You just sit with your radio and call down 25pdrs on people but that's not very fun for the guy with the K98...
WWII British Semi Automatic Battle Rifle
- Thread starter Peg Leg Pom
- Start date
Don't have a Boer War.
The .303 was a legacy of the Lee Metford and known to have issues - hence the .276 and Pattern 13 Rifle in , which is delayed to 1913 because of the costs of the Boer War and the stocks of Lee Enfield and .303 from then. Never really fixed. Then WW1 and like everyone the UK comes out with masses of stocks of rifles and .303.
Two other things to remember, the SMLE etc is probably the best and fastest of the bolt action rifles so a semi auto is not that great an advantage and to shoot you have to expose yourself, having only the 2 men of the Bren ( or MG34) team reduces exposure to enemy fire.
And stop being an american obsessed with rifles, its the artillery that'll kill ya
The .303 was a legacy of the Lee Metford and known to have issues - hence the .276 and Pattern 13 Rifle in , which is delayed to 1913 because of the costs of the Boer War and the stocks of Lee Enfield and .303 from then. Never really fixed. Then WW1 and like everyone the UK comes out with masses of stocks of rifles and .303.
Two other things to remember, the SMLE etc is probably the best and fastest of the bolt action rifles so a semi auto is not that great an advantage and to shoot you have to expose yourself, having only the 2 men of the Bren ( or MG34) team reduces exposure to enemy fire.
And stop being an american obsessed with rifles, its the artillery that'll kill ya
Cryhavoc101
Donor
Well to be fair to the STG44 it did not have the issues associated with the German SLRs (G41 and G43) and was a very good gun - but its not really available until the latter part of the war and even then not in the numbers required .
Yeah the Sten gun has mixed reviews - the French loved it - The greatest German soldier chose it as his personal firearm and in modern shoot offs vs the vaunted MP40 - very little to choose between them - with the sten being a select fire weapon and much easier to use from the prone position with the MP40 being a better quality weapon (certainly compared to early Mk2 'Woolworths' stens) - both used the same magazine which was the weak point of both weapons.
You could also say "Keep Franz Ferdinand far away from Bosnia in 1914" Delay WWI for 2 years and the Pattern 13 rifle in .276 will be the standard issue British rifle. That the P13 was a 5 shoot weapon makes a semi automatic more attractive.
At the turn of the century neither did the British Army. Before the Boer War the Regular Army was about 170,000 strong about 30,000 serving in India about 10,000 in Ireland about 10,000 in Egypt looking after the Suez Canal and that was it really apart from Battalions stationed in various spots round the world like Malta, Gibraltar and China. The British Army in peacetime has never been very big, in 1883 when Imperialism was at its height the Regular Army was only 124,000.
You miss the point of what I was saying, that unlike the 1890s - 1910s when the Americans were changing rifle cartridges every few years, Britain in 1940-41 had huge numbers of men under arms making it many times more difficult for them to change to the 30-06 round than when the US did.
It seems the BBC has their numbers wrong. After the Crimea, the smallest the regular army got (officers and men) was 180,444 in 1870. In 1883 it was actually 181,360; in 1898 it was 225,027. The proportion abroad (i.e. outside Britain and Ireland) peaked in 1863-4 at 61%, fell to 45% in 1871, and averaged 51% across the last two decades of the nineteenth century.
Thing is, .276 is moving in the wrong direction compared to .303: it's a far higher power round which came about because of the experience the British had on the Veldt in South Africa of being out-shot by the Boer Mausers. Fast forward a decade to WW1 and having a heavy, high power round is bad news - infantry firepower is cut down (more heating and weight), and the additional range is unusable.
Having said that, the British looked at adopting .276 Pedersen (a very different beast from .276 Enfield, and a very early intermediate round) in the interwar period but failed to do so due to a lack of money. If they had done so then there is a very good chance that they would have adopted the Garand chambered in .276 Pedersen, as was the original US intent before MacArthur stepped in and insisted on keeping .30-06.
RodentRevolution
Banned
Erm slightly off topic quibble but your figures are wrong, worse they are wrong by fairly substantial margins. Whether the more accurate figures alter your argument in any way is up to you but you should use them.
The Army Estimates, 15 March 1895
For regular troops outside India note vote A for 155,403 men on Home and Colonial Establishment (that is outside India)
Hansard Feburary 9th 1899
Regular troops in the Colonies and Egypt 1st January 1899 48,862
Cost of Troops in India, Hansard May 18th 1899
73,157 British troops (out of incidentally a total estimate of 256,000)
It is worth noting that these numbers fluctuated over the course of the year rising to a peak as new drafts were dispatched to India and declining by attrition through illness, accident and desertion etc as the year went on.
Oops my bad I cant remember where I got the pre Boer War figure from. Possibly its the number of Line Infantry I was quoting.
Still I believe my point stands the British Army in peacetime is always (apart from post WWII National Service) a relatively small force and changing rifle ammunition cant have been a big job its just a matter of changing the machinery at the arsenal possibly just changing dies and moulds. Post WW1 would strangely have been the time to change despite the vast quantities of .303 on hand, all SMLE and P14 rifles were refurbished and re barrelled, a bolt action rifle is very simple to alter for a different round.
