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IIRC, the ‘Bren Gun Saga’ book states that the first MkII’s were made at Enfield prior to full production by the Monotype Scheme. However, the Bren illustrated appears to be a plain vanilla ‘D’ for Daimler marked gun and I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing of an Enfield marked MkII Bren.
So is the BGS correct and do any Enfield MkII’s still exist?
Thanks,
Mark
Another fallible author there Peregrine. Enfield didn't make Mk2 Brens
I've no doubt that Enfield made some sort of Mk2 trial body or mockup just to see if it would be suitable, it would be a giant leap of faith to put the monotype group straight into mass production. I'm also sure they never even produced a complete gun, a toolroom mock up would be enough under the circumstances, after all, the mechanics remained the same.
As for the Enfield Mk2 production myth, its easy to see how the ED Enfield logo has been confused with the D daimler logo found on approx 25 to 30,000 early Daimler marked monotype guns.
There is no mention of manufacture from new but they DID use existing bodies to formulate the simplified ideas put forward by the Pilkington committee, including, initially a screw/bolt-on front dovetail bracket that vibrated loose. This is all detailed in the forthcoming book
One of which is the gun I got at Beltring. Apologies for continually going on about it, but I'm REALLY pleased with it. :) Other than a non-matching barrel and forced-matched locking nut, it's almost completely factory spec - when I stripped it down the only non-British parts I found were an Inglis bolt body and firing pin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brit plumber
I get the impression from keeping an eye on what turns up for sale on the UK deact market that British MkII's are rarer than double-dovetail MkI's. Is this my imagination?
But enough bragging. Many thanks for confirming my suspicions about 'Enfield MkIIs'.
Cheers,
Mark
I don't know about being rare but of the many hundred UK MoD Brens that I had a chance to see before they were destroyed, I did notice that the machining quality of some Daimler Brens went from the pretty good to the absolutely dire! The BIG difference was the main bodyside machining, between up-cut milling and down-cut milling. But it wasn't the outside that was critical of course.........
From the Monotype Corporations wartime effort booklet 'Instruments of War and Peace'
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../monoiwp-1.jpg
ATB Kevin
From the database I've counted 136 Monotype Mk2s and 160 Enfield DDs, obviously there will be many moe out there but on average it appears there are more DD guns left in existence.
Unfortunatly the figure of '26,000 guns of 30,000 left behind at Dunkirque' is used out of context alot. There were 26,000 odd Brens left behind, by the time of the evacuation, but Enfield produced a further 4,500 true Mk1s with the crown, a further 7,000 true Mk1s with the ED logo and then another 8,200 simplified bodies which retained the second dovetail. In total approx 50,000 DD Enfield Brens were produced, 26,000 were lost leaving 24,000 still in service by the end of 1940.
Obviously that means that Monotype produced 23,000 more Mk2s than Enfield produced of the Mk1 DD, and with 26,000 Mk1 DDs lost, and no other major British losses after this, the Enfield DD statistically should be the rarer gun.
So where are they all?
Converted to L4A3, South African 7.62mm or in use in some 3rd world country?
The figures of lost Bren guns after the fall of France, taken from the War Office returns for the defence of the UK in August 1940 were that there were only 2,300 available to the Army. The 30,000 figure of totals manufactured were the figure given to the Board as manufactured up to June 1940. These figures are correct BP! Folllowing that, even those Brens available to the Small Arms Schol at Hythe, used to instruct the instructors were withdrawn immediately and trials ZB guns were used in their place. We still have some that were downgraded to DP for this purpose ............ and the records!
I think, and it's only my opinion, that the the 'lack' of UK Daimler Mk2's is due to the fact that these remained in UK service until into the 60's with the Mk3's. We simply sold off the remaining obsolescent Mk1's, kept the Mk2's and as they became worn out, scrapped them.
Another fallible author point is that Lithgow didn't make Mk2's either. The simplified parts, yes but guns, no!
[QUOTE=Peter Laidler;142750]The figures of lost Bren guns after the fall of France, taken from the War Office returns for the defence of the UK in August 1940 were that there were only 2,300 available to the Army. The 30,000 figure of totals manufactured were the figure given to the Board as manufactured up to June 1940. These figures are correct BP! QUOTE]
Not disputing the figures Peter, I think its the way the figures are used to describe how many DD guns are in existence. Many of the dealers sell late 1940 intermediate guns as one of the 30,000 guns that survived when in fact there were 50,000 DDs made, and unless the serial is pre C9999 then it isnt one of those.
