model' had a longer barrel than the 'long model'

Not to mention the Taden (if it looks like a Belt fed Bren gun...well that's because its a belt fed Bren gun)

The decision to go 7.62x51 NATO was political not financial as they had to retool for the US 'Lite' round as well!

 

[wtw]

what about the FN-BAR in 303, or does that not count?

 

[jsb]

what about the FN-BAR in 303, or does that not count?

You might as well count the OTL Bren as its better in almost every way. (that and the semi part of the title)

 

[Cryhavoc101]

what about the FN-BAR in 303, or does that not count?

Bit on the heavy side for a individual weapon!

SMLE weighs about 4 KGs loaded while the lightest BAR - the Colt Monitor weighs 6 KGs and I'm not sure if that includes the 20 round Magazine

Also the weapon, despite its name, was more a squad support weapon than a rifle!

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

If Britain were to licence the Brno ZH 29 rifle at the same time as they did the Bren and Besa they could both meet their aim of adopting the 7.92 and get the complete package of rifle, light machine gun and belt fed medium machine gun in one go. The rifle and LMG used the same magazine design so you could have the riflemen with 15 or 20 round mags able to provide extra ammunition to the LMG if it ran short of its 30 round mags which is what was done with the L1A1 rifle and L4 Bren.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

If Britain were to licence the Brno ZH 29 rifle at the same time as they did the Bren and Besa they could both meet their aim of adopting the 7.92 and get the complete package of rifle, light machine gun and belt fed medium machine gun in one go. The rifle and LMG used the same magazine design so you could have the riflemen with 15 or 20 round mags able to provide extra ammunition to the LMG if it ran short of its 30 round mags which is what was done with the L1A1 rifle and L4 Bren.View attachment 301098

I don't disagree with anything you have said - however it is a almost fully machined weapon so very very expensive, its bolt close operation makes me feel sick (and I was not alone) - you pull the trigger to initially close the bolt (from a bolt open condition) and then again to fire (this more than anything else was why the British did not adopt it from what I understand), lastly the recoil was described as 'punishing' relative to other rifles of the day

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I've got to admit I have my doubts about it as well, and like you the thought of pulling the trigger to do anything other than shoot gives me shivers. It's sideways locking bolt also gives it an odd look that would face resistance. I brought it up because Britain was licencing Czech weapons anyway and it would be logical to at least consider the rifle at the same time. My preferred choice would be the Belgian FN rifle but getting access to it pre 1940 is probably impossible. Alternatively a box magazine fed (so ammunition could be shared with the Bren) Garand in 7.92 is probably the most likely, if the US government would allow it to be licenced by Britain. How likely that would be I couldn't speculate as I don't know enough about US politics in the period.

 

[Simon]

The best options do seem to be the SLEM-1 or if you develop it further the Fabrique Nationale Model 1949 as already mentioned. The Genocide article has Saive patenting his initial ideas in 1936, prototyping them in 1937, continuing development the next two years before the German invasion intervened, it taking him until 1941 to escape to the UK and then for some reason not getting back to work until 1943. There seems more than enough slack there to speed things up - an earlier, and shorter, escape after the invasion of Belgium, combined with taking his development drawings on the way out the door, could potentially move things forward sooner.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Getting Saive, his design team and the drawings needs some advanced planning in case of Belgium being drawn into the war. Unfortunately the Belgian government seems to have buried its head in the sand and hoped that if they ignored the war it would go away.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Is there any way I could get B.S.A or Vickers working with FN on the design prewar? I can't see Royal Ordinance or Enfield as state owned operations being allowed to work with FN as it could be represented as government funds being used to support another country's arms industry.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Is there any way I could get B.S.A or Vickers working with FN on the design prewar? I can't see Royal Ordinance or Enfield as state owned operations being allowed to work with FN as it could be represented as government funds being used to support another country's arms industry.

Isnt it like Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield working with Československá zbrojovka in Brno to develop the Bren gun and later BESA MMG?

So I cannot see why - given a POD where the purse strings are lossened earlier and funding made available for a 'British SLR' in the mid to late 30s - the same thing cannot happen with FN and leverage of Dieudonne Saive's rifle (that would later become the SLEM1, then FN49 and then develop into the FN FAL) before the war.

In fact this makes sense as Britain was looking to replace the SMLE with a more modern weapon (which was as it turned out another Bolt action rifle) and combine the efforts of the work carried out on what would become the Mk4 rifle (intended to simplify manufacture) and Dieudonne Saive's SLR.

No need to wait for people to escape via Portugal with plans stuffed down thier underpants in 1941 as the work would be done in the late 30s

 

[tomo pauk]

Browning-developed BAR was on sale by the end of ww1, while the semi-auto Browning Auto-5 shotgun is even earlier. Fedorov's automat is old news by 1930s. So there is really no need to wait until the proverbial hits the fan to start thinkering about the semi-auto rifle for British Army (or other major armies actually).

 

[fastmongrel]

Vickers are working flat out on designing Naval guns I think they wouldn't have spare capacity to take on a new rifle in the mid 30s. BSA had a mothballed Lewis gun production line from WW1 which was used to build No4 rifles starting in 1941. Get BSA to work with the French or the Belgians on a SLR and modify the line and instead of No4 production SLRs are made and issued to the same schedule.