Australian P14 Snipers, or Rifle No 3 Mk I* (T)

[Surpmil]

Things do have a way of being repeated from one author to another without actual confirmation. A good example being the story of the Canadian contract W&S scopes and how they purportedly were unsealed due to the removal of the range scale from the body covers. This story began with Tantum and was repeated by various authors since then. I have one on my desk now and the holes are blind. So were they in the previous example I owned. I expect you have found the same in the two you own?

In fact if one takes off the small brass plate that gives the ranges for the range-estimating stadia lines there is an evacuation screw for the scope body behind that plate.

Watts, PPCo., Aldis No.2, 3 and 4... there really isn't any other possible explanation than that they were scraping the barrel. Uniformity and commonality are the first principles of military production and supply. Total Aldis production in WWI was in the thousands and IIRC Skennertion states in TBS that some 8000 telescope rifles were broken up for spares after WWI.

Regarding the Alex Martin contracts Skennerton says on p. 101 that, "the first of the Martin No.3 MkI*(T)A rifles were contracted in 1939, but these (sic) are not recorded as being filled, and were probably incorporated in the 400 batch." Earlier on the same page he states: "A quantity of 1st World War vintage Aldis telescopes were still in store and as there were no Pattern 1918 'scopes available in quantity, these were earmarked for fitting to rifles to provide desperately needed sniper equipments. Many of the Pattern 1914 snipers rifles [No.3 Mk.I*(T)] had been disposed of to other Empire forces during the inter-war period, so the shortage was even more acute. The contract for mounting the Aldis sights to No.3 rifles was undertaken by Alexander Martin of Glasgow and initial orders seem to be be for about 4000 rifles, although this figure was the total requirement of sniper rifles at that point in time, and may not have been intended as the total quantity of No.3/Aldis units ordered."

So, as Skennerton points out on page 100, it was May 1940 when the first steps were made to adapt the No.32 to the No.4 Rifle. Previous to this, the No.3 was of course the official and approved sniper rifle. Unless there was a typo in the 1939 Alex Martin contract(s), it appears that the intention was to continue with the No.3 as the sniping rifle, but to expedite the setting up of the needed rifles by using the simplified Alex Martin mounts. Until, voila, it was found that the Aldis scopes referred to had been sold off to the gun trade.

So what to do? Rustle about for whatever the gun trade had in their backrooms, send them off to Alex Martin, and come up with a different plan: the No.4 and No.32 sight. Recall that it was around this time that calls were sent to Canada for telescope-sighted Ross rifles, and drawings were prepared at RSAF Enfield for fitting No.32s to Patt.14 rifles etc. So it seems all options were on the table, but of course at some point it was realized that as the No.4 was accurate enough it made no sense to persist with the Patt.14 as a future sniping rifle for all the obvious reasons.

We might ask ourselves why if Alex Martin was given a contract in 1939 for 4000 rifles, they would be given another contract on 1st July 1940 and a third on 26th April 1941 for 400 and 21 units respectively? What happened to the initial contract? Probably while the rustling about in depots for the missing Aldis scopes was going on, the decision was taken to move on to the No.4 and No.32(?) By July 1940 all that could be found was 400 odd scopes and so that was the contract given, with perhaps another 21 showing up by the following year? The logical interpretation would be that initial reports of the gun trade whip-around were something over 400 scopes to be had, so this would be a convenient figure for the first contract. Once the scopes were actually in hand, presumably at Alex Martin, and the number that were actually serviceable had been determined, then the final total would be known and the second contract for 21 was probably be retrospective to provide for the final number?

Skennerton says on P.108 that, "The No.32 Mk.I telescopic rifle sight....was first recommended for adoption with the No.4 Rifle of the sniper role on 20th of March 1940." Thus the lack of scopes for Alex Martin may have been coincidental with a decision to change to the No.4 Rifle, rather than the actual cause of it, but unless we find records to indicate that the intention was to fit the No.32 to the Patt. 14 in 1939, and the RSAF(E) drawing dates should answer that question, then I would have to conclude that it all hinged on the missing WWI Aldis scopes which it was thought were still in store somewhere. Wouldn't be the first time one hand of government sold off what the other hand was later to be looking for!

Incidentally, it appears that RSAF Enfield got through their 1403 No.4(T) conversions even more slowly than H&H later produced theirs, unless that production ended much sooner than the contract dates imply. Skennerton says conversions at Enfield began in May 1940 and "From 22nd September, 1942, Holland & Holland took up the conversion of Britain's No.4 sniping rifles..." Did it take Enfield about 27 months to convert 1403 rifles? With 608 weekdays between 1st May 1940 and 31 August 1942, that is about two rifles per day; not including the possibility of Saturday shifts or multiple shifts on each day.