Ran across a couple of MKIII, one of them had this brass disk on the right side of the stock, can someone advise me what this signifies.
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Ran across a couple of MKIII, one of them had this brass disk on the right side of the stock, can someone advise me what this signifies.
They were used for marking the brass with stamps to signify what unit the rifle was issued to.
I may be wrong here, but I understand the practice continued till about 1916. Thereafter the stock discs were blank, because (or so I have heard) this information gave the enemy potentially useful intelligence. Most discs on SMLEs are thus blank. In the Boer War (and earlier) similar info is to be found on brass buttplate tang or (in the case of .303s Martinis, Lee Enfield carbines, etc) on brass stock discs.
I checked out the rifle again today, and the disk is blank. The manufacturing date was 1916, it is in remarkably good condition. The price on it was $400. I bought a nice one today in a small town nearby, paid $180, it was made in 1943.
Don't get wrapped up in that "giving intel to the enemy" thing. The enemy knows exactly who they oppose in the line of battle. The brass shortage had the discs discontinued and the recess was filled with a plug. That's why the discs are scarce today.
They may be scare, but when I was checking out e-bay under Enfield there was a brand new one with screw on the site. Just in case someone is looking for one out there.
BAR, are you certain that, in WW1, "The enemy knows exactly who they oppose in the line of battle.". My grandfather told me he went out on nocturnal trench raids to snatch soldiers from the German lines specificaly to find out who they were facing. If they could not bring back a prisoner they had to bring back insignia. If all this was known, how was it known? And why was he doing all that raiding?
Prisoners were usually snatched in order to interrogate them about enemy intentions, or even just to assess their morale and physical condition. Line units on both sides nearly always knew exactly who they were facing, and that information was part of the sitrep given to relieving units coming up from rest. Your Grandfather might be describing one of the occasions when they did need to identify units - when one side or the other was reinforcing or switching units just ahead of a major operation. Later in the war, the allies resorted to elaborate deceptions to conceal "signature" troop movements - such as the concentration of the Canadian and Australian divisions before the battle of Amiens in 1918.Quote:
Originally Posted by RobD
Seth, why did stock discs stop showing unit info after about 1916? If there was a shortage of brass ( which sounds bizarre) surely they would not have put in blank discs? Seems to me it was done to make the rifle unit nonspecific.
Rob
During wartime, brass always gets restricted for use. This current war is a good example. Thing are not available to their normal quantities. During the first and second major conflagrations both, production cuts took the form of reducing non essential metals in weapon manufacture for both speed and cost reduction.
Its probably more to do with the huge "turnover" of rifles and men in units due to the way the casualty system worked. Rifles and kit were dumped by wounded men, or stripped from the dead. The equipment then got taken back to Divisional or Corps dumps to be cleaned and repaired for re-issue. Rifles probably went even further back - to the Army-level depots where new trainees and recovered wounded were fed back into the replacements system. Contemporary accounts indicate that new recruits often/usually picked up their rifles & fighting equipment at Etaples, after they'd landed in France. The Corps and Divisions themselves swapped their sub-units, and the Regiments themselves were subject to frequent re-organisation in numbers of men and equipment holdings.
Thus brass unit butt disks would be fine for the permanent weapon holdings of a Regiment in peacetime, but they would quickly become irrelevant and completely inter-mixed in a wartime unit. Many British battalions got through over a hundred and fifty officers and several thousand other ranks during the course of the war - ie their original 30 + 800 or so were killed or wounded three to five times over. The chances are that most Regiments eventually lost all of their original rifles by mid-WW1.
I expect that the "1916" decision arose because of the tens of thousands of rifles that ended up back in the system following the Somme offensive.
One of the interesting ways in tracing this is by looking at the surviving contemporary butt disks themselves - many are marked to Artillery, RASC, and other units that were less likely to suffer mass casualties than infantry units.
I'm fairly sure that many Regiments reverted to marked butt disks during the inter-war period, so it probably wasn't a complete "ban" on their use.
Butt discs were available until very much later, as phosphated steel. They are mentioned in the 1942 Equipment Regulations. Theywere also reversible but Armourers were instructed to counterbore the reverse of the screw hole to accept the machine head wood screw
Brass Disks were still used up until the 1980's. The NZ Airforce fitted Brass ID disks to their SLR rifles! Just a hangover from the No.4 Rifle days.
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Very pretty! The NZ forces also disapproved the carry handle saying "who would carry the rifle like a purse?" And they were correct to a point.
So far as I'm aware, the removal of the carrying handle of the L1A1's only occurred on active service in Malaya and SVNam. We had them fitted everywhere else. Can any current Kiwi's elaborate further?
Exerts from Modification Instruction NZ 162/Mod 3 Issue, dated 2 Oct 80
4. Modification to be applied to. All Rifles 7.62mm L1A1
11. Detail. Remove handle carying dispose of a per para 9 above and replace with a neoprene washer detailed in para 8 above.
The carry handles were removed in the South African Army as well
In Canada, we had them from beginning to end. No exceptions that I am aware of. And they were never a problem. But we never had the butt discs.
We had them right through too but some of our Light Infantry and Gurkhas carried the rifle with the carrying handle while marching.