I actually have 93 serials from A1 to C9999, I reckon thats pretty good going.
Ah, yes, got it BP. It's ME misinterpreting YOUR figures. Yes, point taken!
Thanks for that. Interesting. In comparison, how many Inglis MkII's do you have logged?Quote:
Originally Posted by Brit plumber
542 Inglis Mk2
240 Lithgows
241 Inglis Mk1
50 Enfield Mk3
Now that the greek batch has virtually all gone the ratio of monotype to inglis mk2 guns was very poor.Still there were some very early examples seen as well as very late ones.It seemed to be harder to find correct monotype barrels with out the locating piece on the underside to put on monotype bodies for customers.They just seemed to be a pig to find in that batch.
I saw two Monotype MkII's at Beltring in July: both had early 'D' for Daimler marked receivers and correct spec butt-slides and bipods. Only one had the correct British spec barrel - which was the one I bought. The other had a Canadian or Australian Mk2 barrel with the locating lug slot.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZGB
I was also looking for a MkII at Beltring last year and ended up with a correct spec Inglis example. I have a vague recollection there was one 'D' receiver British MkII on the 'Sentimental Journey' stall, but the price was rather high.
Has anyone any theories on why rather more Inglis MkII's seem to have survived than Monotype MkII's?
Cheers,
Mark
Barrels first. Couldn't someone who simply wants a Daimler the 'looks right' simply machine the locating lug off an Inglis and be done with it?
My theory for the 'shortage' of Daimler Mk2's is that at the end of the war, it was Canada who virtually serviced the rest of the world with Brens. You canm still see on some of the old chests (even UK Mil chests occasionally) the words 'supplied by the Canadian Government to the Netherlands/Belgium/ etc etc Government under the mutual aid plan' It's these guns that seemed to get scattered around and are now surfacing. While the British made stocks remained prety well within the British military.
As I said, while we had old service .303" guns prior to the L4's, most of them (but not all by any means) were Daimler Mk2's. The DP's were generally obsolete Mk1's. That's only my opinion but while there might be fewer Daimlers, I wouldn't call them 'rare' by any stretch of the imagination
Inglis made approx 90,000 Mk2s and Daimler/Monotype 73,000 so theres a difference straight away in the total produced.Quote:
Originally Posted by peregrinvs
Peter (or anyone) in what context does 'available to the Army' mean ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
2,300 Brens ready to be issued ? Stocks held by the army in the UK / or all locations ? or another meaning ?
ATB Kevin
Just to complicate things further! (But Genuine information)
A good Friend of mine who is also a sec.5 dealer called Mike Priest. Is responsible for the procurement & Deactivating of MANY Hunderends of Brens (As well as a LOT of other Weapons) Mike used to travel on a regular basis to a company that has huge storage capacity. he used to buy between 45-50 guns at a time. They were nearly all made up from componant parts! IE: 'I want fifty Brens, so, Fifty Butts, fifty Butt plates, Fifty of this, fifty of that Etc, Etc. Enough componant parts to make fifty Brens up at a time. So if you have a Bren that has Mike's Name on the Deact Cert. It is a GOOD BET that this is one that he has compiled from spare parts. NOT All new parts either! This was done to satisfy the market demand for this type of weapon. Simply because there were none available ANYWHERE else in the UK! It was not done to decieve, simply to construct Brens for sale to any customer who wanted one. Supply & demand if you like. A HELL of a lot of work. but that's Mike all over. He will do his best to procure anything interesting or what will sell. He is finding it VERY difficult at present to source pretty much anything at all for sale! I believe he has had a batch of Yugo M53's in & done. But that is just about all. He had two brens in, I waited three days before making a decision to buy one. When I phoned him. Yep, you gussed it, they were both sold! He who hesitates! There are NO Brens live left in the UK in any quantity for sale. ALL sources have been exhausted & cut & sold. This is why (From one of my previous posts) the price of Brens & deacts in general is rising fast! Demand outstripping supply! :(
Its like the Indian Brens available in large quantaties about 4 years back, all disapeard into collections or sat on vehicles. I've been after one for ages!
