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My youngest son enjoys shooting my No 4, and we talk about it incomparison to my 03 or the 98s.
He asked a good question, did the US ever look at the Enfield as a battle rifle instead of the Krag or a Mauser design?
And what might have been the long term ramifications if we had adopted say the No 1 SMLE?
The US in World War 1 had more M1917 Rifles then M1903 Rifles with more M1917 rifles in the hands of the troops in Europe (a mere 25% with the M1903 in the AEF), and yet after the war they put the M1917's into war stocks and continued with their smaller Army after the war use the M1903.
I doubt the American's at the time would have accepted a rifle that was not American "designed" or I guess the better term with a rifle like the M1903 would be "modified".
Dimitri
The US Navy used a fair number of Remington-Lee rifles in .45/70 and the Michigan National Guard purchased about 2000 in .30 USA (".30/40"). The British service Lee was evaluated by the board that adopted the Krag.
Had the US Army adopted the Lee instead of the Krag in 1892, comparison with the 7mm Mauser after the Spanish-American war would probably have come to the same (arguable) conclusion that a charger-loading rifle with a more effective cartridge was needed, just as the British concluded after the Boer War. Both nations decided to adopt modified Mausers - the US Model 1903 and the British Pattern 13.
US forces in WWI had sufficient experience with bolt-action rifles, including the SMLE, to conclude that developing a self-loading rifle was worthwhile.
Well - the Lee Enfield is half American (the action) and half British (the barrel)
"The Lee-Enfield (or what would become the Lee-Enfield) rifle actually began its tenure as Britain’s primary service rifle in 1888 when the British War Office adopted the Magazine Rifle MkI. This rifle originally designed by James Paris Lee a firearms designer who worked chiefly in the USA and Canada, incorporated a "cock-on-closing" bolt with rear locking lugs and a detachable 10 round magazine. RSAF Enfield married this action with a Metford rifled barrel chambered for the .303 British black powder cartridge and thus was the birth of the longest serving military rifle in history. Originally replacing the Martini-Henry in 1888, this rifle in various forms remained in the hands of front line troops until 1957 before being replaced by the FN FAL".
"Adopted in 1895 the new barrel, with altered sights, fitted to the Lee action became the Lee-Enfield Magazine Rifle Mark I, or Magazine Lee-Enfield (MLE). Since the MLM and MLE were 49.5 inches long overall, they are often referred to as Long Lees".
HISTORY OF THE LEE ENFIELD RIFLE
When you consider that the battle performance of the Lee-Enfield was SO underwhelming in the Boer War that the British began developing a Mauser-based replacement in 1905...I don't think the US was EVER in any danger of saddling itself with it.
BTW, has you son that "enjoys" shooting your No.4 ever shot, say, an M1892 Krag? People that have actually fired a Krag rarely have anything bad to say about them...it usually ends up being your "favorite rifle" to shoot, or very close to it....me included! Compared to a Krag, an SMLE feels like something cobbled together in a high school shop class using a BFH, cold chisel and a coarse mill-file...not a "knock" on the SMLE, it works just fine and has virtues all its own....but it's just not as elegant a solution as the Krag!
Please remember also that the SMLE shared another critical flaw with the US M1903....it was a difficult rifle to mass-produce and required skilled craftsmen to perform fitting and final assembly. The result was that when the Great War happened and production rates had to be increased massively, both the US and Great Britain's major armories produced a fair quantity of scrap that good men then had to go to war with. The P-14/M1917 Mauser-based design was engineered with machine tooling in mind, and was MUCH easier to build "quality in quantity" as a result! Post-WW I, the Brits (who between the wars had NO interest in things military during what Winston Churchill aptly named, "The Locust Years"), stuck with the obsolescent SMLE, but rather hurriedly redesigned it (October, 1939...though they'd been playing with the re-design all through the 1920's) to be more "machine-tool friendly" (the No.4). The US discarded the entire "bolt-action" paradigm and adopted the revolutionary semi-automatic M1 Garand in 1936 instead.