A No4 Enfield changed to 7.62 Nato needs a new barrel, a new bolt head and extractor, a new magazine which fits in the original mag well and new sights. All the above are simple changes that any competent person could do with the right tools iirc the only machining job is changing the feed ramp. Changing the bolt head and extractor can be done in the field and takes literally 2 minutes.
As the worn out war weary rifles were refurbished they could be altered for a new round and re issued a Battalion at a time. .303 even if there were billions in stock normal peacetime armies use a lot of ammo and it could be kept for training or Reserve use using the P14.
No idea what round could be adopted I suppose its between the German 8x57, US 30-06 or French 7.5x54 though I have read that the Belgian 7.65x53 is almost a .303 rimless.
Cryhavoc101
Donor
The British Empire put 15 million men and women into uniform in WW2 - obviously only a relatively small fraction of those require our new SLR but the number required will still be in the millions
Therefore the argument that ammunition should not be changed is not one that stands scrutiny particularly if the change starts in the late 30s with the expansion of the army from its 5 Division peacetime strength.
.303 weapons would still be used in their millions - in secondary fronts - Militias and for example lewis guns used on ships and as Light AA weapons - and to that end .303 would still be produced and I see no reason to rechamber any existing weapon with perhaps the exception of the Vickers MMG* but again ammo for this weapon is going to be supplied in its own boxes separate to the Stripper clips for the Bren and SLEM so not a major logistical issue.
However having a new SLR and a new LMG as well as AFV BESA both using the same 'new' ammo is not going to cause problems for the regular army units as .303 will be mostly gone from their TO&E
For Empire Armies such as the Australians (who put 1 million men into uniform) who continued to build and issue the SMLE throughout the war and the Indian Army who raised the largest all volunteer army they either switch production to the new weapons or use British/Canadian built weapons for those formations serving in British Army's.
Otherwise they have their own logistics!
Vickers MMGs have been successfully modified to fire other ammo such as 7.92 Mauser, 30-06 and 7.62 Nato - 'Gun Jesus' has one for sale (scroll down on that link)
*The Vickers fired a slightly more powerful round than that used in the Lee Enfield and Bren gun and so was supplied seperately anyway
Therefore the argument that ammunition should not be changed is not one that stands scrutiny particularly if the change starts in the late 30s with the expansion of the army from its 5 Division peacetime strength.
.303 weapons would still be used in their millions - in secondary fronts - Militias and for example lewis guns used on ships and as Light AA weapons - and to that end .303 would still be produced and I see no reason to rechamber any existing weapon with perhaps the exception of the Vickers MMG* but again ammo for this weapon is going to be supplied in its own boxes separate to the Stripper clips for the Bren and SLEM so not a major logistical issue.
However having a new SLR and a new LMG as well as AFV BESA both using the same 'new' ammo is not going to cause problems for the regular army units as .303 will be mostly gone from their TO&E
For Empire Armies such as the Australians (who put 1 million men into uniform) who continued to build and issue the SMLE throughout the war and the Indian Army who raised the largest all volunteer army they either switch production to the new weapons or use British/Canadian built weapons for those formations serving in British Army's.
Otherwise they have their own logistics!
Vickers MMGs have been successfully modified to fire other ammo such as 7.92 Mauser, 30-06 and 7.62 Nato - 'Gun Jesus' has one for sale (scroll down on that link)
*The Vickers fired a slightly more powerful round than that used in the Lee Enfield and Bren gun and so was supplied seperately anyway
Basic results, higher Axis infantry casualties,not much effects in Asia right away, but serious effects in the European theatre of operations,shorting the war in Europe by a few months.
The shift of forces into Asia a few months earlier would have serious effects on post war Asia.
The shift of forces into Asia a few months earlier would have serious effects on post war Asia.
By 1944 the British Army is using a variety of equipment that would have bewildered an interwar Army man used to 1 type of rifle/MG and 1 type of Pistol ammo plus hard rations being supplied to men in the lines.
Yes and as a result I'm inclined to agree that another small arms caliber is not going to make a huge difference to logistics of the UK armed forces in that time period so long as some common sense is used in distributing the new weapons and their ammunition.
That's using hindsight though. We know that the logistics event insurmountable, but it wouldn't have looked so attractive in the run up to the war.
Not exactly a battle rifle but if I was on point in the Burmese jungle a semi automatic 12 bore would be hard to beat when you don't know what's behind the next bush, or up the next tree.
That's something which has always seemed a little odd to me, if you're initiating a shadow factory programme for aircraft on the increasing possibility that war might break out then considering that any fighting almost certainly will involve the army why they never decided to increase the small arms manufacturing capacity in a similar shadow programme.
It's the BBC, much like the rest of the media they often seem somewhat hopeless when reporting on military matters.
And unlike with the Bren Gun they didn't have an alternative emergency weapon ready incase production of the Lee Enfield was disrupted. A cheap and cheerful rifle would have come in handy when they needed to are the Home Guard or continental resistance movements.
They did have copies of the patterns and all the necessary engineering information to make them in other factories if needed but there was no expectation or planning for the fall of France so had no requirement for home volunteers or resistance weapons. BTW India manufactured it's own Lee-Enfields and the Vickers Berthier LMG instead of the BREN LMG. Also it's own ammunition.
