Another 32 scope for sale on THAT site

Details are: 'TEL SIGHTING / No 32 MK.1./ OS 466A KL/ 1941 REG. NO. 5968'
Item no is 291241000704
Price. Not cheap.

Appears to be in exceptionally good & original condition and might well have once graced a No4(T) built on a No.4 trials rifle.

Can I ask how you know this, I'm not 'Having a Go' but am genuinly curious.

It is dated 1941 & the first batch of 4T's were set up then - on Trials rifles.

There is a report somewhere - I think it was at Warminster from the old sniper school prior to its move to Bisley that gave the quantity of scopes that had been produced for the Bren that could/would be available if the No4T trials (such as they were......) were successful. I think it was about 6,000+ or so telescope. On a numerical basis that would put these first 6000 or so as VERY likely contenders for the trials T's and subsequent initial batches. But as you know, there's something very non scientific/random about speculation, however well thought out.

Maybe I sent DRP the actual number...... It was from this report that I learned that KL - as in Mk1 and 2 telescopes - was nothing to do with A. Kershaw in Leeds but Kodak Ltd in Hemel Hempstead, who the report said were stepping up production. Or whatever it was they were improving..........

PL I have a copy of a committee meeting somewhere where there is reference to scopes being supplied by Kodak, with tubes supplied (?to all manufacturers? by Accles & Pollock, IIRC). It might also mention the other info too. I'll try & dig it out; I never lose anything, but I have a habit of filing things in very safe places......

I see there is another No 32 for sale at £950 (cheaper than the ebay one) at Fultons of Bisley Fultons of Bisley - STK198 No.32 SCOPE MK1 I wonder who renovated it?

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

There is a report somewhere - I think it was at Warminster from the old sniper school prior to its move to Bisley that gave the quantity of scopes that had been produced for the Bren that could/would be available if the No4T trials (such as they were......) were successful. I think it was about 6,000+ or so telescope. On a numerical basis that would put these first 6000 or so as VERY likely contenders for the trials T's and subsequent initial batches. But as you know, there's something very non scientific/random about speculation, however well thought out.

Maybe I sent DRP the actual number...... It was from this report that I learned that KL - as in Mk1 and 2 telescopes - was nothing to do with A. Kershaw in Leeds but Kodak Ltd in Hemel Hempstead, who the report said were stepping up production. Or whatever it was they were improving..........

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Could that report have been dated 1942 Peter? Or could 6000 have been only the scopes that had been contracted for? We see no dates on No32 earlier than 1941, as you have told us in the past, and the trials for the No4(T) presumably occurred in 1940 or 41, so it doesn't seem to quite fit that 6000 scopes would be on hand at that time.

Or is it that we have the dates for the conversion of the No4 trials rifles to No4(T) spec at RSAF Enfield wrong, and it actually took place in 1942, not 1941/early42?

Skennerton says the first were set up in May 1940 and that the first ones entered service in late 1941 or early 1942. My copy of Reynolds is AWOL, but I believe he says they entered service in 1941 as well. (Based on what information I do not know of course)

Available!

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Available!

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Meaning on hand in store I assume.

That would change the time lines considerably.

I wonder if the loss of 8000+ Bren guns at Dunkirk etc. had anything to do with the decision to use the No32 MkI on the No4 Rifle.

In the War Office report to the Govt in August 1940 regarding the readiness of the Army it states that 27,000 Bren guns were lost at the fall of France.

This figure has also been dissected/disputed by the paper chase fiends. But that's what the Gort Report states. He could be wrong of course