ATB, Chris.
The 2,300 were the Bren guns in the UK Ordnance system available if the Germans invaded. I suppose some, but very few, were abroad. We know Bren A8 went to Australia............ There weren't that many Lewis guns left here either because a lot of them were sent to France to augment the Brens that weren't faring too well mechanically!
Thanks Peter.
I have seen the 2,300 figure for Brens remaining after Dunkirk quoted in the BGS by Dugelby and Major Hobart in Small Arms Profile 13 also cites this figure from 'International Armament' - Johnson & Lockhoven.
Any idea how the figure of 2,300 is worked out ?
The Minstry of Supply figures (I can only comment on the ones I have seen) give a very much larger figure ?
Or is there various Ministry or Army Departments giving different stock holdings for there own purposes ?
ATB Kevin
The 2,300 figure was given for the census of warlike stores available for the defence of Britain, expected in September 1940. It was compiled in August. It was presumably requested from the War Cabinet to the Director of Ordnance who sent a PDFQ memo to all concerned, asking what Ordnance stocks they had in hand.
To be brutally honest KG, I don't know how they did it then but I suppose someone in the Cabinet was told in no uncertain terms by someone slightly higher up the War Cabinet food chain
'......... we're going to be invaded quite soon old boy and weaponry is at a premium if you get my drift me old chum, especially after those tossers left most of their kit in France! Now be a good chap, just dash off and find out what kit we have got left scattered around in the various units and Ordnance depots in case the Boche come. And don't forget to count the Pikes as well. There's no immediate rush but before they invade would be helpfull.......... On second thoughts, make it PDQ or even PDFQ as I've got to present it to the PM tomorrow tea time. And if Its late, I'll get me ear tweaked. And if I get my ear tweaked because of your slackness old boy, you'll get your b------s kicked'Anyway, that's how it would be worded nowadays by the Divisional Commander to the Brigade Commander and so on down the food chain until it got to me at EME level.
Re your last q. Something of this importance isn't like fiddling your ration stocks or ammunition returns or write-off value account returns so there would be no different depts or units hiding their holdings................, deary me no!
Anyway KG, that's all I know but since the request (presumably, due to it's importance) came from the War Cabinet, it'll be somewhere for all to see. That's the figure I got from the Govt. Library Service when I enquired about something similar for an Army project*
* that was about 2 pounders and we only had 81 or so of them left here. Good job they didn't invade. Or better still that they didn't bring any tanks!
Deary me no. That would be cheating. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
An unscientific survey of the stuff Ryton Arms and World Wide Arms currently have for sale suggest only Soviet / Eastern Bloc / Chinese stuff seems to be coming onto the market in significant quantities. E.g. There seems to be no shortage of factory fresh Chinese AK-47's for sale - albeit butchered new-spec ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by tankhunter
I keep wondering what India has in reserve and whether they are likely to sell it? Am I right in thinking most of the SMLEs - or the spares they were made from - that have appeared on the UK deact market in recent years came from India?
Mark
I was watching the Edinbourgh Tatto this morning (I Sky+ it a while back) and the Jordanian Drill team were displaying with Lee Enfield No1 Mk3s. They had very short cut down 1907 bayonet fitted.
[QUOTE=peregrinvs;143150]An unscientific survey of the stuff Ryton Arms and World Wide Arms currently have for sale suggest only Soviet / Eastern Bloc / Chinese stuff seems to be coming onto the market in significant quantities. E.g. There seems to be no shortage of factory fresh Chinese AK-47's for sale - albeit butchered new-spec ones.
I keep wondering what India has in reserve and whether they are likely to sell it? Am I right in thinking most of the SMLEs - or the spares they were made from - that have appeared on the UK deact market in recent years came from India?
Ryton have a Huge reserve stock of what is being advertised in Gunmart. This is what is left after Tony Budge Died recently. I belive the only new stuff (More Thompsons ETC) that they MAY offer in future will be from Containers that were dispatched & on thier way prior to Tonys demise. The reason that AKs & WWII Soviet stuff is readily available on the market is. Their are far less collectors of that field of equipment about that British Or American stuff. to that End, a vast amount remains unsold (& POSSIBLY unwanted!) Look at the fact they have no more (& dont expect any more) M1A1 Thompsons left. All that remains are the left over 1928's that no one wants. I think his Wife just wants to get rid of what remains where possible & sell the bussiness, or what would remain of it. As posted previously, see the rise in Price of M1A1 Thompsons & Brens as demand is outstripping supply!
