Early 32 Scope?

[Surpmil]

There is much there for further research. Do you know if any of the primary documents cited still exist?

The War Office evinced considerable interest in the development of the two sights (119)[/B], and by the end of November, 1943, were so actively concerned about the sniper situation that it seemed doubtful if the Canadian prototypes would be completed in time for full consideration to be given to them by the War Office (120).[B

This curious statement implies some deadline for such "consideration"; do we know when exactly that was?

It is curious because while the WO was huffing and puffing about all these various technical requirements and deadlines, production of the same old Mk.I and Mk.II scopes was continuing merrily on at Watson's, Houghton Butcher etc. right into 1944 and in the Watson case, Mk.I's in the 14,000 SN range, with no pretense of sealing, waterproofing, fungus-proofing etc. etc.!

The Mk.3 scope begins production at about SN 16,000 in late 1944, while H&H carries on fitting MkI and II scopes most if not all the way through 1944, this while they had the REL 3.5x and 5x scopes already in the UK for trials early in 1944. Not until October 1944 does the No32 Mk.3 design appear. One might wonder to what extent it was based on, if not prompted by, the REL scopes sent for trial earlier that year?

We know from the inventory of sniping rifles taken in Nov. 1943 which Clive Law cited, that production of the No.4(T) at Holland & Holland was only about 180 rifles a month, rather than the purported 800.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread....l=1#post362178

So, given that they had thousands of No.32 Mk.Is sitting somewhere in the UK unfitted and unused, one wonders why the Ministry of Supply didn't just send them over to Long Branch and solve the purported "problem"? It's not like there weren't some ships going back empty.

Or would that have involved admitting that they hadn't got anything like the expected supply of conversions underway, and had no prospect of doing so?

Then of course there's the problem of sending your sorry old MkI's over to Long Branch and letting them look them over and of course find out that they didn't remotely correspond to the standards that were being demanded of the REL production...that could be trifle awkward!

In fact the low priority given to No.32 production at REL can only have been based on the priority given in the largely British contracts for dozens of other devices which REL was fulfilling. Compared to what else REL was building the No32 MkI was a piece of cake - albeit a very stale one which the experts at REL felt was not worth developing further, just like the three draw telescopes.

So, suddenly the War Office gets a bee in their bonnet about sniper rifles at the end of 1943; presumably they had now noticed that the invasion of N. W. Europe was impending and H&H's production was nowhere near what it was supposed to be under the contracts.

Was H&H just in violation thereof or had they been told "unofficially" to just carry on regardless? IIRC when Peter visited the H&H factory and spoke to the gent who had worked there at the time, he was shown the one milling machine which had been set up with jigs to machine the pads after fitting to the rifles. (40+ years after the end of the war and the contracts, there were still drawers full of finished and semi-finished pads, "thumbscrews" etc.!)

Logically, if BSA had not been involved earlier, late '43 would be when their reputed 100 or so conversions were put in hand: the WO casting around for some way to get production of rifles closer to the production of scopes. Presumably BSA didn't have the spare capacity, or didn't want to be bothered beyond the hundred or so. (Unless those were .22 conversions as previously discussed elsewhere)

Such of course is the nature of private contractors: if they don't want to cooperate or extract their digits, not much can be done about it unless contracts stipulate penalties. Crown corporations get the order and they carry it out, even if they need to hire more people and make capital investments to do it. In fairness though, they may well have just given No.4(T) conversions the priority which the WO set; we'll probably never know. It doesn't appear the contracts were amended however.

The full story, or most of it, must lie in those primary documents; I hope you can turn some of them up.