The second dovetail was for mounting the fixed line sight.
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The second dovetail was for mounting the fixed line sight.
And the telescopic sight that never was!
Shoot me down if I've got this wrong but isn't the front dovetail identical to the rear one the dial sight fits in so anything made to fit one would fit in the other?
Has anyone put up the drawings for the telescopic sight mounts ( I vaguely remember there being 3 variations to take three different sights not just the No. 32) In case any one with a semi MK I wants to knock one up ?
Would it be practical , desirable or even sane to build a version of the telescopic sight mounting with one of those universal rail thingies so folk could slap on what ever they want?
ATB
Tom
Googled it and yup, Kev put the pics up in a thread.
Does any-one have a picture of the fixed line sight that they could post, please. I recall seeing a relatively large box of tricks, if memory serves me correctly, fitted to the front dovetail in a museum Bren and in a glass display cabinet a while ago. I guess this was the fixed line sight?
Flying10uk,
Here are a couple:
Very rare WW2 BRITISH MKI Plessey Lensatic Line Bren sight (1939) Re-enactment | eBay
https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=25613
Joe
Tom:
I don't think the scope mount drawings have been presented here... at least not lately. However, I have commissioned MkI and MkII mounts from a machinist here in the US... based on these drawings. If anyone is interested I can put them in touch. They are not inexpensive... but are sturdy and stable steel attachment points... will last longer than I will be around. AND they can be assembled with a universal rail that will accept most rings. The trick is getting a scope that clears the mag.
Interesting tidbit. The fixed line sight box is also designed to fit in the standard web binocular case for transport.
If any ones missing the box for their FLS there's the drawings for it and the strings for hanging it on the outside of the bino case. I forget the D.D. (E) number but I can find it easy enough.
Hi Gery
I'll drop you a line off forum to catch up.
ATB
Tom
Only the fixed line sight fixed to the FRONT dovetail and could be used with the drum sight in place in the rear of course. The what eventually became the No32 sight was fixed onto a dovetail bracket that fixed into the rear sight bracket.
Any other sight except the standard drum sight was a total waste of time. The machine for overhead and indirect fire was the Vickers MMG - and mortars. The machine for accurate fire that needed a telescopic sight was the sniper rifle.
Most of the earlier drawings of the supposed No32 sight bracket and adaptor are pieces of total fiction
Amended to correct cock-up. To read FRONT on top line instead of rear
Peter......makes me want to chew on this topic a bit....
Since we can "roughly" say the Brit/Czech experience and that of the Wehrmacht's "universal" MG concept was solidifying in their respective brains at more-or-less the same time......late '30's...I begin to wonder why, for example, the Brit concept of the PFLS resulted in the "best idea" centering around putting such "idealized" sighting tools on the GUN itself, while the Germans decided to standardize the gun arrangements and put all the "extra" sighting accessories on the (very good and various) Lafette ground mount(s).
The Brits had a tripod for the BREn.....albeit it wasn't conceived as the do-all to expanding the guns utility that the Lf34 became for the MG34 with the highly advanced and useful Zf34 optics (and defilading gear mechanism), but had the light gone on upstairs the "perhaps" the best place to put a PFLS sight was on the TRIPOD for the BREn gun......well, who knows how much more history could have been written about both the BREn tripod + PFLS.....
Makes one think a bit now, 80+/- years on whilst tipping a single malt......
-TomH
I see the point you're making Tom, but in the real world, a gun using a 30 round magazine is only a section weapon, regardless of whether it's on the bipod or a tripod. It took until the Brens were first used in real action in France in 1940 for the light to truly come on. The gun was not as good as it was said it was and would never be all things to all men or the answer to our prayers. Thereafter, it was 'relegated' to the section LMG role to which, in its Mk2 guise, it excelled. And any concept of AA fire, OHF, Indirect etc etc was slowly sidelined. Even in a quadruple AA mount its capacity was only 120 rounds - and you came into an exposed position to reload. And while you were reloading 4x magazines onto the guns, you hoped that the aircraft had gone somewhere else!!