The Bren Gun

I suspect the figure of 186,802 Mk1s is a little off the mark. They Made approx 5000 true Mk1s, 500 Mk1m Double Dovetails and approx 82,000 Mk1ms which means they only produced approx 87,500 mk1s. In total they produced approx 177,600 .303 Mk1 and Mk2 Brens and an unknown qnty of 7.92mm brens but no less than 40,000.

 

I suspect the figure of 186,802 Mk1s is a little off the mark. They Made approx 5000 true Mk1s, 500 Mk1m Double Dovetails and approx 82,000 Mk1ms which means they only produced approx 87,500 mk1s. In total they produced approx 177,600 .303 Mk1 and Mk2 Brens and an unknown qnty of 7.92mm brens but no less than 40,000.

BP,

Interesting....what is your source?

 

Hi 17thDYRCH, My source is my own observations. Which are as follows.

M1 to M3553 (Last known true Mk1 observed)
M4269 to M4841 (first and last known Mk1m intermediate)
M5138 to M9999 (Mk1m)
N1 to N9999 (Mk1m)
0T1 to 0T9999 (Mk1m)
1T1 to 1T9999 (Mk1m)
2T1 to 2T9999 (Mk1m)
3T1 to 3T9999 (Mk1m)
4T1 to 4T9999 (Mk1m)
5T1 to 5T9999 (Mk1m)
6T1 to 6T7387 (last known Mk1m observed)
6T7918 to 6T9999 (First Mk2s) 6T8296 is one of my own
15T7593 is the last Mk2 observed. 15T6949 is my own

I hope that makes sence.

There were also the 7.92mm Mk1 Brens which were based on the Mk2 but as they were 7.92mm guns, they were officially known as 7.92mm Mk1.

ATB, Chris.

 

Brit plumber - you have not said what your "Bren" is. Was I correct?

Regards
TonyE

 

Woops sorry, its a ZB39 or Czech Bren model 39 as its sometimes called. I've actally got 2, one is original with all markings intact, and one is a postwar commy refurb with the markings removed. Theres not too many left and not many in the UK, I'd reckon theres probably no more than 10 in the UK.

I wish it was a ZGB of any description but I think this is as close to owning one as I'll get. A friend of mine is the curator at the small arms school corps collection so I can get access to the ZGBs for research purposes if need be. He also found the first ever STEN gun in the collection, Untill then nobody had realised it still existed.

 

Good vid, did you notice the last video clip with the gun on the tripod was a ZGB33 not a true Bren?

Heres another of my Brens, a lateish Mk3



This isn't mine but I wish it was, its a Indian conversion to Mk3/1 from a 1940 Enfield DD gun.

 

With regard to the BREN Gun:

When I was in basic training, Nov '75, the REME used the 7.62mm rebored LMG. Very good weapon, what everyone wants; simple, rugged, fires under all conditions, environmental and shitty, easy to strip and clean, and as a bonus it was accurate and you could fit SLR magazines on it as well. The practice by some Rambos to put the LMG mag on their rifle was useless as the feed spring was designed to push rounds down and not up. Also with a magazine on the enemy don't know if your actually bombed up or bluffing, belts are a dead give away. And the last thing is because it has a lower rate of fire than the GPMG and especially the MG3, aka MG42, you don't have to carry as much ammo, small point but not if you have to carry it!

Fired lots of them!

Chris

 

I asked my grandad earlier, if he was in a team of two (him being a Bren gunner), him and another man that would carry spare barrels and reload, etc. He said he doesn't remember being in a team, or actually ever changing the barrels let alone carrying spares. He clearly remembers "lugging the b*stard over ploughed fields".

Were there ever exceptions?

 

Oh yes. Combat was a favourite here too. Much better than the cheesy Rat Patrol series.

 

here is a short thread on the Inglis Bren gun
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/45241-inglis-bren-gun/
Matt

 

Towards the end of the war when man power got short and firepower a premium most squads got. 2 bren guns and gave up the the number 2 spreading the ammo and spares around the rest of the squad. also heard that most of the infantry guys liked a well used barrel that gave a bigger spread than a nice new one.
Matt

 

Hi Matt - this was indeed one of the Bren's few real disadvantages; it was hard not to group hits closely on a single man-sized target, especially when used on its bipod. There was the occasionally-seen tripod, but it wasn't as easy or free-moving to use as the Vicker's single-post tripod. This meant the Bren wasn't as popular among British and Commonwealth troops in the far East as it could have been, it wasn't the best automatic weapon to be facing a banzai charge with, for example! It was hard to "spray" along a line in front of you across your field of fire when used on the bipod.

 

Like Wills I still have the Bren IA's embedded.
Also the much asked question by instructors.

Q .What is the smallest part on the Bren with the longest name?
.
A.The barrel locking nut retaining plunger

As for the Bren mag on an SLR.
Very effective with half a broken match wedged over the seer ( To make it fully automatic.) made for a very efficient but highly illegal weapon

I believe the troops in Korea armed with the Bren just could not knock the massed Chinese hordes down quickly enough before they were overran this empathized the need for the GPMG.