The Krag may have had a slick action, but I have no doubt that the troops assaulting Kettle Hill (not San Juan Hill) with Roosevelt, would have preferred a clip loading rifle instead of fumbling loose rounds out of a cartridge belt. After emptying the magazine, you essentialy had a single shot rifle when you were assaulting a position.
As for the M1917, It was a better rifle than the Springfield, but unfortunately did not have "target sights" and the military of that period was wedded to the target rifle
Oh by the way, After the Boer war, the british did NOT decide to adopt the mouser, instead they added a charger guide to the rifles so they could be loaded like a mouser, BUT with TWICE the magazine capacity.
Now I might add that one of the other changes was more emphasis on marksmanship over square bashing. In August of 1914, the germans found out the results of that.
I'd personally take a Lee-Enfield No.1 MkIII or a No.4 to war before considering a Mauser. ;)
Remember even the Germans saw the light when it came to a good large capacity magazine even on a bolt action and they developed their Trench Magazines.
And although I have not tried it much, a Lee-Enfield can be loaded by throwing a round in the action area and ramming the bolt home. Which is handy for someone with a empty magazine on a No.4 (T) or L42.
Dimitri
It was a brand new rifle and had a sighting issue - which was swiftly identified and fixed. Plenty of evidence that the Boers subsequently prized captured Long Lees above their own Mausers. The battlefield use of the Lee Enfield was in fact so successful that it prompted no significant design changes at all - less for the convergence of long rifle and carbine into a single rifle. From the early months of WW1, the P13/14 evolution was universally recognised as a mistaken blind alley, based on flawed "lessons learnt" assumptions from the Boer war.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
UK easily ramped up SMLE production to equip all of the new armies, and went on to churn out 4 million rifles. Manufacturing & acceptance inspections were tough, and there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the production struggled to meet standards. Certainly no "scrap" was issued.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
they should of adopted greek jungle carbeans...
neuter a gnat at a mile.
every time i take mine to the range, i got to fight off da wimmins.
...
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/11...99d83d.jpg?v=0
The well known and highly variable bore diameter barrels produced between 1916 and 1918 belie that assertion...the "winner" in my collection is the nearly new 1918 Enfield with the 0.316 bore! (Nominal 0.311!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderbox
"...the Lee-Enfield was SO underwhelming in the Boer War..." The Lee-Enfield wasn't used in the Boer War. They were Lee-Metfords(aka Long-Lee). Not the same thing. The SMLE was adopted in 1902. After the war was over.
"...1918 Enfield with the 0.316 bore..." The barrel is shot out. But just barely. Barrels are ok if they measure between .311" and .315". You won't find commercial ammo that'll shoot worth beans through a .316" barrel. Most factory uses .311" or .312" bullets. Steve at .303british.com is, seasonally, making 200 grain .314" jacketed bullets you could try.
Oh and no industrialized country wanted or wants to use a rifle made elsewhere.
Actually, it was! Though you are quite right on one thing.....they AREN'T the same thing! A Lee-Metford isn't a "Long-Lee", and they were Lee-Enfields (MLE)!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunray
I'm a competition shooter chum and the barrel was not only air-gauged, but bore-scoped! It isn't "shot-out"....it was made wrong!Quote:
The barrel is shot out.
Just a comment. The Lee Enfield was made to put round holes in square heads and it did that very well. So Yes, Mr Kepler, it is NOT a high precision competition target rifle! As the first paragraph in the skill at arms hand book stated,
"Your weapons are given you to kill the enemy"
There is no mention about shooting tight groups on paper targets.
I have no expectation that any comment will reduce the eternal SMLE vs. 98 Mauser vs. M1903 vs. M1917/P-14 arguments, but it is well to remember that in an era of rapid arms development, the original Lee-Metford was a whole generation earlier in thinking than the other rifles. That means, in other words, that it was a generation behind the others in manufacturing methods and overall usability.
