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Siege of Jadotville & The Sniper Bren - Is The Bren More Accurate than a Sniper Rifle?
If you’re familiar with the film Siege of Jadotville you will remember a scene in which the Irish company’s sniper takes on a long range shot… with a Bren.
The sniper exchanges his scoped Rifle No.4(T) for a Bren and single loads a round with the magazine removed. We teamed up with our friend Rich of Vickers MG Collection & Research Association to see how realistic this exciting and interesting scene is!
This scene raises a number of questions:
Why does the sniper do this?
Is the Bren more accurate than a Rifle No.4(T)?
Can you easily single-load a Bren?
We try to address these inn the video and in the article linked below!
This interesting photo shows Lt. Col. Martin Price, DSO, commanding officer of 48 Royal Marines Commando. It was taken in April 1945 during the Commandos’ embarkation to cross the Maas river. No.48 (Royal Marines) Commando had previously taken part in the Battle of the Scheldt.
What is perhaps most interesting about this photo, to me at least, is that Lt. Col. Price has a Rifle No.5 carbine slung over his shoulder. It is rather rare that you see photos of the so-called ‘Jungle Carbine’ in Northwest Europe.
Colonel Price’s No.5 has the classic rounded wooden forend, rather than the later metal capped forend. The No.5 entered service in late summer 1944, it had been developed to provide a lighter carbine for use in the Far East and with troops who needed a lighter personal weapon. The No.5 weighed 7lb 1oz, which is 2lbs lighter than the Rifle No.4 Mk2.
Australia’s Experimental 7.62x51mm Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Rifle No.6
The rifle pictured above is chambered in 7.62x51mm and has been adapted to feed from L1A1 rifle magazines. The rifle was one of a number of trials rifles built during the Second World War as a prototype ‘No.6′ Lee-Enfield which was then subsequently repurposed in the mid-1950s as a basis for efforts to convert .303 Lee-Enfields to chamber the new NATO round.
This particular rifle was built at Lithgow in 1942 and adapted for the Australian No.6 ‘Jungle Carbine’ testing in 1944. The war, however, ended before the Australian Jungle Carbine could enter service and the adapted rifles were placed in store.
A pair of 7.62x51mm prototypes (from Ian Skennerton’s The Lee Enfield Story)
In 1954 it was decided by the Australian government that along with Britain and Canada they would adopt the FN FAL in 7.62x51mm. In 1955 the Australian Army began troop trials with what would become the L1A1. Efforts to convert some Lee-Enfield rifles also began.
In 1958 a number of the earlier No.6 trials rifles were rechambered and adapted to load from X8E1 FN rifle magazines and a L1A1 flash hider was added along with upgraded sights. Around a dozen of these 7.62x51mm No.6 rifles were assembled. Despite interest in the rechambered rifles from the Royal Australian Air Force the Lee-Enfield actions, however, were found to struggle with the pressures of the new cartridge this eventually forced the project to be abandoned as too costly to mitigate.
L1A1 production in Australia subsequently began in 1959. Britain also made efforts to rechamber .303 rifles, developing a conversion of the Rifle No.4. The L8 series of 7.62x51mm chambered rifles proved to be better at standing up to the higher chamber pressures.
Sources:
Experimental Short Magazine Lee-Enfield No.6 Rifle, AWM, (source)
In this week’s Armourer’s Bench episode we take a look at an extremely rare rifle. A M1903 Springfield chambered in British .303 and adapted to mimic the Lee-Enfield Rifle No.4. Developed in late 1940, to provide the British with desperately needed rifles, the project was eventually abandoned and only a handful of prototypes are believed to have been assembled!
With features taken from the Lee-Enfield family of rifles but retaining the M1903′s Mauser-type action the Remington hybrid is one of the most interesting footnotes to the histories of both the Lee-Enfield and the M1903.
The photo above is an interesting one for a number of reasons not only does it show members of the
Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) at a rifle range in 1940, but even more interesting are the rifles they’re using. They are receiving instruction from a Sergeant of the Royal Marines and are using .22 calibre training rifles - Rifle, RF Short. Mk.II. .
The Rifle, RF Short. Mk.II was a conversion of ‘Long’ Lee-Metford or Lee-Enfield rifles for use as .22 rimfire training rifles, the Mk.I conversions began in 1907, just as the SMLE entered service. The rifles were intended to emulate the SMLE’s handling characteristics.
The Mk.II was approved for service in 1912 and had their barrels shortened and sleeved, sights re-graduated and a new front sight post. The conversions were largely single shot rifles, although a magazine adaptations were developed and sold commercially. The rifles were used by the Royal Navy for rifle training on short and indoor ranges. The photographs above shows one of these ranges with the WRNS learning the basics.