To be honest, the C-handle wasn't that well used. But constant rotating of the handle caused the sharp edge of the steel fixing bit to cut away at the body slot causing the handle to become loose and flop about. No use fitting another handle assembly because it was the slot that was worn so you had to bend the hard round spring steel fixing to suit............. which wore the body away more. We had a no-go gauge that we'd use for the slot. Too wide and the rifle got the chop
In Kiwi Airforce 74-94 , had carry handle on the SLR all time ( until replaced with AUG )
I know I am reviving an old thread here, but I have a question on topic. Can I ask you to elaborate some on the plug filling of the stock disk recess? I ask because I have recently acquired a sporterized 1942 Lithgow No1 MkIII, that I will be restoring. The buttstock has a plug in the stock disk recess. Before I go and look for a replacement disk, I would like to be sure that I would not be making a serious mistake by removing the existing plug.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
Later discs were phosphated steel. I've a funny feeling that those 'new' discs on that acuction site will be 'new' as in 'new' and not new as in 'new in 1916'
I do not think 1942 Lithgows had butt discs from new. A photo of the butt disc side would help.
The rifle is in transit to me, as soon as it is in my possession, I will happily post photos.
Fritz, I also would like to know about the plug in the stock disc recess as you describe. I recently picked up a 1917 No.1 MKIII* BSA that has a wooden plug filling the stock disc recess. Is this something the arsenal would have done or something a civilian did later?
It was done by both armourers and in production. In 1916 ithe stock disk was done away with, so stocks on hand were plugged with the wooden disks and many rifles with the disk in place were "upgraded" to the new standard when overhauled. The wooden plugs are legitimate and officially placed.Quote:
Originally Posted by dthiede
You'd occasionally come across a new 'old' No4 butt that came through Ordnance that was bored for a marking disc. You wouldn't just chuck it but wood patch it and send it out.
Later, we'd find L39 butts where the knuckle had been bored to fit the little brass Parker Hale foresight blade cup. They got the same treatment too. A wood plug made up, glued and punched into the hole. I've got one sat here in front of me!
jona, Thanks for clearing that up for me.
It was my understanding that it was standard procedure when refurbishing or rebuilding an SMLE either to fit a new Disc, Butt, Marking or to remove the old one, face it off and replace it showing a blank face.
I do know that some continued in service with regimental markings until after the March Into Cologne. My old range buddy Jack Snow turned in his rifle after Cologne along with a "spare" which he had accumulated in some mysterious fashion, gave the Armourer in charge a bottle of rum, picked out a rifle which stll had a NFLD disc in the stock, the Armourer removed the butt and Jack brought the rifle home. It still had blood on it but at least it wasn't Jack's blood: he was carried as KIA for over a year after Monchy-le-Prueux, then as POW after he had been found in what is now Kaliningad Oblast but then was part of Germany. He was removed to England after the Armistice, did 2 weeks in a hospital there then returned to his unit (Royal Newfoundland Regiment) just before they led the March into Cologne. He got home in 1919, where his mother gave him the telegram from the War Office lamenting his death 2 years previously. Jack kept that NFLD rifle until the day he died and was an absolute crack shot into his 80s: shot MY butt off once and did it with MY rifle!
But the discs were scrubbed or replaced on rebuild, which is part of why so few marked ones survive.
Or, at least, that is what I understood.
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I've been reading this thread and the other day I picked up a No1 MK3 dated 1918 and it has a brass disc still installed. The gun was stored in an attic and I was told by the family that their father had brought it back from WW1 and as far as they new had been upstairs ever since. Being dated 1918 makes me wonder about being brought back and also the condition dosen't show any combat wear. The wood all appears original but my question, is the disc correct for this period gun? Any idea what the letter and numbers stand for?
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Foxbrook
Someone will translate the marks for you shortly, congrats on the nice catch. It shows that they are still out there and doing well. Maybe some day I'll be so lucky as to have that happen. Now, how about a full set of pics???
Here are a few more photo of the old girl. She cleaned up real good. Ready to put on the market.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
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Foxbrook
RIFLE markings are pretty much self-explanatory: it is a Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield rfle Mark III*, built by the Birmingham Small Arms Company in 1918 and it is the property of His Majesty George V, the King-Emperor, who likely has given up looking for it. He had a few spares, anyway.
Thi rifle looks in awfuly nice condition, friend. It is very unusal to find one this well preserved. I have a 1918 National Rifle Facory job, all matching, which continued in Service for some time; the woodwork is BLACK from old oil soaking in for years and years. Yours is MUCH prettier.
Without doubt someone will be on here shortly to decipher the formation markings on the butt disc for you; we have a few guys here who are real whizzes at this sort of thing. I`m not one of them!
A rifle which has been preserved in a state such as this one should be examined very carefully and photographed every step of the way. Right now, the Great War is very nearly a century in the past. That is a LOT of time for FTRs and that sort of thing and the very greatest part of the rifles in collections have gone through FTR at least once SINCE the Great War.... and many more have been Bubba`d and the lucky ones restored. But yours should be original, exactly as built, and that is worth studying.
BTW, BSA built about 30% of the total British-made rifle production of the Great War. The rest were built by RSAF Enfield Lock (about 60%) and the remaining 10% were by London Small Arms (5%), Standard Small Arms (2%) and National Rifle Factories 1 and 2 (3%). The Australians built them also, of course, but you know these Colonials: just not up to standards (mine shoots beautifully!) and India also had a factory at Ishapore, but these were not British production.
You have a Very Nice Toy, friend.
Congratulations on the fine find.
.
The colonials rifles were that good we were not allowed to use them at Bisley. Some thing about the H barrel i believe.:D
Yes, very much. An H barrel is something I have lusted after since first I learned of their existence, but no such luck so far.
At least your "Colonial" rifles didn't go the way of our Rosses!
As for myself, I have a 1918 Lithgow which needed a bit of TLC. Off the sandbags, right now, it will do half an inch with the right ammo, given that you can hold it. I am NOT complaining about "Colonial" rifles, believe me!
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And quite right too. It's supposed to be service configuration. Not tricked up 'National Match' or 'sniper grade' rifles made up for the purpose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindi2
They were service rifles