Age of Enfield Brass Oiler

[Peter Laidler]

The way to suddenly |FIND lost bayonets is to send EVERYONE who was out on that exercise back out onto the training area. After a few hours, guess what.......... Yep, someone suddenly finds the 'lost' bayonet......

The No9 bayonets were numbered by the US dealer who had zillions to get rid of.

[browningautorifle]

the explosives that we used for training

Been there too. Explosives that were exuding and "We'll use it up anywayzzz

"

Whenever a fellow lost his bayonet on exercise, he simply stole one from another soldier.

Yup...seen that too. Reg force had their stuff on long term loan of course. Slings usually came off because of storage problems with them on. I'd be interested to see how your storesie secured them...

[therno]

I cannot speak to the issue of weapons from depots to regiments as I was never the QM. The many times I drew weapons from the unit QM, the rifle or SMG usually had a sling fitted. Breech block, bayonet with scabbard and frog, cleaning kit, blank firing adaptor were issued from a pile or box as needed. As I recall the QM had inventories e.g. Rifles FNC1A1 (by SN) 200, then simple quantities e.g. bayonets C1 198, slings C1 206, BFAs C1 176 etc. In theory the quantities should have matched. ;-)

The rifles C No. 7 .22IN MK.I that 583 Sqn Royal Canadian Air Cadets had were issued to us without their wooden chests and cleaning tools were minimal. No bayonets of course!

Our QMs had a tendency to not issue out a lot of weapons' accessories due to the work involved and the hassle when parts were lost or broken.

There have been times in the past when bayonets were serial numbered to the rifle. This was common in other countries but far less so in Canada. There are times we could have used it. Whenever a fellow lost his bayonet on exercise, he simply stole one from another soldier. The hapless smuck at the end of the line ended up paying for it as his stolen bayonet could not be identified.

In the old days (e.g. 1920s) Canadian regimental markings sometimes included a number on the bayonet and scabbard. I missed out in such an example from my regiment (SHC) at our most recent gun auction, but I do have a regimentally numbered one from another local regiment (1st Bn BCR).

The Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk. 2 apparently came with a serial numbered No. 9 bayonet (socket and blade design, with a scabbard but no frog). Of the two that I have owned in the past, one bayonet was mismatched (Irish contract rifle, Burmese contract bayonet as I recall) and the other one, RAF Contract, was left along with the rifle in its factory greased paper wrapping. Once in general issue I suspect a lot of bayonets would quickly become orphaned from their matching rifles.

Surprisingly the Soviets numbered their bayonets to their rifles in WWII. A year ago at a gun store I helped a fellow customer who was looking to buy a Mosin 91/30 rifle. Once he had decided to buy one, the clerk, instead of taking one off the rack, went into the basement and brought up a mint 91/30 rifle with matching numbered bayonet!

Do we know what they did pre WWII? Were oilers, pull thru and slings issued with the Rifles

[Peter Laidler]

If they were actually ISSUED from Ordnance, the rifle would come with a part number in indented form within the VOCAB/VAOS system that would indicate to the technical quartermaster that the rifle was issued as an equipment conprising of......... plus....... plus.......... and so on. In much the same way as we currently have an equipment, such as a sniper rifle, issued as a COMPLETE equipment with a complete equipment schedule.

I'm not going to get into the why's and wherefores of the Ordnance system as my main purpose in life was to get as much out of them as I could! But I stand by what I said about the rifle being issued as a single unit, on its own. If a unit numbered bayonets to them, or pullthroughs etc etc, that is/was a matter for them - stupidly in my opinion! A bayonet was interchangeable with any rifle. Indeed, in our Armourers shops we always had a yellow or white handled 'slave' bayonet. One of each weapon type, JUST to test this interchangeability.

The 1940 Equipment Regulations make absolutely NO mention whatsoever of numbering bayonets