Non-standard, substitute standard, and captured weapons in British and Commonwealth service

The 8mm MGs would of course have been the Hotchkiss M1914, already mentioned here. I am not familiar with French destroyer armament, but if they were like other large French vessels then they may have been equipped with the 13.2mm Hotchkiss.

 

I checked, and two of the destroyers (Leopard and Le Triomphant) did indeed carry the 13.2mm Hotchkiss Mle 1929, the same gun the army called the Mle 1930.

 

That's great information Richelieu. Its so convenient being able to down load info from Kew, for free!

I got information on French MG's from some Royal Naval Ordnance Depot log books which are located in the town/county archive facility in Winchester, UK. They also have a set of RN List of Changes when the Royal Navy went their separate way with these after the War.

The UK also supplied the Free French with substantial quantities of M1917 .30/06 rifles and some M1903 Remington made .30/06 rifles which we had obtained from the USA in 1940. So it was a two way street but more in favor of the Free French.

Regards

AlanD

 

Good day, ladies and gentlemen,
I happened on to this forum while searching for info about Bob Boothby and his quest for small arms in 1940 and I have registered specifically in the hope that I might add something to the discussion. I was born in 1944, raised in Yorkshire and emigrated to South Africa in 1969 where I have been ever since. Although I earned my living in construction I was for five years an amateur turned pro gunsmith during which time, in addition to repairing and modifying firearms I made parts for many of them and made and modified many reloading tools. That's just by way of background. During my teenage years and early adulthood Bob Boothby was a household name and a very popular public figure. Was a popular guest on radio shows - the one that stands out was the BBC's "Any Questions" in the 1960s. He was a Conservative Party MP but often out of step with his party. He was outspoken, often controversial, very much his own man which is what made him so popular. The title of his book "Recollections of a Rebel" was therefore well chosen. I don't have that book but am considering finding a copy. I do however recall with almost verbatim clarity a review of that book. The reviewer focused on Boothby's description of his mission for those rifles. This is what he said. Intelligence officers of the retreating British Army in France reported that they had wind of a lot of rifles in Amsterdam. Churchill sent Boothby (they were friends) to try to find them/get them. Boothby reported that the intelligence officers told him "you'd better get them - we might soon need them at home." As we all know, Britain was pretty much without arms of any sort and I wonder what happened to the millions of rifles brought home from WW1. Boothby found the rifles, Mausers, a lot of them, complete with bayonets and 1000 rounds of ammo each. When he returned home he was told that the rifles couldn't be afforded and were not needed, amazingly. He said that after publication of his book he expected that story to get a lot of attention but there was not a word in the media. The conspiracy of silence was complete, he said. He said that it was the most disgraceful episode in his long public life because it could have made the difference between victory and defeat. That's all what the reviewer said.

But I also found, a couple of nights ago, an excerpt of a book by Michael Dobbs entitled "Winston's War." It is a novel written around actual events of the time, and contains these details : Boothby met the intelligence officers in Brussels. They made two phone calls on his behalf and sent him to Liege, where he met an individual who offered him 9000 rifles, 100 machine guns and 1000 light automatics which I presume were the Schmeissers mentioned in this forum. When Boothby said he needed many more than that his contact sent him to Amsterdam where he met four men in the Amstel Hotel. 35 Minutes later he had been offered 400 000 Mausers with bayonets and 1000 rounds each, payment to be in uncut diamonds or dollars in the US for an extra 25%. Accepting that these details are in a novel they confirm what we already had but with added detail.

Which model of Mauser is not mentioned anywhere. Probably 98 from WW1, but if they were Model 91, 93 or 95 those are still good rifles well worth having especially if you've got nothing and the 7 x 57 is a good calibre to this day.

It was mentioned in this forum that Boothby visited Amsterdam 22 April. I didn't have that info. As Churchill became prime minister 10 May he wouldn't have had authority to authorise the purchase before that, but as First Lord of the Admiralty he would have had enough authority to send Boothby on the mission. The Germans got the rifles at the time of Dunkirk 27 May - 2 June, and the British Home Guard patrolled the countryside armed with pitchforks. Not long after, adverts were placed in American newspapers appealing for civilians to send firearms to defend British Homes. We really need to wonder about the mentality of politicians and bureaucrats to refuse good weapons when the enemy is at the door.

I'd really like to know what y'all think of the Ukraine government's offer, on the very day of Russia's invasion, to give a rifle to everyone who'll fight. The way to fight invasions is to have a good militia good and ready as the Swiss do, not to hurriedly cobble it together at the death. But what do I know?

 

Richard,

Welcome aboard. I would suggest your final paragraph would fit better in the current Ukraine thread.

 

First off, welcome to the forum.

