Bren gun figures 1940 and the fall of France

[Kev G]

Peter,as much as I'd like to say I'd spent months gathering info at the PRO (everything apart from a few docs I have copied there were lost on a bad hard drive !) all the hard work has been done by David Boyd for his website
All I have done is add and subtract delivery figures etc that he has kindly provided.

I have as a matter of courtesy asked David Boyd for info to be used and will be in contact with you regarding this.

Anyhow it's killed some time for me

ATB Kevin

[Peter Laidler]

The trouble with figures, guestimates, approximations etc etc in a book is that they soon becomes the REASON for the book and not just a PART of the book. It's also to do with what we in the Army call '.....mission creep'

Blake Stevens also gave me some good advice too, that you have got to keep the REAL anoracks/train spotters IN the book, but the NERDS out of the book - or words to that effect. Good advice too Blake, because you can discuss things with the real anoraks but not with the nerds because THEY are always right! One of my uni mentors, Prof Mike Harrison told me that when discussing elusive or inexact things, just as figures are, you've always got to leave it as a discussion point because if you don't, you WILL get to the point after the paper is published/printed where the first person who reads the paper/report immediately knows more than you do because he knows ALL that you have just written PLUS the tiny bit he knew before.

But such is life

[Kev G]

The NERDS are usualy so sure they are right is because they have read it in a book !

As an example there is a museum (I won't mention the name) that had all their early MKI Brens flash hider assemblies changed over to MKI* flash hiders because that was correct according to the original Bren Gun Saga book and S.A.I.S. 5.

Although the curator had access to numerous pictures of early Brens at Dunkirk that proved the contrary,he reasoned that if the info on the flash hiders in the BGS wasn't true then it wouldn't have been published.

The Bren Gun Saga and SAIS 5 have created numerous urban legends that some people are only too happy to quote chapter and verse , even when new facts or revised info can be shown.

Just as well I can edit forum posts

ATB Kevin

[Peter Laidler]

You're right KG. As someone pointed out to me on this very forum that KL (as in No32 telescopes) wasn't A Kershaw Limited but Kodak Limited from Hemel Hemstead. But at least it was ME that discovered who it was and made the info known! The only answer is that there isn't a real answer!

[tankhunter]

You're right KG. As someone pointed out to me on this very forum that KL (as in No32 telescopes) wasn't A Kershaw Limited but Kodak Limited from Hemel Hemstead. But at least it was ME that discovered who it was and made the info known! The only answer is that there isn't a real answer!

OR...........I Would If I could, But I cant, So I wont! LOL!