The British were, at the time, very wealthy and quite quickly rearmed with their new rifle, but that also meant that they could never again afford a rapid rearmament of their whole empire, even when they admitted (with the P-13) that the day of the SMLE was past. Fortunately, the SMLE is a good battle rifle, in spite of its shortcomings, and served well. the No.4, of course, is simply an improved SMLE; the action is still the basic Lee.
Just for those who might not know, the British practice at the time was to name the service rifle after the designer(s) of the action, followed by the designer(s) of the barrel rifling. So a Lee-Metford is a Lee action with Metford rifling, a Martini-Henry is a Martini action with Henry rifling, and a Lee-Enfield is a Lee action with rifling designed at RSAF Enfield Lock.
Jim
But thats just not true: the Lee Enfield proved so superior as a battle rifle that it was the Mauser/P13 project that was abandoned altogether - and some 250,000 manufactured and paid-for P14 rifles were never even issued. Those brand-new P14s were sufficient to re-equip the 1920s peacetime regular army and, given the wartime M17 production, there was an economic source of spares and fresh rifles. Instead the P14s remained in store and No1s were refurbished and retained. When 1939 came along, it was another Lee Enfield - the No4 - that had been developed to pre-production state, and not a Mauser.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim K
So nice that all those ROF folks got jobs after the war working for John Lucas and British Leyland....they both operated under the engineering principal of "close enough is good enough!" too....when they took a Union-approved work-break!Quote:
Originally Posted by John Sukey
FWIW John...the Enfield's days of being much of anyone's primary killing tool ended over a half-century ago. What's left is "...shooting tight groups on paper targets.", or just hanging them all on a wall to look at, so that's the current evaluating criteria. That little factoid is the one you always seem to lose track of!
And the US was already building and issuing a semi-automatic battle-rifle making the No. 4 obsolete rather than just obsolescent before it was even built...keeping it into the mid-1950's is even less justifiable. So...your point being?Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderbox
Well John, The 03 Springfield, the 98 mouser, The Arisaka, and the Carcano are also nobody's primary killing tool either. That doesn't mean they were not good at doing that.
However both the mouser and the Enfield are still taking game on several continents and countries which is one factoid YOU forgot.
I shoot rifles and handguns for the fun of doing so. You shoot rifles to make tiny groups on paper. These are two different things, and I cannot understand why you have to continualy denigrate anyone else's sport.
For that matter While not engaged in major wars, there are still minor conflicts where the enfield and the mouser are doing what they were designed to do.
And don't you keep reminding us John! :banghead:Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
I don't know, I own a M14/M1A rifle, and I own a No.4, and I'd take the No.4 to war before I took my M1A or a M1 Garand. :madsmile:Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
Dimitri
What if the US had adoped the Enfield?
As an American who enjoys all of his Enfield rifles the “What If” of this question comes 232 year after British tea was dumped in Boston Harbor and our disagreement with King George started.
While our German Mauser type 03 Springfield rifles might be considered technically superior to the British Enfield rifle, Mr. Kepler should also conceder the fact that if the French had not assisted us during our American Revolutionary War the Enfield rifle would have been handed to us for free anyway.
Also when considering all the facts and remembering that if my British/American ancestors had been slower runners I would have been an Australian.
When you conceder the fact the last name of Kepler is of German origin, and Kepler means “Hat Maker”in German, I wonder why a German hat maker thinks he know so much about a British and Commonwealth rifle.
Mr. Kepler, please excuse my humor but on my fathers side my Grandmother’s Maiden name was Vogel (German) which we wisely changed to Pennsylvania Dutch because we learned to hide our ancestral origins because of anti German sentiment during WWI.
WHY are you starting the war all over again after the Germans lost two World Wars to the Enfield rifle, you must be one hard headed German. :bash:
Mr. Strangely Brown, is this posting better or does it still need more improvement.
(yes your comments do matter) ;)
I'm almost impressed Ed. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Horton
Mr Kepler is a long time critic of the Lee Enfield rifle; if their so awful it does make me wonder why he posts anything about them at all!
