Lee Enfield at War

[ufo8mydog]

British troops stacking salvaged Lee Enfield Rifles at Aveluy, September 1916. These would be sent back to base, stripped and cleaned and reissued.

This is the first photograph I have seen which shows just how many rifles were recovered from the battlefield after a battle. It really puts into perspective the number of soldiers who were killed or wounded on the battlefield. There must be thousands of rifles there.

[browningautorifle]

If you look closely at the stack of guns in the centre-left foreground,

At the almost bottom left corner of the pic is what appears to be the front end of a '98 Mauser rifle...wonder if the left of that photo was enemy ordnance?

[Luis Bren]

Posed photograph of infantry sheltering from 'enemy shellfire' beside a knocked-out German PzKpfw III tank, 2 November 1942.

[Beerhunter]

Those chaps at Hythe are actually using an eye disc - a training aid for aiming. Their use was banned some time in the 50s. Too many accidents I believe.

[browningautorifle]

using an eye disc

We used the aiming disc still when I took my release in 08. The C79 optic precluded it's use but when we had iron sights still, we still used it. We used it through the FN's of course.

[Peter Laidler]

I have a funny feeling that while the eye discs might have been banned, their use was VERY strictly controlled. Obviously no live ammo was to be brought into the classroom (don't laugh, it happened many times. And if you're not loking through the eye disc it's pretty serious, and if you ARE looking through one, it's even more, er........, .....'character forming'). But pouches had to be searched manually for empty cases or drill rounds.

The one classic case, a fatally classic case was at the Royal Fusiliers Depot where they had been using drill rounds to load and fire. The recruit had finished his magazine of 5 or 10 drill rounds and the instructor was correcting his aim picture and told him to load again. As he'd used his drill rounds up, the instructor felt in his own pouches or pocket and tossed him several more drill rounds in order to continue the lesson/practice.

The classroom exploded as the recruit blew the instructors head off! He'd given him some drill and live ammo.

[Paul S.]

At the almost bottom left corner of the pic is what appears to be the front end of a '98 Mauser rifle...wonder if the left of that photo was enemy ordnance?

See comment #48, page 5 above.

[Beerhunter]

IIRC first the use of drill rounds with eye disc was banned followed by the use of eye discs at all.

[browningautorifle]

We only used drill rounds for practice loading and drills. Never used them with eye discs. We even discontinued their use on the range for flinch drills. Yes, we searched pouches and proved ammo to be drill as per Warminster standard...

[Seaforth72]

Photo "captioned as Canadians in London during WW2, plenty of Piling swivels here." I would say the soldiers are definitely the Four Dozen Highlanders ... (48th Highlanders ;-) who were with 1 Canadian Division in UK 1939-1943, then Sicily, Italy and Holland. Early in the war, there were hand painted cap badges on the sides of helmets and then they quickly produced decals (transfers) for the helmets. Many of these were made by Gale & Polden of Aldershot.

http://www.cdnmilitarycollectors.com...nadian-helmets

Trials No. 4 Serial number A 0473, an ex-sniper, was sold by Fulton's of Bisley last year and it still has a piling swivel attached to the upper band.
F1810 ENFIELD NO4 MK1 TRIALS RIFLE .303
http://www.fultonsofbisley.com/firea...ials-rifle-303