Historical Enfield Question

[smellie]

If you subtract the number of rifles brought from France from the number of men brought from France in the Dunkirk evacation, you come to a shortfall in the order of 100,000 rifles.

Jerry worked as hard as he could, but he never did have enough weapons in 7.92x57 to arm everybody, although he did have enough (most of the time) so that only one standard of amunition had to be carried to the Front. Regiments being pulled off the Eastern Front for rebuild (and there were a LOT of those), for example, would leave their 7.92mm weapons behind for their replacements to use and when they got to where they would be taying, would be issued with captured weapons.

Also, large numbers of captured weapons would be turned over to occupation authorities for the use by the occupation troops and by local authorities who required weapons. An effort was made to keep rifles, for example, away from a ready source of uncontrolled ammunition. In the case of Norway, for example, many households had a supply of 6.5x55 ammunition...... so the Norwegian Krags were removed to an area where that ammunition would not be available to the Underground.

Photos do exist of SMLE rifles being carried in Occupied France.

Nice thing is that His Majesty got most of his rifles back in 1945. Some still soldier on to this day in plces. Greece, for example, was using SMLEs and Number 4s until comparatively recently and had Harley-Davidson WLA and WLC motorcycles (745cc sidevalve twin models with tank shifters and foot clutches) in regular service at least into the 1970s. The Harley, much as with the Lee-Enfield, was pretty close to indestructible.

Hope this helps a bit. Likely I'm wrong, anyway!
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[Thunderbox]

If you subtract the number of rifles brought from France from the number of men brought from France in the Dunkirk evacation, you come to a shortfall in the order of 100,000 rifles.
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What figures are you using? Just curious as, AFAIK, there isn't actually an accurate number of rifle losses - most are huge over-estimates. I believe the even some of the numbers that appear in contemporary 1940 government reports later turned out to be wrong, as they were extrapolated from surveys of only certain categories of troops - mostly the mixed "odds and sods" from support units that had to be sorted out in the assembly areas at Dover and Newhaven. Many of the line infantry units returned to UK fully-equipped with small arms for their remaining manpower.

You have to be very wary of clichés about Dunkirk and its aftermath, as a lot of the "well known facts" are misconceptions. Not only did the majority of the Army bring its rifles back from France, there was in fact no shortage of rifles at all for the regular army, the reserves and the new divisions in 1940 - Britain had 1.25 million rifles immediately available after Dunkirk. Thats actually enough for at least 90 divisions on 1940 scales. In June 1940 Britain had 27 divisions formed (one reason - apart from the RN - why there was never any real prospect of a successful German invasion) and was in process of raising another 23 - 40. All of these 27 Divisions were fully equipped with rifles and MGs, and there was enough heavy equipment (tanks, arty, etc) in UK to fully equip about 12 divisions. The perceived "shortage of rifles" actually refers to the immediate need of the Home Guard of c 1.5 million men, followed by the general war estimate to raise British, Empire & Commonwealth forces of about 4.5 to 5 million men - hence the orders for c. 4 million No4s rifles.