The accuracy (pun intended) of your comment is doubtful at the least given the number of Russian conscripts who fell victim Afghans armed with antiquated, shot-out SMLEs much more recently than 50 years ago. Need I also remind that our troops in Afghanistan - Australian, American, British and Canadian still face a enemy who is almost as likely to carry an Enfield as a Kalishnikov? Mumbay comes to mind also with its police force armed with Enfield rifles (army responders with I1a1s) responding to the recent terrorist attack.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
Agreed, the Enfield isn't any nation's first line service rifle, but it does serve on, and on, and on, and on...
You made an incorrect statement; I was just offering the historical perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
The UK tested the Garand in the 1930s, but it was rejected because at that the rifle was not in a suitable state for manufacture & adoption by a country facing imminent war. Lets not forget US had another three or four years to develop & modify the rifle before it went into mass production, and still had to use bolt actions extensively. UK was not backward in considering semi-auto small arms - practically every single inter-war invention was tested. Small arms have a very insignificant strategic effect in war, so its not at all surprising that a proven system with no particular disadvantage from existing semi-autos should be ordered into mass production.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
One thing I have not seen mentioned yet in this thread -- The British Long Lee rifle finished essentially "2nd" to the Krag in the 1892 US magazine rifle trials. (Recall that the trials were really a competition for the magazine and receiver design.) The Lee was well liked by the board. However, according to the recent book The American Rifle, Mr. Lee had gotten cross-ways with someone at Ordnance (Mordicai I believe but I may be mis-remembering what I read) during the 1880s. The Chief of Ordnance decreed that there was no way in Hell the US Army would do business with Lee. Therefore, there was no way the Lee action would win. The Krag was more or less "developed" during the competition (a number of Krag variants were entered). The resulting Krag rifle is my favorite to take to the range, but the Enfield (as well as the Mauser) proved to be the better actions for a battle rifle.
That said, I don't think the Krag was as backward a design as some critics have stated. It had the unique feature that the magazine could be topped off with the bolt closed and a clip loading feature was adaptable (the Parkhurst device). The action may not have been as amenable to high pressure cartridges as the Mauser (neither was the Enfield), but the cartridge could have been evolved along the same lines that the .303 British was. If you put a 150-170 gr bullet in a .30-40 and load it with powder available by the early 20th century, one could have acheived ballistics very competitive with the bolt rifles of the day. I think what really killed the Krag was the cost of manufacture of the receiver.
Because my Mother's family are McCroskey's.....John McCroskey, my direct ancestor was one of the "Over-Mountain Men" that taught the British a rather pointed lesson in the value of individual marksmanship and accurate firearms on their "walk" up Kings Mountain in 1780, with a "follow-up briefing" 4 months later at Cowpens! Demonstrating the short-comings of British firearms has been sort-of a "family tradition" for over 300 years!Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Horton
FWIW....my Dad's family got the hell out of "The Old Country" in 1685, settling in Burkes County PA....Mom's people came to Virginia via Ireland in 1690. My family (both sides!) have fought for this country in every conflict from the Revolution to Iraq and Afghanistan....a Hun last-name means NOTHING to me, Got sie dank! I'm an American...no "hyphens", no apologies!
As for Enfields. I've collected them as historical pieces for over 45 years. I enjoy them as a collectible and historical artifact...but as a trained rifleman, find that as a rifleman's tool, it is an insult. The L-E may be the very first modern "bullet-hose" as opposed to a rifleman's tool....some lessons, like Kings Mountain, even when learned, are not taken to heart!
Mr. Kepler
My posting was meant as humor, the last time the British were mean to us was in 1812 when the burned Washington DC and I have forgiven them for it.
Please remember some of us really enjoy our “British” Enfield rifles.
I will assume it was the Irish in you that made you post the photo of the ruptured .303 case from the Enfield that flexed three inches. :yikes: (Irish fiction and fibbing) :rolleyes:
There are several hallowed words in the English language. A few that I remember from as long ago as I could speak were Spitfire (no, not the Triumph.....), Bren gun and the most hallowed of all.... Lee Enfield.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who once said about the American Mauser collectors in these forums who were always putting down the British Enfield rifle.
