Article on the SMLE

SMLE

Say 15-20 yrs ago, .303 ammo and SMLE were cheap. I should have bought one. I can remember them in Shotgun News and in the racks locally.

The Brits carried the SMLE, and its rimmed, 1890's cartridge, from tribal wars of empire, thru both World Wars and Korea. Be kind of like us keeping the Krag into 1950.....hard to fathom.
 
The Brits could send a lot of lead downrange in a mad minute drill with the .303. I know in some instances the Germans thought they were armed with auto rifles..lol. People who have never been around firearms may be ignorant about the .303 SMLE.
 
When I was called up (conscription) in April of 1954, till 1956. My first rifle was a Number 4, made in Long Branch Factory near Toronto, Missasouga.

Mine had never been issued, covered in Cosmoline? With the help of the armourer, we cleaned all the gook off it. My first 5 rounds, shot the middle out of the target, at 50 yards. I appeared to fire too fast, the Corporal kicked my feet, told me to slow down. He showed my target to the rest of the squad.

This rifle had a stained stock in a deep walnut colure, nice.
 
In the 1950s and 1960s literally millions of these rifles were imported into the United States and sold via the surplus market EXTREMELY cheaply.

Another blast came in post 1986.

I'm going to bet that his more wrong in his assertion than correct.
 
The Brits could send a lot of lead downrange in a mad minute drill with the .303. I know in some instances the Germans thought they were armed with auto rifles..lol. People who have never been around firearms may be ignorant about the .303 SMLE.
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I suspect that's another Uban Legend.

While a pre WWII Brit unit could shoot a lot, as soon as the war started that got diluted.

And you never hear or a US Unit having the same rep despite having been all M1 equipped during the war (though the tong noise lives on, as if anyone could hear anything like that with their deaf ears)

I saw a claim that an SMLE could shoot as fast as an M1, weeeeee.
 
"I suspect that's another Uban Legend."

It's not. At the Battle of Mons in August 1914 British units faced the German First Army in what was supposed to be a holding action.

Although heavily outnumbering the British, the German units were stopped dead by what they thought was massed machine gun fire.

In truth, I believe the British fielded only 2 machine guns (both in defensive positions at crossings over the canal) at the Battle of Mons; everything else was accurate rapid rifle fire.

The volume of fire was so heavy (not to mention accurate) that German Gen. von Kluck reported to his superiors that his troops were facing at least 2 battalions of British machine guns (in the German army at the time that would have been at least 24 machine guns).

In truth, at the time, the British only fielded 2 machine guns per battalion, a far cry from German TOE at the time (IIRC 12 machine guns per battion).


"And you never hear or a US Unit having the same rep despite having been all M1 equipped during the war (though the tong noise lives on, as if anyone could hear anything like that with their deaf ears)"

That's because the very nature of ground warfare had changed dramatically by the time the the M1 entered World War II.

Massed unit formations of the kind that were used in the early stages of World War I (and which the Germans used in their initial assaults against the British at Mons) were largely a thing of the past by the time the M1 entered service.


Edit in -- Another fundamental change had occurred to just about every military by the time the M1 entered service -- the rifleman was no longer considered to be the primary source of unit fire.

Machine guns were now light enough and mobile enough that they were deeply embedded at the company level.

In 1942, a US infantry battalion comprised about 900 men and had approximately 26 heavy (.50 and water cooled .30) and light (air cooled .30) machine guns, PLUS a significantly greater number of Browning Automatic Rifles (I think roughly 50).

http://militaryhistoryvisualized.com/us-army-infantry-battalion-structure-attack-tactics-1944/

and

http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/images/ww2/infantry_rifle_org.gif
 
Most of the other major armies-the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians/Soviets-were pretty conservative when it came to rifles, the Mauser 98, the Arisaka Type 38, the Mosin Nagant M1891 all had long-40 + year-service lives. The Krag was a one war rifle because the stripper clip of the Mauser M1893 proved to be a tremendous tactical advantage and one couldn't really be developed for the Krag. The Brits had developed their P13 rifle to correct the perceived shortcoming of the Lee Enfield, but WWI put an end to that. About the only thing the Brits-and the Russians/Soviets-got wrong was sticking with a rimmed cartridge.
 
the garand sounded the death knell for bolt actions in war. and was a force multiple factor for the US soldiers in ww-2. and other forces that fought in ww-2 were quick to notice it and the bolt action rifle was put on the back burned for good.
 
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