Boothby was a character and a half, to put it no stronger. As to the weapons concerned in the Boothby mission, it has been a while since I dug into the matter but as I recall the Schmeissers were most probably the MP28 as made by Pieper, which was a Belgian firm in Liege. I don't know what the Belgian MGs could have been, but as this was Liege I think they might have been FN Browning Automatic Rifles, either Type D (Demontable) or more likely the more common Type 30. The rifles in Belgium, I surmise, were most likely typical FN short Mausers, Model 30. Bear in mind that the Chinese had been ordering all these weapons from Belgian suppliers so some may have been on hand. The rifles in Amsterdam, I seem to recall, were likely a shipment from Germany of 7.92mm Standardmodell 98's, Mauser's commercial version of the Kar 98K. These had been on their way to Spain for Franco, but the end of the Spanish war found them unwanted and stuck in transit. Again, it's been a while since I looked into all this so I can't say for absolute certain and none of us may know for certain until better documentation appears. Maybe there is more in Boothby's private papers, if such exist and are available.

As to the HG carrying pitchforks...well, no, the Home Guard was more serious than that even at the beginning. Shotguns and .22s and other sporting guns may have been present in numbers in the earliest days, but the HG got better weapons surprisingly quickly.

As to politicians refusing good weapons....when Boothby began his mission the need for small arms was not yet so glaringly desperate as it became after the Fall of France. Large weapons programs for standard types in standard calibers were planned or already in hand, and it was generally assumed that the war would proceed slowly enough for these programs to be completed in good time. Except in cases of dire necessity, you don't want to clutter up your inventory and your supply chain with all sorts of odd types demanding their own special ammunition, spare parts, manuals, etc. The 1940 crisis and the loss of the BEF's arms created the dire necessity. Otherwise I'm sure the British would never have bothered with most of the non-standard types mentioned in this thread.

On the Ukraine--I won't get into that here. There is a thread on the Urkaine elsewhere on this forum.

 

Boothby's book is a good place to start. There are over 300 copies available on ABEBooks.

Boothby was certainly a colorful character. With any of these autobiographers it pays to take what is written with a pinch of salt, as often a slant of the true facts is nearly always present. The arms deal is covered in a file or two in the National archives in London as part of the KV group which is MI5. The reason for this is that Boothby had been associating with some people that MI5 were monitoring. These files can be downloaded for free, or at least they could be 12 months ago.

The Boothby archive does exist in an archive somewhere which I will check out on my next visit to the UK. I have got the details somewhere but a quick internet search should find them.

Bear in mind that when one of these arms deals for a large quantity of rifles worth millions of pounds does not come off; there is often a good reason for this.

Regards

Alan

 

The 60 Pounder Gun Mark I

The 60-pdr was the British Army's standard medium field gun in WWI, when it earned a reputation for accuracy. The Germans seem to have particularly hated the 60-pdr, which is a good testimony to its effectiveness. Range of the Mark I gun with streamlined 60 lb. HE shell was 12,300 yards. Immediately after the war the 60-pdr Mk I was superseded in first line service by the Mk II, which had a longer barrel, a new recoil system, and a redesigned carriage. Yet many examples of the Mk I remained in use between the wars, not only in Britain but also in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. Some were given to the Irish Republic, where they remained standard for a long time. The US Army had taken delivery of some 60-pdrs Mk I during the Great War and these remained in US service in small numbers afterwards as the 5 Inch Gun M1918. Many Mk Is were still around in 1939, the carriages being updated slightly with hard rubber tires for motor traction, and in the early years of the war they played an important role as training weapons for medium artillery regiments. Some (including ex-US M1918s) were also pressed into service as coast defense weapons in the UK and New Zealand (see the pictures). The attachments include two videos of training shoots by Mk I 60-pdrs, one by the Irish Army and another by a Canadian unit.

 

I am sure I read that the Home Guard had some of these, it might be some HG shown in one of the videos?

Regards

Alan

 

I am sure the Irish Army deployed these guns at the fort at the entrance to Lough Swilly (a Treaty Port until 1939), Co. Donegal, on the Inishowen peninsula. May even have seen a film of an artillery practice at Fort Dunree, further into the Lough, as I've been there twice.

 

I checked Clarke's book on the HG. As a general rule the HG manned mostly lighter pieces (75mm, 18 pdr, 13 pdr) and perhaps a few of the emergency fixed heavy coast batteries.The 60-pounders in the coastal role were apparently manned only by Defence Regiments Royal Artillery. The first video I posted is Irish Army, the second is of a Canadian outfit.

 

The Wiltshire Home Guard History published in 1946 record that the First Battalion were issued with 2 60 Pounders in 1942 one being kept in Chippenham and one Calne. They were periodically taken to Larkhill to fire.

 

Interesting. The policy regarding 60 pounders which I outlined above dates from 1940-41. By '42, with the post Dunkirk crisis past, the WO may have been allowing the HG to handle the 60-pdr more frequently while the RA moved on to more modern weapons.

