NON-IRISH Contract Rifles

[Peter Laidler]

As a little aside and not disputing the fact that Eire did have them, 50,000 rifles would equip every man, including the Officers, attached personell, cooks, storemen and bottle-washers in 66 FULL Infantry battalions. That is arming EVERY man with a rifle when in real life, 20% would have a pistol or a sub machine gun! That's 2 battalions per Infantry Brigade = 33 full Infantry brigades or at 1 Infantry battalion per Armoured brigade, that's 66 Armoured brigades. At Division strength, that's 10 Infantry Divisions or 3+ Army Corps and so on. That's a LOT of rifles for a small nation