Five pointed red star on my No4T chest

[Thunderbox]

The star is too badly hand-painted to be any sort of official mark - even unit marks were done with some sort of stencil.

The only military connection I can envisage is that its a rough temporary mark - maybe some guys were doing OPFOR (playing enemy, dressed up as "soviet soldiers"...) and had their kit & weapons tagged up whilst stored in the exercise area armoury?

[Beerhunter]

maybe some guys were doing OPFOR (playing enemy, dressed up as "soviet soldiers"...) and had their kit & weapons tagged up whilst stored in the exercise area armoury?

I often wondered why 'Red Force' always seemed to have NATO weapons. That explains it all.

[Peter Laidler]

Talking of NATO exercises, we had a bright spark in HQ Ops who used to name the opposition forces with easily understood initials. I always remember being out at night with night vision scope looking for infiltators from the West And North Kilted Engineer Regiments......... think about it! Another opposing bunch on Hohne ranges were the Canadian United Nationalist Troops! Maybe one of these lots had a red star!

[No4Mk1(T)]

Thanks everyone for all the great input!

The yellow dot is a mark put on the case my ACME SURPLUS of Toronto.

Thanks for the information Warren. Now a question though: as you can see in the photo below of the lower of the two chests the yellow paint was also applied over the BA5885 number. This is not the first (T) I’ve seen or owned done like this and as a matter of fact I once saw one who’s chest had been painted completely in the same shad of yellow paint. Why do you suppose they took the time to do this? The upper only has the dab of paint on the lid.

But here's another for you. Look carefully at the end of your No4T and Bren chests and you might find, if they're not painted over by now, 4 little nail holes that form the corners of a rectangle 4" x 1.5". These are the nail holes that hold or held onto the end of the chest a wrapped 2.5" x 5" tinplate label holder with fold-over sides. This was used to hold the packing note or transit label that was slipped into it. These little things could be used a few times until the little fold-over tabs broke off. The holder was then pulled off (usually with a BIG screwdriver or pair of pliers that ripped big divets out of the wood) and you'd nail another transit note holder on..... and so on.

So, if you have some of these spaced nail/tack yoles together with some lumps of wood chiselled out, this is the reason

On the upper chest Peter is this the Packing Note to which you refer? I have had one (T) with the label holder but the rest have simply had the packing note tacked directly to the end of the chest with the same small nails.

The star is too badly hand-painted to be any sort of official mark - even unit marks were done with some sort of stencil.

The only military connection I can envisage is that its a rough temporary mark - maybe some guys were doing OPFOR (playing enemy, dressed up as "soviet soldiers"...) and had their kit & weapons tagged up whilst stored in the exercise area armoury?

I had always assumed it was some sort of hastily applied unit identifier of some type. Something along the lines of "Here lad take this red paint and brush and paint a star on the on the lids of them chests so I know which ones I signed for”. I do believe the star was applied well the rifle was in service as the yellow paint was applied over the red and as wheaty has said the yellow was applied by Acme after the rifle was surplused. If it did carry any meaning I’m sure it is now lost to time and I will never know.

[Lance]

This is what Peter was talking about

[Hal O'Peridol]

Here's the one on mine:




My chest also has a yellow dot on it. Bought the whole setup from Robert Padden back in 2001 for 1200 Canadian. Rifle, scope, can, chest, sling, bracket.

[Peter Laidler]

That's the transit/identification label holder. That's real authenticity that won't be on a fake chest .....if there is such a thing

[Terry Hawker]

Peter,

"Reproduction" transit chests have been floating around the US for a number of years, but, they won't be confused with the real thing.

Regards,

Terry