 

4.7 Inch Gun Mk I-IV

Back to coastal artillery again. As I said before, a number of coastal pieces were clearly considered standard by the British Army (15" Mk I, 9.2" Mk IX/X, 6" Mk VII and Mk XXIV, rapid-fire 6 pounder) and some were equally clearly non-standard (French 5.5" and 145mm guns, ex-American 6" Mark 10, etc.) Below 6", though, the categories are ambiguous. I think the army intended to make the 6 pounder 8 cwt the standard close defense weapon, but as of 1939 many older types of 4.7", 4", and 12 pounder guns were still around and many remained in service through the war. We have encountered the 4.7" Mk I-IV previously here in its guise as a medium field gun. This Elswick QF design of the late 1880s was used by the RN on cruisers and a couple of battleships of the 80s and 90s, and it was also exported and made in Japan and Italy. The Mark IV was the last in the series and the most numerous and some were still in coast defense service in WWII. A number of export-type Mk IV guns were mounted in Australia, where they may have been designated Mk IV*. The attached images show this weapon at Fort Lytton on the Brisbane River. Range with 45 lb. HE shell at 20 degrees elevation was 9,900 yards. That is presumably shipboard, I don't know what the coastal mount range would have been. An AP shell was of course available, but navweaps.com gives no penetration figures against steel armor.

 

4.7 Inch Gun Mark V*

The Elswick Y Pattern 4.7 inch gun followed on the earlier Mk I-IV type and like it was exported widely and copied overseas between the 1890s and WWI. Though designated QF, it used separate charges. Seven guns were acquired around 1900 for coast defense as the 4.7 Inch Gun Mark V. The Japanese produced a slight variant of the weapon and in 1915 some hundreds were acquired and introduced into service as the Mark V*. Most of these were used to arm small warships and merchant vessels during WWI, but a couple went to Trinidad for coast defense and were still in service there in 1939. Mark V*s still in stock were hauled out for the second war and used to arm troopships, DEMS, and some emergency coastal batteries. Some, for example, were emplaced at Brixham on Lyme Bay, but I cannot find any images of the weapon on a coastal mount. The photos show gun drill aboard SS Duntroon, an Australian troopship, and a party of ratings getting instruction on a Mark V* before posting to DEMS duty. Maximum range with 50 lb. HE and common shell was 11,960 yards at 20 degrees elevation on a pedestal pivot mounting, a major advance on the Mk I-IV, and rate of fire was 8-10 rpm. There was a 45 lb. AP round in WWI, but navweaps gives no penetration figures for it and it may not have been in service in WWII.

 

373 Coastal Battery West Mersea Essex. Two gun emplacements for costal Defence under 10 Group Coastal Artillery.
Guns QF (Quick Fire) 4.7 inch Mk5 No’s 1402 and 1578 Manufactured in Japan 1918
Originally Designed in UK by Armstrong Whitworth 24 guns were given to UK in WW1 under the Anglo Japanese Alliance
Issued 26th July 1940 Royal Navy Ordnance Depot Priddy’s Yard Gosport
Installed in Concrete Encasements. 0ne of which survives as Two Sugars Café.

See: West Mersey Museum Website

 

That's the neatest thing I've learned about WWII this week.

 

US 5" 51 cal. (British 5" BL Mk VI/VII, US Mk 8)

The "Five fifty-one" was a standard USN and USMC weapon for many years. First introduced before WWI on the USS Florida-class battleships, the 5/51 was a separate-charge gun which was standard secondary armament on all the "Old BB" classes which followed the Florida. It also armed the four-piper destroyers of the WWI era and many other vessels and was used by the defense battalions of the USMC in the coastal defense role, most notably at Wake Island in 1941. The 5/51 was eventually superseded as destroyer and secondary BB armament by the 5/38, but it had an excellent reputation in US service and performed well in WWII despite its age. The 5/51 was developed through a long series of marks, but navweaps.com is not clear about the differences among same. Some 5/51s were obtained by the UK during WWI and designated Mk VI and Mk VII. I don't know if those were still in British service in WWII, but some USN Mark 8 5/51s came into British service in WWII via the Coast Guard cutters transferred to the RN. Some Mk 8 guns were also employed as coast defense weapons in New Zealand. Shell weight (HE and AP) was 50 lbs. and ROF 8-9 rpm. Range of course varied according to the mount, maximum quoted being 15,850 yards (14,490 m) at 20 degrees and 20,142 yards (18,420 m) at 45 degrees. The attached photos show 5/51s in coastal mounts in the well known film Wake Island.
.

 

I think that this is the 4.7 inch QF Gun of the type used at West Mersea.
Found in the IWM collection. CONSTRUCTION OF COASTAL DEFENCE GUN SITE.
Perhaps you might be able to confirm this from other sources.

Not quite so sure now I have found this: QF 4.7-inch Mk V naval gun - Wikipedia
See what you think.

 

I don't think the weapon in the first link is a 4.7. I think what you have there is either a 4.5 Inch AA gun or a 4.5 lined down as the 3.7 Inch Mark 6. It was quite common for AA guns to be emplaced near coastal batteries or sometimes in the coastal role as a stopgap.