What if the US had adoped the Enfield?

[Critch]

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?

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[Dimitri]

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

[Alan de Enfield]

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

[Parashooter]

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.

[John Kepler]

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.

[Thunderbox]

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....

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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!)

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

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.

[Dimitri]

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

[goo]

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.
...
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