Here's a pic captioned "INDONESIA CONFRONTATION 1963-66 - Royal Navy patrol, Borneo. The seaman is carrying a Lanchester SMG." Wondering if Peter L had his hands on this one, would be about the right time. He spoke so fondly of them...
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Here's a pic captioned "INDONESIA CONFRONTATION 1963-66 - Royal Navy patrol, Borneo. The seaman is carrying a Lanchester SMG." Wondering if Peter L had his hands on this one, would be about the right time. He spoke so fondly of them...
Nice picture, although he looks slightly embarrassed and is possibly wishing it was a Sterling. :)
The gun looks in nice condition as well. I’d guess it seldom left the armoury.
That was definately one of those that'd been through our Base Workshop on contract to then Naval Ord Dept (the NODdies as we called them) at Sembawang, by the rich black finish. Blueing wouldn't last 10 minutes! The Navy only had Lanchesters s far as I recall. They all had a very hard life too. Most of the boats there were coastal stuff - as shown here - and the RN, RAN and RNZN inshore patrol boats had Lanchesters in an open but chained locker. Open to the salty environment. The NOD had plenty of spares but we'd occasionally write one off if it was too badly corroded. We always replaced the butt plates and sling loops with standard No4 stuff too. Some had the ship number painted onto the butt. C68 was one, a NZ light cruiser based there for a while. To be honest, I didn't see many 50 round magazines. I think that they all had standard Sten magazines in my time.
Quite nice, lazy guns because of their relatively slow rate of fire
I recall seeing one in the open fields outside old Nicosia City in '75 while on patrol. You could pick it out at distance in the desert sun while it was across the Turk's back...bright brass mag housing gleaming in the sun. Butt plate too. There wasn't a lick of finish left on most of those Turkish weapons. Turk has Sten mags too, I never saw 50 rd mags. Knew you'd enjoy the trip down the river on this one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I also recall that there were several variations of them such as side mounted safety catches that had lost their springiness - so we removed them - backsights and the like. I remember that when I was researching them at the RN Gunnery/Ordnance depot in Gosport, there was mention that users should be aware that there were similar fitting for different bayonets.... or words to that effect. I took this to mean the P'14 bayonet. But never saw one or anyone that had seen one. I know that we did have a cut-off No1 bayonet with a white or yellow handle that was marked 'WORKSHOP TEST FIT in the Out-inspection bay.
Yep, nice clunky old things. I wonder if they were the last of the true hand made UK military weapons..... The No5's and 8's were just production line weapons. Mind you, internally, some of the Lanchhester woodwork, especially the spare new fore-ends was dire and often needed patching up