During WW1 both sides dug beneath No Man’s Land to lay explosives to blow up enemy trenches. Sometimes opposing tunneler’s would meet and viscous subterranean fights would ensue. The myths around the use of ‘Obrez’ or cut-down rifles has ground over the years, and while its likely some were used, we’ll probably never know just how many were used.
I recently had a chance to look at a very handy SMLE, which while cut-down, still had its butt stock. I think this made this particular rifle a lot handier to use - still firing one of these in a narrow tunnel in the near-pitch black must have been horrific!
In this week’s TAB video I talk about the concept and realities of an Obrez SMLE and talk about what weapons British/Empire tunnellers used from their own accounts.
Check out the video:
Thanks for watching guys, check out the accompanying blog for more photos over on the TAB site, here!
This recruitment poster, painted by artist Ernest Ibbetson in 1912, for the 25th (County of London) Cyclist Battalion
of the London Regiment. Formed in 1888, as a Territorial Army battalion, the 25th Cyclist Battalion became part of the London Regiment in 1908 with the reorganisation of the Territorial Force.
The poster depicts the advanced party of a company from the battalion, with three men dismounted and advancing while firing and reloading. The scene behind them is depicted as a quintessential British village. The poster calls for “A Few Smart Men Wanted” to join the battalion, it advises them to visit the battalion headquarters to enquire.
The cyclists are pictured armed with Charger Loading Lee-Enfields loading from leather ammunition pouches. It’s also interesting to note the men are wearing spats rather than puttees and the soldier in the foreground has three Volunteer ‘Efficient Service’ stars on his cuff, such is Ibbetson’s attention to detail. The poster appeals to the ideal of volunteer soldiers protecting an idealised vision of their homeland. By the outbreak of war in 1914, the British Territorial Force and the Special Reserve had grown to ~470,000 reservists. The battalion was finally disbanded in 1922.
Following up on my earlier post about Ernest Ibbetson’s 1912 recruitment poster for the Cyclist Battalion of the London Regiment I received an email from a reader, Carl Fogel. Carl shared some interesting insights on the bicycles depicted in the poster and I thought it was worth sharing.
I am far from a bicycle expert so I couldn’t really speak to the accuracy of the bikes in my earlier post, so it was fascinating to hear the thoughts of a historical bicycle enthusiast and add another layer of analysis to the poster. Thanks for sharing your observations Carl!
Additionally here’s a photograph of a bicycle company taken during a field day in 1910 I came across (source):
Like many drawings, that military-bicycle recruiting poster
gets some bicycle details right and others wrong. For example, the brake-lever on the right-hand bicycle is on
the correct side and really was that big.
Early front brakes had a giant hand-lever almost three times
as long as a modern brake-lever. It connected to a Rube-Goldberg collection of more levers,
which either pushed a spoon-brake directly down on the front tire or else
pulled a pair of calipers outward (yes, outward) against the rim.
The wire-inside-a-cable modern brake that squeezes two side
calipers together became popular only later, even though the Bowden cable had
already been invented.
Although massive, these crude early front-brake levers had
poor mechanical advantage, so they were sensibly placed on the right, under the
rider’s usually more powerful right hand. Only later did the bicycle’s front-brake lever move to the
left side in order to make room for the new gear-shifts to be on the same side
as the right-side chain-drive.
Why is the bicycle chain on the right? For centuries we had
been mounting horses from the left to avoid tangling the long swords hanging on
our left hips. Since we already favored mounting from the left, we put the
chain and sprockets out of our way on the right side of the bicycle.
Embarrassingly, I thought that no bicycles back then featured
two brake levers, so I thought that the second brake-lever on the
center-bicycle was just an artist’s mistake.
But I learned how wrong I was from this wonderful web page
about a 1912 British military bicycle and its rifle. As shown, a few bicycles ran the odd brake-rod-linkage to the
rear wheel and added a second equally massive brake-lever on the left side of
the handlebar, just as the recruiting poster shows. In my defense, the rear coaster-brake that worked by
back-pedalling quickly put an end to this second brake-lever.
The warning bell on the center-bicycle is correct. Often
required by law, the warning bell for these dangerous new-fangled machines was
naturally placed on the left, opposite the standard right-hand front-brake
lever, so that you could brake with one hand while ringing the bell with the
other.
The acetylene lamps shown on the fork-legs in the poster are
also correct. These feeble lamps were usually placed low to better illuminate
the rough roads. The low fork-leg mount was also the only practical place for a
flaming lamp on a military bicycle with a large pack obscuring its handlebar.
The artist probably just forgot to draw an acetylene lamp on
the left-hand bicycle, but can you imagine drawing a trio of army jeeps and
leaving the headlights off one?
And the heavy saddle-springs visible on the center-bicycle
are correct, too. Such springs were necessary on the terrible roads of the
time. In fact, the bicycle craze that peaked in the late 1890s helped to
promote modern roads through incessant lobbying by bicycle magazines like
“Good Roads” with their pictures of farm-wagons sunk hub-deep in the
mud.
The small mounting-peg sticking out of the rear-axle of the
left-hand bicycle is correct. The pedals of the much taller bicycles of that
era spun relentlessly instead of coasting, so you usually stood behind the
bicycle, grabbed both sides of the handlebar, put your left foot on the
mounting peg, pushed once or twice with your right foot to get going, vaulted
up onto the saddle from behind like the Lone Ranger, and finally put your feet
onto the spinning pedals.
The tire pump on the center bicycle’s seat post is also
correct. Flat tires were even more common back then, the roads being littered
not only with glass from broken bottles, but also with ugly nails from worn-out
horse-shoes and hob-nailed boots.
Even the white tires are plausible. The natural rubber tires
of the time came in red (best quality) or gray-white (cheaper and more likely
to be used by the military). Modern tires are black because of the carbon black
added to improve the wearing resistance of the synthetic rubber developed in
WWII. But horrifyingly, the artist drew the bicycle wheels
without spokes!
He might just as well have drawn a nude without nipples.
Details like the number of spokes, the spoke-lacing pattern, and the presence
of wire spoke-ties are as fascinating to bicycle fanatics as the difference
between a .303 British and a .303 Savage is to firearms enthusiasts. (Imagine
rifles drawn without triggers or trigger guards.)
To his credit, the artist did put the chain and sprockets on
the right-hand side, made the front and rear sprockets roughly the right
proportions, connected them with a chain, and equipped them with realistic
pedals.
But then he drew bizarrely square shadows for the round front
sprockets! Letting the bicycles fall to the ground in combat is not only
understandable, but also quite normal for an era when side-stands were rare.
(At the website mentioned above, notice that the bicycle is
leaned against a wall and that the military photos show the bicycles parked by
leaning against each other, much like rifles leaning upright against each other
in a field stand.)
The spats are probably correct, too, since puttees wound
about your legs can work loose and become the natural prey of chains and
sprockets.
If all this nit-picking seems pedantic, consider how
carefully the artist drew the tiny and unusual pin in the trigger guard on the
center rifle and the accurate pair of vertical grooves that he put on its
magazine. Yet he forgot to give the left-hand soldier a rifle.
Of course, it’s just a recruiting poster, after all, not a
photograph. But it’s still fun to learn things by checking how valid the
poster’s artistic license is. Think of how you’d enjoy explaining what’s wrong with that
recent political cartoon, the one that shows a four-chamber revolver ejecting a
spent shell.
Thanks for sending in your observations Carl, I found them fascinating.
This recruitment poster, painted by artist Ernest Ibbetson in 1912, for the 25th (County of London) Cyclist Battalion
of the London Regiment. Formed in 1888, as a Territorial Army battalion, the 25th Cyclist Battalion became part of the London Regiment in 1908 with the reorganisation of the Territorial Force.
The poster depicts the advanced party of a company from the battalion, with three men dismounted and advancing while firing and reloading. The scene behind them is depicted as a quintessential British village. The poster calls for “A Few Smart Men Wanted” to join the battalion, it advises them to visit the battalion headquarters to enquire.
The cyclists are pictured armed with Charger Loading Lee-Enfields loading from leather ammunition pouches. It’s also interesting to note the men are wearing spats rather than puttees and the soldier in the foreground has three Volunteer ‘Efficient Service’ stars on his cuff, such is Ibbetson’s attention to detail. The poster appeals to the ideal of volunteer soldiers protecting an idealised vision of their homeland. By the outbreak of war in 1914, the British Territorial Force and the Special Reserve had grown to ~470,000 reservists. The battalion was finally disbanded in 1922.
With British and Commonwealth troops fighting extensively in the Far East, specifically in the jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma, there was an urgent need for shorter, handier rifles. The British began development of what would become the Rifle No. 5 Mk I ‘Jungle Carbine’ in 1943, other Commonwealth countries also began working on lighter rifles with Australia developing the Rifle No.6 Mk1 and Canada developing a radically lightened No.4.
As Indian ordnance factories had not begun to produce the Rifle No.4, they took the venerable Rifle No.1 MkIII* as the basis for their lightened jungle rifle - much as Australia did.