“Never in the field of forum conflict was so much owed by so few to so many” ;)
History lesson: In 1895, Lord Salisbury, the British PM was within hours of asking the Queen for a Declaration of War against the United States....seems he felt "slighted" by President Cleveland and the US Congress endorsing the acceptance of a disputed border between Venezuela and British Guiana that "annoyed" him (the dispute wasn't completely settled until 1899, and relations with Britain were strained the entire time). Cooler heads may have kept Lord Salisbury from going to war with the US....but it was a VERY close-run affair. We may not have been shooting at each other since 1814....but it wasn't all sweetness and light either. It is this incident that prompted Teddy Roosevelt to insist on the US rebuilding the Navy so we could "carry a big stick" the next time the Brits decided we were being "cheeky"!Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Horton
Simply because I can't agree that the Enfield is God's gift to the shooting world doesn't mean I fail to enjoy them....I simply choose to collect them and shoot something else (it just is not a rifleman's tool)!
FWIW, I have NEVER posted a picture on this or any other forum, and my people were Scots, not Irish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
And John Sukey had the nerve to tell ME I carried a grudge :rolleyes:
The only people I’m still even a little angry at are those Australians around the Perth area who kicked the crap out of Quigley and then cheated us out of the Americas Cup too. :bitch:
One of the benefits of a discussion forum is that we get to listen to, and state our points of view respectfully on the topic. :beerchug:
It's perfectly OK to not agree with each other, as after all, we come from differing backgrounds with differing experiences, giving us different biases.
The secret is to not take offense and retaliate to a perceived adversary. You need to recognize when you've reached the point where you have put your view point forward in as complete a manner as you can. Once that point has been reached, you have done your best and it's time to end your input to the thread and move on to a new thread where the topic of discussion can give you a sense of satisfaction.
Can you show me where 'Burkes County PA is? I can find 'BUCKS' and 'BERKS' Counties on the Pennsylvania map, but alas, not 'BURKES' County.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
I don't mean to sound nasty or sarcastic, but since you speak proudly of your ancestry I find this a curious point. I can truly understand how confusing details may be. Having been adopted, I've lived with having had two sets of family histories (and names as well), but at least I know where the family I thought was mine and the family that was mine were from.
Sure you do....why else would you post this! Don't sweat it....nasty sarcasm doesn't bother me in the least!Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul S.
Without putting too fine a point on it...all this proves is that I'm a better historian/researcher than you are. "Bucks County" in PA stared out in 1682 as "Burkes" (or sometimes, Burks) County (the etymology aside, it was almost certainly pronounced "bucks" from the git-go...literacy was a hit or miss proposition in the early Colonies)....probably as either a "typo" or an "Olde English" affectation, but that is how it's spelled in the oldest records, particularly the 1690 PA Colony census, as well as in the Family Bible. "Bucks County" in that spelling starts appearing around 1700, probably to end the confusion between it and rapidly growing Berks County to the northwest.
D C just got out generaled:D and Quigley well does he like Lee Enfields:wave:Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Horton
The Proles carried Martini's....Quigley had a "Big-Bore Sharps", so the answer is no!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindi2
Sorry BUT I live in Pennsyltucky and your history research leaves much to be desired to put it mildly, and you are WRONGQuote:
Originally Posted by John Kepler
Bucks County
Founded in 1682 by William Penn, Bucks County has had a long and distinguished history. Penn named the county after Buckinghamshire, the Penn family home in England.
Buckinghamshire, England Lee Enfield country
Right out of Wikipedia! Check an original text copy of the 1690 census....any decent library in "Pennsyltucky" should have one!Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward Horton
I was hoping my earlier post would have brought any further discussion back on topic, but it was not to be.
I'll be more direct in future :)
The last dozen or so posts have been off the original poster's topic of "What if the US had adopted the Enfield?"
I see no hope of it returning to that topic.
Thread is closed.