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Just watched "Below Hill 60", about the 1st Australian Tunneling Company, during the Battle of Messines.
Briefly shown a few times was one of these: Attachment 15237 used for fighting in the tunnels.
I've not read much at all on this particular field modification & I wonder how widespread it was ?
"STOP" drinking O.P. Bundy and going to the movies, your killing thousands of brain cells and destroying your memory.
It NOT "Below" its "Beneath Hill 60".....................
And the cut down Enfield was used by the Australian Rugby players to shoot the opposing team players in the kneecaps. (Outback Rules) :rolleyes:
I would pay good money to watch someone fire that with a MKVII round.
I think the flash and blast would be somewhat like an anti tank gun. You hear stories abot them but other than the ones that have been built to rumor spec, I'm not sure there are any documented originals...Mr Laidler???
I take it that all the members of the 1st Australian Tunneling Company were deaf.
Ed where are you at ? we need an experiment. See if you have a stubbed barrel you can discharge a MKVII round from at night. How big is the fireball from the powder burn off ? :madsmile::surrender::yikes:
JBSQuote:
Originally Posted by JBS
We don't need to experiment, the movie special effects team used the cut down Enfield for the fireball effect for the movie ending. A stunt man was put in a E.O.D blast suit and he fired a Mk.7 round into a bucket of charcoal and ashes. (the Australians were edited in later by using the blue screen method)
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I don't think anyone has found any definitive evidence that cut-down SMLEs were actually used as weapons. There are quite a few anecdotes about these relics - some even in published memoires - but since none of the writers ever claims to have actually used one themselves, one has to be cautious that they might simply be repeating trench stories - or that they have been the victim of a good old squaddie wind-up... Other accounts of tunnelling operations mention pistols and standard rifles being used, but with the primary weapon against enemy tunnellers being the camouflet.
Cut-down SMLEs were used as firing mechanisms in locally-produced mortars (eg the 2" trench mortar) and projectors. Another use that might explain the "tunneller weapon" story is that pistols and cut-down rifles were also used as firing initiators in "flash boxes" - that is to say a box containing loose cordite or powder mixed in with the bundled ends of black powder burning fuzes. The rifle/pistol would have a blank or de-bulleted round chambered, and be fired by lanyard. Flash boxes were often used as an auxiliary method of initiating an explosive charge alongside or in place of electrical systems. Hence such cut-down rifles might well have been present in tunnelling operations as initiators, and have had the "weapon" story added on later.
Thunderbox is pretty well correct so far as the paperwork is concerned. I have only ever found two references to officially cut down rifles and both these are recorded as '....... previously unserviceable for field use.......'. These were the smoke discharger thinggy that went on the outside of light tanks early in the last war and the trench mortar firing things that are referred to as 'initiators'
It's like most things. Given a hacksaw and a set of gas bottles, then anything is possible.
Having said that, I'd like to set one up in a jig on the forensic test range at Shrivenham and record some data as a matter of interest. Unless anyne has some data already. Several years ago this would have been an interesting subject but commerciality has taken over - more's the shame!
"camouflet" ???
I've mentioned it before so I'll mention it again. In the Imperial War Museum Review No.6 there is an article "Professionals and Specialists: mining on the Western Front" by Bryan Hammond. He mentions the use of cut down SMLE's by the mining companies and gives a ref: A rifle of this type is illustrated in the Visit Diary of First Army Controller of Mines. PRO WO158-137. It was principally for the use of listeners in forward listening posts. If someone could pop along to the Public Record Office at Kew Gardens and dig it out we could all see the picture!
JBS
I forgot to tell you, I have the movie with English subtitles so I can understand what the Australians are saying. :thup:
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"Crikey"
A couple of pics of the smoke discharger set up Peter mentioned...
Attached text
Singleton, nsw. 1943-01. The smokeshell discharger attached to a matilda tank of the 2nd army tank battalion. The firing mechanism is that of a .303 no1 mkIII lee enfield action with trigger removed and a cable substituted, leading to the inside of the tank, from where it is fired. The propellant charge is detonated by a blank cartridge of .303 ammunition. The barrels may be fired simultaneously
That's them. We had a few in our armoury and nobody really knew what they were so we gave them to the Tankie place at Bovington. What could put you off a bit is having to get out or at least partially out, to reload them!
Digressing a bit............. What should put off any potential tankis is the thought that you were going to be up against the Milan missile. And if that wasn't enough, the Raeathon Javelin missile. I think that between them, they've put an end to tanks. The joke doing the round at present is
Q - What is 2 feet long, 5" round, breathes fire, is khaki coloured and fu**s tanks?
A - Javelin
I keep seeing our own version of this here in NZ, it seems to be popular to commit yet more indignities to a sporterized enfield and cut a lot off the front, they get used on pig hunts and everyone seems to want them really short. It'd be interesting to know if its done for ease of hiking into the bush, or for ease of chase when the dogs begin to bail up the oinker, and you're running like mad through thick brush, or if its so the hunter can hold the pig down with one hand (!) and put one close up between the eyes, you'd do this cos the dogs go nuts and would easily run into a shot, so you'd need it point blank.
Here's a similar version but this barrel is longer than most pig guns - Lee enfield 303 for sale - TradeMe.co.nz - New Zealand
I suppose the flash would de bristle that pork pretty good - yum, instant crackling.
Kind of like a New Zealand version of a Mares Laig' :D
I can confirm these things make a Trucking HUGE blast especially at night, I my youth I got to play with a similar toy before it was scrapped. You need to wear a welding mask to enable you to see where to aim for the next shot.... great fun thou.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I stand corrected Ed, ....I now know why I have never been able to find "Beneath the planet of the Apes" at the video library :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Horton
Underground explosion. One constructs an 'ole, packs it with explosive and then blows it.Quote:
Originally Posted by jonnyc
In my day it was used as a method of cratering roads and runways as follows: Drill a hole in the road using an auger, push some PE down to the bottom of the drill hole and blow it. Now pack the resultant cavity under the surface with even more HE and blow that. Result: one big crater.
