Tunnel Gun...

[Cruisey]

Just watched "Below Hill 60", about the 1st Australian Tunneling Company, during the Battle of Messines.
Briefly shown a few times was one of these: Attachment 15237 used for fighting in the tunnels.

I've not read much at all on this particular field modification & I wonder how widespread it was ?

Information

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[Edward Horton]

"STOP" drinking O.P. Bundy and going to the movies, your killing thousands of brain cells and destroying your memory.

It NOT "Below" its "Beneath Hill 60".....................

And the cut down Enfield was used by the Australian Rugby players to shoot the opposing team players in the kneecaps. (Outback Rules)

[jonnyc]

I would pay good money to watch someone fire that with a MKVII round.

[browningautorifle]

I think the flash and blast would be somewhat like an anti tank gun. You hear stories abot them but other than the ones that have been built to rumor spec, I'm not sure there are any documented originals...Mr Laidler???

[JBS]

I take it that all the members of the 1st Australian Tunneling Company were deaf.

Ed where are you at ? we need an experiment. See if you have a stubbed barrel you can discharge a MKVII round from at night. How big is the fireball from the powder burn off ?

[Edward Horton]

I take it that all the members of the 1st Australian Tunneling Company were deaf.

Ed where are you at ? we need an experiment. See if you have a stubbed barrel you can discharge a MKVII round from at night. How big is the fireball from the powder burn off ?

JBS

We don't need to experiment, the movie special effects team used the cut down Enfield for the fireball effect for the movie ending. A stunt man was put in a E.O.D blast suit and he fired a Mk.7 round into a bucket of charcoal and ashes. (the Australians were edited in later by using the blue screen method)

[Thunderbox]

I don't think anyone has found any definitive evidence that cut-down SMLEs were actually used as weapons. There are quite a few anecdotes about these relics - some even in published memoires - but since none of the writers ever claims to have actually used one themselves, one has to be cautious that they might simply be repeating trench stories - or that they have been the victim of a good old squaddie wind-up... Other accounts of tunnelling operations mention pistols and standard rifles being used, but with the primary weapon against enemy tunnellers being the camouflet.

Cut-down SMLEs were used as firing mechanisms in locally-produced mortars (eg the 2" trench mortar) and projectors. Another use that might explain the "tunneller weapon" story is that pistols and cut-down rifles were also used as firing initiators in "flash boxes" - that is to say a box containing loose cordite or powder mixed in with the bundled ends of black powder burning fuzes. The rifle/pistol would have a blank or de-bulleted round chambered, and be fired by lanyard. Flash boxes were often used as an auxiliary method of initiating an explosive charge alongside or in place of electrical systems. Hence such cut-down rifles might well have been present in tunnelling operations as initiators, and have had the "weapon" story added on later.

[Peter Laidler]

Thunderbox is pretty well correct so far as the paperwork is concerned. I have only ever found two references to officially cut down rifles and both these are recorded as '....... previously unserviceable for field use.......'. These were the smoke discharger thinggy that went on the outside of light tanks early in the last war and the trench mortar firing things that are referred to as 'initiators'

It's like most things. Given a hacksaw and a set of gas bottles, then anything is possible.

Having said that, I'd like to set one up in a jig on the forensic test range at Shrivenham and record some data as a matter of interest. Unless anyne has some data already. Several years ago this would have been an interesting subject but commerciality has taken over - more's the shame!

[jonnyc]

"camouflet" ???

[Nigel]

I've mentioned it before so I'll mention it again. In the Imperial War Museum Review No.6 there is an article "Professionals and Specialists: mining on the Western Front" by Bryan Hammond. He mentions the use of cut down SMLE's by the mining companies and gives a ref: A rifle of this type is illustrated in the Visit Diary of First Army Controller of Mines. PRO WO158-137. It was principally for the use of listeners in forward listening posts. If someone could pop along to the Public Record Office at Kew Gardens and dig it out we could all see the picture!