Looking for a front volley sight piece to make a ShtLE I*** complete

Well for the most part they sat out the war, in their so called "emergency", but had the Germans or English invaded they would have put up some kind of fight. In the case of England invading it would have not been long, as they never had much in the way of ammunition, being dependent on UK supplies.

The orientation was, at least outwardly against the Germans, but the Germans never had the means to threaten either the UK or Ireland with a serious invasion.

I think at peak strength the Irish had something like 2 divisions worth of men (mobile) and large numbers of stationary Home guard battalions.

They were short on rifles, having only around 42,000 Enfield's of all type of which around 28,700 were considered serviceable in September of 1939. Hence the SMLE MK I*** rifles had to be issued when the were capable of being used.

Few pictures exist of post 1939 issue of the SMLE MK I*** rifles, but there are some shown with the rifle:

from the book Step together" 1999

Front cover shows an Infantry unit with quite a number of SMLE MKI*** along with Lewis guns (Unit not identified)

On page 63 one out of 3 rifles shown in sailors hands are SMLE MK I***

On page 86 there is a shot of the 20th Infantry battalion and at least 2 of the 9 rifles viable are SMLE MK I*** rifles from 1942.

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

Well for the most part they sat out the war, in their so called "emergency", but had the Germans or English invaded they would have put up some kind of fight. In the case of England invading it would have not been long, as they never had much in the way of ammunition, being dependent on UK supplies.

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Fredrick, you've left me somewhat speechless!

Is there seriously a view in the US that Britain would have even contemplated invading Eire??

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Originally Posted by Strangely Brown

Fredrick, you've left me somewhat speechless!

Is there seriously a view in the US that Britain would have even contemplated invading Eire??

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Well, they have done that to some other places in the past.

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Originally Posted by MSW2

Well, they have done that to some other places in the past.

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We're talking about the last century, not the century before!

There were contingency plans to invade Southern Ireland. This was in two parts. Specifically if they allowed German submarines to use their ports or allowed the Country to be used in any other way by the Germans the Country would have been blockaded at sea and if that failed (and it's extremely hard to see that failing.....) the structurally weakened Country would have been invaded There was also a severe contingency plan to severely punish them should they ever shoot down or harm an allied plane entering or returning from the Atlantic along/through the specified corridor. This corridor into the Atlantic from Northern Ir across Southern Ir was put forward as what you could/might call a fiat-accompli. So far as I'm aware, apart from the fiat-accompli or 'or else....' aspect of the 'agreement', it was never abused by either side

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Originally Posted by Strangely Brown

We're talking about the last century, not the century before!

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1899 - 1903. One example that comes to mind. Close enough :)
With governments things that the man in the street will not even consider often happen.

Wow,
I've read some of this information on the other forum posts but didn't know why. This is some neat history of the rifles and their origins.

I'll look up the pedigree and original issue state of the rifles now before continuing restoration. This should be an interesting undertaking.

It has both the front volley post and mag cutoff missing. it will be interesting to find out all of the history on these rifles.

Thank you all for the info!