Last production date for Mk I's???

[TactAdv]

I ran across another Dealer Sample Bren I am looking at buying, it's a Mk I, but with what I guess is a quite late production date for Mk I's.....1944. See picture to tell the tale....

A basic, and classically stupid question in my mind arises as a result of this evidence and that of course being why would they continue to mfgr the Mk I variants so very long after declaring the Mk II variant to be the answer to saving time/materials/effort/cost, etc.,???

With my DFM mindset in high gear, I may surmise that for the facility that produced this late variant Mk I, simply keeping the lines and process operative and running as they were was more important than the loss of production in switching the whole facility program over to the Mk II standard? If so.....I'd wonder what the ability to continue to source all the subcontract parts and services which were, presumably cranking out almost all Mk II bits and pieces by then. It's Enfield, so my last obvious question would be.....did Enfield simply not get into producing Mk II's till AFTER sometime in '44??....or was there a period of time where they were producing Mk I's & Mk II's side by side....more or less??? And if THAT was the case.....were the majority of these "late Mk I's" further delivered with more and more Mk II parts installed as they were assembled and left the factory??

-TomH

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