MARKED. "No listening after use!"
CruiseyQuote:
Originally Posted by Cruisey
I have "Beneath Hill 60" with English subtitles so I can understand what you Australians are saying. :thup:
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You Australians really know how to have a blast. :D
I think we have to consider the scenario under which such a piece would be used: when one side or the other 'broke through' into the tunnel of the enemy. Such a break through would naturally start as a relatively small hole in the wall of the tunnel, through which one might throw a grenade or shove a hand holding such a cut down rifle. The flash and blast would be mostly confined to the enemy tunnel and would go a long way towards blinding and stunning any enemy within, without the risk of collapse or cave-in that a grenade might cause. A few such rounds would kill or incapacitate any enemy within reach and deter others from entering the tunnel stretch in question until the wall could be broken through enough to admit the attackers.
Seems logical to me.
Or they'd just use a pistol..............! I'm sure that 6 quick shots with a pistol would be as effective as 1 totally inaccurate wild shot with a sightless rifle, fired pistol fashion. Even a non-infantryman tunneller would know that. The trouble with grenades is that they take a bit of time to go off. I have thrown a few (not in anger I might add) on the grenade range and in the reckless days of being a young soldier, on my girlfriends farm in Huntly while in NZ. But I digress. The time lag between the sharp 'crack' of the detonator and the thump seems like an age.
Nope. I'd be armed with a pistol (or an SMG) in a confined space
Generally, one side or the other knew well in advance about the proximity of enemy mine tunnelling activity - there was a whole system of listening and ambush, quite apart from the business of digging the deep demolition mines. It was rare for a surprise confrontation; usually one side detected the other and placed a camouflet - an explosive charge designed to collapse the enemy tunnel. Prepared tunnels with no audible digging works taking place were guarded with listening posts and sentries with conventional pistols, rifles and even Lewis Guns.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
Well that all sounds equally plausible...so what are we to make of these cut downs then?
My own very personal common sense view, based on my liking of 'the bleedin' obvious, I say It's like most things. Given a hacksaw and a set of gas bottles, then anything is possible.
These things come to light and maybe in the 20's, someone on a forum like this asked about the cut down shortie he found in his dads shed and someone answered that he'd read somewhere and................................. Well, the rest is history - or pure conjecture!
I knew someone who cut an AR15 down to its bare bones just so that he could carefully ship it home to Australia from Vung Tau. The upper and lower body remained intact though!
But my gut feeling is that even in the dire depths of trench and tunnel warfare, a cut down to zilch bolt action rifle would be about as much good as a fish on a bicycle. I'm sure that they understood that as well then as we do now
Mr. LaidlerQuote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
As an American I'm beginning to wonder how much drinking is going on in British and Commonwealth countries before answering this posting.
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Question: Were you drinking Guinness when you made your last posting?
(Or did your wife tell you she didn't need you any more) :D
Click on the YouTube video below...........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txlSUvAqSk4
Jeeeeeees Ed, there really IS such a thing. I'll have to be more selective with my phrases in the future. I was going to use another phrase I learned in Australia about being '...as much good a ti..s ......., er....... udders on a bull'
All have a nice pleasant, fine and safe Bank Holiday weekend won't you
So from reading the answers to my original post, I would think that such a weapon did exist in small numbers, no doubt modified in the field.
Why you just wouldn't use an issued handgun, as Peter pointed out, I don't know, maybe supply was a problem, but then, weren't handguns only issued to certain ranks ?
In any case, an interesting topic.
(That bloody fish-on-a-bike is haunting me...look at its legs :eek: I have to stay off the Bundy !)
You have a nice weekend too Cruisey.
Peter Laidler ex RAEME. 8 RAR 1967-70
Yup, always in short supply from my reading. Usually pinched off dead 'orficers' but lots of other takers closer to the scene of the action. Tunnellers probably didn't 'get out much'.:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Cruisey
I recall an apocryphal story about a bloke in the top end of Australia who used a cut-down Smellie as a pistol for close-quarter crocodile shooting. Never heard of it beyond an apocryphal story though.
Cheers,
Matt
That shortened rifle just looks like something pulled from the evidence room at one of the local PDs (having helped clean out a few). Low end criminal's weapon. They seem to do this to anything they can lay hands upon- .22 rfs, 12ga bolt actions and break open single shots- whatever isn't worth selling off.
Sorry to spoil the romance, but that's how it comes across to me.
Before the movie came along and when I was knee high to a grasshopper I am pretty sure there was one on display at the Australian War Museum in Canberra. Now I would have only been about nine or so, but I do recall a display on all the gadgets the Aussies had designed on the battlefield in WW1 and I am pretty sure I saw one there with a note saying what it was used for and why the did it and that was they wouldn't issue pistols to no officers and especially an Aussie grunt. Now how true that was I don't know. Now I could be wrong and my wife tells me that I am often wrong a lot. Now if it wasn't there it might have been in a mining museum I have visited.
What's her name...I think I married her too!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bearclaw
841,
Your not the bloke down the road she visits when I'm at work are you. I hope she bitch's in your ear as much as mine regarding "those thing's" I'm out at Closeburn (near Samford)
Myles
Had one very similar to the one in the above picture. Was told it was an IRA trenchcoat gun. Apparently the miners were not the only ones to shorten up the SMLE. Broke it up for parts as the barrel was too short to be legally owned where I live.