This prototype assembled by the Ishapore Rifle Factory significantly shortened the rifle and added a number of interesting, unique features. These included an interesting flag-type rotating rear sight with 200, 400 and 600 yard apertures. This was deemed to be somewhat vulnerable as they were quite prominent. The mounting point for the traditional Rifle No. MkIII’s rear sight was covered with an additional piece of wood.
The barrel was cut down from just over 25 inches down to 17.25 inches and tipped with a conical flash hider. This is even shorter than a ‘Shortened Lightened Rifle’ version of the SMLE developed by the Australians which had no flash hider and a charger bridge mounted rear sight. These were tested in 1944 but rejected in favour of what would become the ill-fated Australian No.6 MkI - which was also later rejected.
The Ishapore carbine retains the standard No.1 MkIII* nose cap, and as a result has the squared-off front sight protectors characteristic of Ishapore SMLEs. As a result it could mount the No.1′s standard sword bayonet. The flash hider was of a different pattern to the British No.5 MkI’s. The Indian version screwed onto the muzzle which had a thread cut into it. Following testing it was deemed to be less effective at hiding the substantial muzzle flash. Unconventionally, the carbine had its sling swivels mounted on the right of the forend and on the top of the butt stock.
The Ishapore rifle was 8oz heavier than the British-developed ‘jungle carbine’ and lacked the rubberised butt pad of the British effort. As a result the Indian prototype was rejected, although Ian Skennerton mentions a weapon designated the No.6 MkI, possibly an improved version of the Ishapore carbine was temporarily approved for British and Indian service in September 1944. This rifle, like the Australian Rifle No.6, never entered production or service.
Today, an example is believed to be part of the Royal Armouries collection, one of two rifles sent to Britain for testing in March 1944. Another is held by a private collection and is up for auction (as of November 2018) by Rock Island Auctions. Ishapore continued producing .303 No.1 rifles into the 1950s and in the mid-1960s began producing the rechambered 7.62x41mm 2A version of the No.1.
Troops armed with rifles fitted with safety catches will invariably set the catch to safety before movement. The use of the cut-off is to be confined in their case to occasions when they are not actually engaged with the enemy, when it may be employed for the purpose either of charging the magazine without inserting a cartridge in the chamber, or to unload the rifle while retaining cartridges in the magazine. It is never to be used to enable the rifle to be used as a single-loader, and it is not to supersede the use of the safety catch.
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Musketry Regulations, 1909, Part I discussing the use of the Lee-Enfield’s magazine cutoff.
The Lee-Enfield’s magazine cutoff was retained for decades, introduced with the Lee-Metford in 1888, briefly removed to simplified production of the SMLE MkIII* during World War One, and finally eliminated from the Rifle No.4 in late 1930s. Interestingly, the magazine cutoff had been omitted from the SMLE MkIs made for the 1902 troop trials, however, following the trials it was fitted to production guns.
While the early Lee-actioned rifles had magazines they were single-loaded with loose rounds not with charger clips. It was only with the introduction of charger clips with Short Magazine Lee-Enfield MkI in 1902 that allowed troops to rapidly load their magazines. Some earlier rifles were also retrofitted to become Charger-Loading Lee-Enfields.
Traditionally the magazine cut off had been introduced as a way to allow officers to control the rate of their men’s fire. With the cutoff allowing single loading. With the introduction of the charger, however, and the adoption of the SMLE in 1904, saw a change in the use of the magazine cutoff. The change in doctrine is laid out in the British Army’s 1909 Musketry Regulations, which explain how the magazine cutoff was by then simply a secondary safety feature to allow the rifle to be carried with a full magazine and an empty chamber.
In the photographs above the Machine Gun Section of the 8th Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment) pose with their machine guns. In the first photograph the Machine Gun, Maxim, Mk.I is mounted on a carriage while in the second it is mounted on a tripod and deployed in a trench during a field exercise. Following experiences during the Second Boer War the use of carriages to mount machine guns quickly fell from favour. Both tripods and carriages hadbeen used during the Boer war but by the 1910s the British Army solely used tripods. The Maxim’s tripod can clearly be seen in the third photograph which features both of the Machine Gun Section’s guns set up side by side.
The 8th Royal Scots were a Territorial Force battalion. The Territorial Force was a part-time volunteer reserve branch of the British Army formed in 1908. The 8th Scots was formed in 1908, they would later become the first Scottish territorial unit to mobilise and arrived in France in November 1914.
The Maxim still made extensive use of brass for their spring housings, spade grips and barrel jacket. In the field these were frequently painted. The photographs above were probably taken some time between 1908 and 1912, the troops in the first photograph also appear to have
Magazine Lee–Enfield’s slung.
