Geweher 7.7 281(e)

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Ammo? Pick up the phone and place an order.

The FN plant in Belgium was tooled up to make LOTS of .303 ammo, much of it either for export or their own Lewis, etc guns.

The Italians also used the same round in a couple of their own MGs as well and made quite a lot of ammo for themselves and (pre-war) for export.

Not being used as front-line arms, captured .303 rifles (and MGs) would have initially been issued to second-line garrison troops or reasonably reliable auxiliaries or "allies".

They picked up few "Bren" Carriers during the Dunkirk Handicap. Enough to type-catalogue them and impress them into service as SP mounts for light anti-tank guns or, later, on the Russian Front, as remotely-controlled demolition vehicles .

In the African Desert, The Australians and Kiwis ran the "Bush Artillery", pretty much completely equipped with captured Italian guns and ammo.

The German Ordnance system must have been really "interesting" by 1943, Ditto the Japanese, who had few qualms about redistributing captured equipment and using it until it broke or ran out of ammo, fuel, etc. The Japanese Navy and their "Marines" were big users of their exact equivalent of the .303.

During the previous Great Unpleasantness, the Turks took possession of a LOT of British and French materiel. Their 7.92 x 57 conversions of SMLEs are a case in point: Use them for training with original captured ammo, then, as that dried up, totally rebuild them to use "standard" ammo..

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[GeeRam]

The same could be said of the British as well, in reverse, as although we were making our own 7.92x57 ammo for our BESA MG's, use of captured German ammo stocks was actually encouraged to supplement the small quantities of UK made 7.92 ammo supply, given the demand for 303 ammo for almost everything else.

It would be interesting to see any example of FN made 303 ammo with a 1941-1944 date stamp, which would likely be evidence they were making it for zee Germans.