just wanting to know if the updated Mk2 was fielded in Korea.
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just wanting to know if the updated Mk2 was fielded in Korea.
Possible, I suppose, but probably not. 27 Bde was outfitted from stocks held in Hong Kong. 29 Bde arrived later but again likely the war reserve stocks were ample with wartime weapons (and ammo, which would have been cycled off the shelves in a few years anyway).
I seem to recall reading the first British army regiment to be equipped with the No 4 MkII “new 1950s rifles was the Ulster defense regiment in 1971 or 1972. Of course I could be wrong on this but that is why it sticks in my mind; it was so late I could not believe it. The RAF and Royal Navy had the No 4 MK II rifles from the 1950s, but apparently the regular Army did not issue these rifles for some reason, or so I recall reading. If the above was correct, the territorial regiments were not equipped with these rifle either as the Ulster defense regiment was a territorial unit.
No idea about the No 4 Mk I/3 and No 4 Mk I/2, a awful lot of them were converted in the early 1950s, one would expect them to be issued. In fact thinking about it, it seems likely that they were and if that is the case one would expect the No4 MK II rifles to have been issued as well.
Perhaps Capt Laider could comment and give us the true story.
PA Rifleman: The No.4 Mk2 probably saw service with the Pakistani forces in wars with India. I have one built in 1960 (in Pakistan) that was later marked as Indian, presumably after being captured. Skennerton talks about this in his big Lee Enfield book.
Ridolpho
I saw Mk2 rifles right from the start of my service in 1963. They were certainly issued from 1959 because they're listed in the Ordnance parts list and if they weren't issued, they wouldn't be catalogued or provisioned for
That makes sense, I always wondered if that comment about the late issue of the No 4 MKII rifles to the Ulster defense regiment as very odd.
Just out of curiousity, is it possible that the new production rifles were kept in reserve and that the reworked 1/3 and 1/2 rifles were issued instead?
I think every Korean veteran account I've read or who I have asked directly mentions that all draftees and war establishment reinforcements in UK mobilised units received rifles coated in cosmoline from store, which they had to clean and prepare in the units. I assume that these were all 1949 refurb No4 Mk1s from the war reserve.
Lots of stories related to cleaning these cosmoline'd rifles:
- cleaning the rifles with petrol and then setting the billet on fire;
- cleaning the rifles with un-named solvent and wrecking the woodwork;
- successfully cleaning the rifles with solvent, but then re-coating them with BLO (metalwork included) because they didn't understand it was for the wood only;
- cleaning the rifles, but then being rifted for getting the billet and kit coated in cosmoline;
- a platoon accumulating a huge blob of scraped-off cosmoline, and using it to grease up some unfortunate individual/ an officer's dog;
- etc...
They were common in my Cadet service at the time. We didn't differentiate between Mk.1s, Mk.1*s, Mk.1/2 and Mk.1/3s. They were all just No.4s. So I suspect that the powers that be did not differentiate between the various Mk.1s either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frederick303
Beer Hunter is right. Believe me, there was no difference whatsoever between the Mk/type of No4 rifles except for the Ordnance part number. It's like suggesting that Enfield L1A1's were issued before BSA's and those Enf or BSA made spare parts issued before Fazakerley spare parts. To the soldier on the ground, a rifle is a rifle is a rifle and it's absurd to suggest otherwise.
Except when you have gits like me who tried to get an IHC or H&R M1 rifle out of the rack in boot camp. There was no difference of course.
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ok well if the mk2 was first adopted in 48/49 and it didn't see battle in korea then the L1A1 was adopted in 54, did the mk2 see any battle at all?
I'm fuzzy on the dates, but I thought the SLR came in in 1959. Anyway, Suez, Kenya, Aden and all that lot came after Korea. What was on issue?
I got the SLR adoption date from Wikipedia so it could very well be "59". I'm just not getting that battle rifle feeling from my Mk2 like I do when I cuddle with my MK1. It suck because you can tell it was imported as a mummy and has been lightly used since so it is in great condition but It just isn't giving me that been there done that feeling. yeah, I am a bit strange.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul S.
1954 is the date that I use but I do not remember where I got it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul S.
No.4s at Suez, SLRs for Aden, Kenya both plus No.5s.
The Ulster Defense regiment, which was formed in 1972 if my memory is correct, was first equipped with the No 4 MKII rifles from ordnance stores in the UK. From what I have read, the rifles were new. The UDR was a territorial unit and had something like 12 or 13 battalions, so there were significant issues. The Ulster defense regiment continued to use these rifles until 1974, when they were replaced by the L1A1. This occurred as the IRA had obtained AR-180 rifles around this time.
I seem to recall that the Ulster Defense Regiment was formed to replace the old "special B" police reserves of the RUC. The RUC/B specials were equipped with a mixture of No1 and No 4 rifles, though looking at the pictures of the 1969 and later troubles seems to indicate the B specials had either No 4 Mk II or No 4 Mk 1/3 or No 4 MK I/2 rifles.
So from the start of the Irish troubles to around 1974, the No 4 Mk II pattern rifles saw significant use in the hands of the police and Irish territorial troops.
You have good eyesight. I find it difficult to differentiate the marks from news photos or even closer as below. Here's a little story from my past on the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frederick303
In 1967 the British Reserve forces were reorganised with the Territorial Army being renamed and re-roled to the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve. (BTW Wikipedia has this name wrong.) There were originally TAVR I (Army Reservists), TAVR II (TA Units with a BAOR Role), TAVR III (TA Units with a Home Defence and Military Aid to the Civil Power role).
There was a unit of the latter formed at our TA Centre and they were difinately armed with Lee-Enfield No.4s (and wore Battle Dress) but I have no idea what mark of No.4 even though I used to see them training with them. However no sooner were they formed (it seemed at the time) they were disbanded.
So the Hunter has finally found the Beer.:beerchug::rofl::beerchug:
I wonder how effective the Enfield was in Korea, was it becoming over taken by newer types of tactics and combat situations and newer concepts of weapons, or did the short range, high velocity, smaller caliber rifles like the M16 only really make their mark in the 1960's, or, would it have been normal for an AK 47 to be on a korean battlefield as well as long range heavier caliber bolt rifles? Or am I just imagining things from an under educated point of view from many years after the events?
It would have been rare to the point of never happening for a Kalashnikov to be used in Korea.
At the time the PLA, in common with the other belligerents, was armed with a variety of WWII weapons, including the PPSh-41.
The only semi-auto to be used in numbers would have been the Garand (using the full-power 30-06 cartridge) and, to a slightly lesser extent, the M1 Carbine.
Once the battle lines had settled down to a impasse that neither side was prepared to spend the casualties that it would take to break, it resembled the First World War - the line did not move much over the final two years. Both sides tacitly agreed to limit the war to the Korean theater - Chinese air bases remained off-limits, the Communists refrained from attacking bases in Japan, or the sea traffic between Japan and Korea. Small topographical features would change hands, if the attackers felt like paying the price for it. The Chinese dug themselves out of sight, in contrast to the UN lines which were plainly visible (the US owned the air, so camouflage would have been a waste of effort). In this WW1 situation, the basically WW1 weapons proved themselves once again (in some cases the exact same guns). The M1 Carbine attracted considerable criticism; users felt that its M2 mechanism made it less reliable, and the cartridge was felt to lack stopping power.