British battalions at the beginning of the war each had a Machine Gun Section, commanded by a lieutenant, made up of two six-man squads operating the battalions’ two machine guns. During the First World War the number of machine guns per battalion increased rapidly.
The Maxim guns first saw limited use with the British Army during the First Matabele War in 1893 but it officially entered British Service in 1896, seeing action during the First Boer War. The improved Vickers-Maxim Machine Gun MkI, also chambered in .303, replaced it in British Service in 1912. But when the British Expeditionary Force departed for France in August 1914, many battalions took their older Maxim Gun Mk.I and Mk.IIs, these were finally withdrawn from service in 1917.
Sources:
Images: 1-3 are courtesy of www.newbattleatwar.com whose focus is on commemorating the men of Midlothian, Scotland who fought during the Great War. The site’s owner curates a collection of photographs, those above were given to him by George Souness, nephew of George Souness one of the men in the third photograph, who was sadly killed in 1918.
The photograph above shows a soldier from the 2nd Battalion, the Warwickshire Regiment seated in a tree taking aim with his rifle. The photograph was taken during an exercise at Rumegies near the Belgian border, on the 22nd January 1940.
The photograph was taken during the so-called Phoney War
which saw a period of inactivity by both sides after war was declared. The 2nd Battalion, the Warwickshire Regiment was part of the the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and fought during the Battle of France and was evacuated from Dunkirk, after a fighting retreat, during Operation Dynamo.
The soldier is armed with a Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield Rifle
No.1
MkIII, it can be differentiated from the MkIII* as its magazine cutoff is visible next to the rifle’s charger bridge. The Lee-Enfield Rifle No.1 MkIII, MkIII* and Rifle No.4 continued to be used by the British Army throughout the Second World War.
The last two episodes of C&Rsenal’s Primer series have covered the ‘Long Lees’ - the Metford and Enfield and the Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE).
Long Lees
SMLE
Combined these two videos offer over 3 hours of in-depth history on the development of the Lee-Enfield from the 1890s through to World War One. A must watch.
Rob of BritishMuzzleLoaders returns to introduce us to an iconic rifle, the SMLE. Rob walks us through the history, development and deployment of the SMLE intermixed with great contemporary photographs, images of the rifles which preceded it and shooting footage.
The video discusses the incremental changes in the rifle’s design from the Lee-Metford through to the SMLE MkIII*. Rob covers wartime changes to both the rifle and the ammunition it fired and some of the acoutremants used with the rifle including bayonets, wire cutters and rifle grenades. An interesting opening to a new series of videos, well worth a watch.
In this Movietone Newsreel the Home Guard are introduced to the Pattern 14 rifle. The narrator also erroneously mentions the P17, which was in fact designated the M1917 in American service. Many thousands of .30-06 chambered M1917′s rifles were sent to Britain as part of the Lend-Lease Programme.
The footage shows members of the Home Guard on exercises during a training camp. A regular army NCO from the Queen’s Royal Regiment demonstrates the Pattern 14 to a section of Home Guard, showing them the anatomy of the rifle and how it operates. As the NCO explains how the rifle should be aimed at different ranges the film cuts to a Solano target system landscape and a superimposed set of rifle sights. The loading of the rifle is then demonstrated with the NCO loading a five round clip. He then emphasises the importance of remembering to apply the rifle’s safety.
Interestingly, while the narrator describes the men as Home Guard, in the footage the men are actually wearing ‘LDV’ armbands. The Home Guard was initially formed as the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), on the 14th May 1940, and were only renamed the Home Guard on the 22nd July 1940.
The Pattern 1914 was initially used during the First World War. It represented the culmination of a number of developments, it had an excellent flip-up rear aperture sight which was graduated out to 1,600 yards. The rear sight’s position above the receiver increased the sight radius and improved upon the SMLE’s leaf sight placed ahead of the receiver. The bolt handle was contoured to fall close to the rifleman’s hand and the stock was simplified for manufacture. The Pattern 1914 also benefitted from having the Mauser claw-extractor and a third bolt safety lug. Compared to other Mauser-type actions the Pattern 1914s was extremely smooth, a trait of the Lee-Enfield’s that the British Army was keen to retain. It was issued from 1915 onwards however, once sufficient numbers of SMLEs became available the Pattern 1914 was gradually withdrawn.
The M1917 was also widely used by the Home Guard with
over 700,000 were purchased by the British Purchasing Commission in 1940. There was little difference between the two rifles and the .30-06 M1917s were painted with a 2 inch wide red stripe to differentiate it from the .303 Pattern 1914s also in service with the Home Guard.