Piling swivel for a 1915 SMLE No1 Mk3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

Piling Arms seems to have gone out of fashion at some point.
Personal weapons and personal responsibility prevailed, apparently.
Tasked for some non-shooty job? Take your rifle with you. Place it close to where you are working or sling the bloody thing.
The concept of the soldier as just a cypher with a pike (and what is a rifle with a bayonet, but a potentially noisy pike?), died very hard, sadly, unlike the flower of the youth of Britain (and its Empire) and Europe.

What changed was the nature of warfare, nothing to do with personal weapons and personal responsibility. When piling arms was popular the expectation was that they were going to fight the grand style of battles of the 1700s-1800s. You encamped in a area, at a certain time you met on the battlefield, fought the good fight, and a victor would emerge. WWI killed that notion.

When your in a camp it makes a lot of sense to have arms piled. It keeps them out of the mud, snow, etc. In fact there are times where I have wished we had piling swivels on our modern rifles today (mainly in winter warfare conditions as you don't bring your rifle inside the tent as it will thaw, then freeze up once you leave your tent, so the rifles are left outside the tent). WWI trench warfare you didn't really have the opportunity to pile arms, you were too busy sleeping in whatever somewhat dry spot you could find, rifle ready to go at a moments notice.