 

So he was right, again? thanks for the info, Matt.

-Daniel

 

So he was right, again? thanks for the info, Matt.

-Daniel

I'm sure he was 'right' he was there at the sharp end. Listen well to his memories he is a man to too be honoured. As I'm sure you realize. And please Thank him for his service; for me
Cheers
Matt
Matt

 

Ah, a thread about an interesting and important weapon.

1. The Bren doesn't seem to have been an immediate success with everybody. The gas system required careful attention and frequent cleaning (this was also true of the BAR), and some early users didn't realize this or were not properly trained. The Bren Gun Story says that a fair number of Brens were thrown away by the BEF.
2. By 1943, opinion on the Bren had reversed almost completely. A survey of weaponry in 1st and 8th Armies reported a high level of satisfaction with the Bren, though the magazines were thought to be too sensitive to dust.
3. The same survey reported that despite general satisfaction with the Bren, the infantry also wanted a light belt-fed gun.
4. As has been reported here, by '44 a lot of rifle sections had two Brens instead of the official one. The same thing happened in the US Army, where two BARs per squad was quite common late in the war. No doubt this was done to make up for the lack of a belt-fed LMG.
5. The US Army was a bit better off in that regard because the M1919A6 and M1919A4 Brownings were available at company level. The Australians backed up the Bren in the SWPA by adding a Vickers platoon (four guns, I think) to each infantry battalion, which no doubt helped against the banzai. I have heard that some British units in Burma and Italy had MMG platoons as well, but I am not sure on that.
6. A high-capacity drum mag was available for AA use with the Bren. I have always been puzzled by the fact that the drum was not fitted for ground use, as the extra ammo might have made up for the lack of a belt feed. Apparently the drum had to be used with a special AA sight, which wasn't much good against ground targets. You would think that problem could have been solved relatively easily.

 

However - it was, unlike the Lewis, VERY easy to break down and get at the subassmeblies. It had half the number of point failures due to fouling or breakage...and didn't require breaking down the ENTIRE weapon to get at minor components because of the way the two halfs of the Lewis screwed together (thus the parts of the mechanisms running from the collector into the barrel assembly having to be got at and removed first!)

2/...a lot of BEF users weren't fully trained - or ever got their hands on the Bren, due to the lack of numbers Lewis Guns were being issued instead for many uses...

3/....and I'd have to say that the BEF probably threw away quite a lot of stuff that was weighing them down...!

Well....for one thing, it was very expensive to make and over-engineered. The Lewis Gun 30 and 90- round drums were known to deform, causing stoppages...so the Bren equivalent was made much stronger.

It needed a special AA foresight, while the radial rear sight had to be screwed right out as well....to actually see around the drum. But at a pinch it could be used without the foresight change.

Like the later pistol grip version of the Vickers' K gun however, an infantry section use of the drum mag would have been inhibiting; when the Commandos used the K Gun, a gunner's no.2 could only carry two (2) loaded drums due to the size and weight! A Bren's banana mags could at least be shared around the whole squad...

The real problem was the expense though...and the weight of the thing overall when it was used. It was deleted after the MkI because basically the Bren was going through a rapid process of rationalisation for cheaper and faster production in the "emergency production period" after Dunkirk.

 

There's an interview of a veteran on youtube talking about the Thompson. He said that they would fit the drum mag first, then after it had been spent, they would throw it away and just use the box mags because there wasn't any room on their kit to carry anymore. If they did this with the Bren, after they finished with the drum mag, they'd also have to faff about readjusting the sight whilst being under fire.

 

Bren 100 Round mag on tripod:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKn3BBaC_U

The main use of a tripod was to set up 'fixed line firing'. If used in a defensive position the platoon commander or sergeant would place each rifleman and the gun team, if digging in he would 'spitlock' the position. Making out range cards for each position he may wish for the gun team to have free movement during daylight and 'fix lines' on a trip flare escape route or place where he considers it likely for an enemy to approach during darkness. Setting up the gun and sighting it recording settings for different targets - maybe a gap or a road point. Once the tripod is set and fixed, the gun can be removed from the tripod and located during daylight where the commander believes the threat is and placed back on the tripod mountings later knowing that the gun is on the fixed line - right and left of arc markers can be set up to restrict the area where friendly troops are on flanks the gun arcs are restricted to the danger zone and not the calculated beaten zone (margin of error) The platoon sergeant may take over control of the gun or a predetermined fire zone may have been ordered using the right and left traverse a few clicks left and back to right with elevation used to increase or decrease range zone. An SASC instructor at the depot used to point out that the LMG would tend to hit one person five times where the GPMG would hit five people once probably more patter than truth. Weapons are one of the topics in many messes where stories are told under a tilted helmet and swinging tilly lamp. Big D used to tell stories of 9mm rounds bouncing off padded up Chinese and more than one RUC officer told of the 'rubbish' Webleys they used for years - many suspected they were classified as 'rubbish' when discussion started to modernize their weapons.