British whatsit?

[A. F Medic]

Information

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[browningautorifle]

Bren gun barrel pouch(carrier)

[RT Ellis]

It's difficult to get a sense of the size of the item from the images. It's possibly a carrying case for the Thompson SMG, at least it is similar to the carrying case known to have been for the SMG M1928, illustrated in the U.S. Army Ordnance official image attached:
Attachment 52364

The pouches assembled to the your carrier are certainly dissimilar and appear to be intended to contain bulky components, that suggests a carrying case for communication equipment.

[browningautorifle]

It's possibly a carrying case for the Thompson SMG

No, it's not for the Thompson. It's the Bren barrel case. Wait...

[gsimmons]

As BAR has said, it's for the Bren. The Thompson case pictured is made of a different type of cloth in OD#3 or OD#7. Yes there were british made Thompson cases, but that's not it.

[A. F Medic]

Now I have to find a Bren barrel!

[Peter Laidler]

You'll have to find more than a barrel Medic! You'll need the sparee parts wallet and the rest of the gubbing that fits in each of the pockets! It was literally packed with crap that could easily be left behind.............

[Colonel Enfield]

You'll have to find more than a barrel Medic! You'll need the sparee parts wallet and the rest of the gubbing that fits in each of the pockets! It was literally packed with crap that could easily be left behind.............

I've often wondered what sort of accessories went in a Bren Gun barrel bag - I gathered obviously the barrel and probably oil, pull-throughs and some sort of screwdriver/tool thing, but what other assorted bits & pieces might the properly kitted out Bren Gunner have in there as well?

[Peter Laidler]

Over to you for that answer BP! The contents change over the years. I was never big, broad shouldered or ugly so I never got lumbered with carrying the Bren except I was ultra fit so was coerced to do 'rundown' shoots with them and that was knackering enough! 600 yards of 'watch-and-shoot' torture...... Oh yes......, and to fix a zillion of them!

Oh yes....., 'watch and shoot rundowns.........' There were usually 20 lanes or so and always one of the RCO's overseeing and running between two pairs. Someone a bit like Muffer..... He'd be running in just his OG's (ultra-lightweight cotton shirts, trousers and jungle boots and just a whistle for added weight!) while we were running in same BUT full (not fighting order of course) '44 webbing plus full water bottles plus magazines for a stop and shoot at each range AND a change of firer AND barrel PLUS pair of binos flapping around inside your shirt plus one of those dopey floppy beeny 'jungle' hats that we tied on with string. If it flew off......., back we went to get it and put it back on. And even if we had single barrel guns such as the L4A4's, we STILL had simulate a barrel change just so that we didn't have an advantage over those with Mk2's and 3's and L4A2's.

And these RCO's were shouting and yelling at us with encouraging words such as '.....get a xxxxxxg move on you pairs of idle xxxxxxxs......' or '.....I could walk down here faster than you bunch of toxxxxs.'


This was before those poncy days of ear defenders and as we were absolutely dead on our knees at the end of 600 yards and 6 long shoots but I bet the roar of ten pairs of machine guns opening up as each reached the firing point was mind blowing. There was always an urn of that crap compo orange or lemon powdered drink at the 50(?) yard firing point. It was very sour with no salt content to prevent further thirst (no...., I didn't get it either!). I seem to recall that at 50 yards it was short bursts from the waist - or was that with the SMG's.

Where were we.......... Oh yes, the CES!

[Brit plumber]

The man for this job is KG, he has some really good photos (I think it they may have been Toms actually) of the kit with the contents from the various incarnations of it (If he's not along in the future I'll find a link to a post with them).

That juice is still 'In Stock', I say in stock because it's probably part of a job lot bought in the 1960s for stripping paint. It may be the only substance known to man that will remove thick layers of Suncorite! Affectionately know as SCREECH to some.