A heck of a lot of SMLE's & associated spares came onto the market a few years ago. But these originated form Austrialia & South African reserve stock. Even these have dried up now! :(
Peter thanks for reply and insight into the workings of account returns.
The MoS figures I have on record - The National Archives | The Catalogue | Full Details | AVIA 22/504
for the Army stock of Bren guns on June 7th 1940 is 14,023 . This seems to be a very large descrepancy especially if the 2,300 figure was compiled in August as June's deliveries alone are given at over 3,400 Brens with 476 undergoing inspection ?
Something is not right somewhere :confused:
Any suggestions as to what is going on ?
ATB Kevin
I can't comment on the minutae KG but surely, on paper, the Army probably DID have 14,000 Brens. But by the time they got back from their hols in France after 7th June or so, they'd left a lot of 'em behind. I understand also that the large Ordnance stockpiles of weapons and anti-tank guns that were at the Base Ordnance Depot in Lille(?) that were quietly moved South to Le Havre to avoid upsetting the French weren't moved quietly or secretly enough as the ship bringing them home, the Lancastria was, without putting too fine a point on it, all but ambushed
Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger. But the figure I got from the ALS in Aldershot that relate to the 8/40 census of warlike stores was the 2,300 figure. It does seem rather odd that I got this figure as did those others get the same/similar figure-ish in their articles
Just a point to note, the Lancastria was sunk off St Nazaire on the 17th June 1940.
Something has been bothering me about the figure of 26,000 Bren's being lost in France.By May 1940 the size of the BEF was 10 divisions.They would have had an approximate issue of 1,000 LMG's, this included Lewis guns, which despite all that is written, were still very much in evidence.I have spoken to many veterans, who never went near a Bren, until they returned to England after the evacuation.So if we do the maths, that is 10.000 and I have based this on figures for later in the war, I believe the establishment of a BEF division was less.So if the establishment figure is 10,000, why were 26,000 lost, even taking into account loss and damage it seems a great divide between the two figures.The other odd thingis, that IF the Germans had got such a large amount, why did they not use them in any large numbers? A few seem to have been used in the Channel Islands on the Atlantic wall, but I have never seen mention made of their use elswhere, when they used the Dutch M20 Lewis Gun as an example.I agree with what Peter has said, about a lot of equipment being captured at depot's and ports, much of this gear never reached the front line troops.So has any body got any thoughts on this?
I've never come across a photo of a Lewis in the hands of the BEF. I thought they had been withdrawn by then, which is why they were available post dunkirque. Anyhow, there must have been more than 10,000 in use as the RAF used the Bren too, but still not 16,000 of them. My other thought is that some may have been unservicable/lost/thrown away and New items were on their way to the front as replacements. By mid '40 Bren production had reached approx D5000 which is approx 35,000 guns.
I've also found a reference to there being 13 British Divisions by May 1940 and an allied army of 135 divisions. I don't know if BEF included commonwealth countries like Canada, but I'm sure they also recieved Brens from British supplies.
1st Lothians and Border Yeomanry
Hi Peter,no intention of shooting messengers LOL.
Just trying to make sense of numbers given at different dates.
Point taken about the later evacuations from France after Dunkirk.
But if the census of warlike stores that was compiled in August giving the total of Brens as 2,300 is correct and then you take off say half of Julys production of Brens (1,826) this infers that only about 474 Brens or so were brought back ?
Or looking at it another way -
From these figures gained from different dates 2,300 left (from August) has been subtracted from manufactured Bren numbers up to June 30,000 (MoS figures give 32,270 approx) to give a lost number as "over 27,000 (as cited by Dugelby )
This of course completely leaves out Brens delivered in June and July.
June's MoS deliveries - over 3,400 Brens
July's MoS deliveries - over 3,600 Brens
These two months add another 7,000+
So is this to say that 34,000+ were 'missing' as from August (not accounting for any in the middle east etc or supplied to Finland or lost in Norway )?
......I probably need to get out more often !
ATB Kevin
Edit to say that this was written a couple of days ago so not up to date.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...f_battle_(1940)
Now for someone to work it out !
ATB Kevin