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I've just acquired an example of the New Zealand type Bren cartridge case catcher. Example here:
Weapons OnLine - NZ Pattern Bren case catcher
Does anyone have any more info on these? Are they a WWII or postwar made item? My one has the Inglis serial 4T9181 painted on it.
Cheers,
Mark
Those spent case catcher thinggies were issued as part of the kit for the Saracen APC and Saladin where the Bren was used by the crew commander. The trouble was that the bag would fill up in a VERY short space of time and then jamb the gun up. The alternative was to just let the empties fall onto the floor plate of the gunners bay or better still, just leave an empty compo ration box on the floor in the general area of where the cases fell and hope that most of the brass fell into the box. But in short, the bags were best described as useless. Just my view of course but like the tanks, whenever you lifted the floor plates, you'd find THOUSANDS of spent shell cases
We had the same sort of bags for the 1919A4 and the .50 cal in the Canadian armoured vehicles. As Peter says they fell by the wayside because of causing stoppages and filling too rapidly. When full, they would create a stoppage that could only be remedied by first dealing with the bag.
The manufacture of the NZ bags was only during WW2. There is no evidence that they were used very much as the capacity is quite small, probably 2 mags would fill them. They would have been quite useless with the 100 rd drums. They are not common these days and the number made was probably fairly low.
How does the NZ pattern differ from either of the two UK patterns?
Peter, the NZ LP bags were much smaller than the standard bag (see the photo link on the first post). I don't know if this smaller pattern was produced in the UK or anywhere else, but like you stated earlier, a pretty much useless idea!
And yet I've always found it strange that the BREN bag is larger than the MG42 bag...Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodsy