Any one else sick of the misinformation?

[AradoAR234]

With all the sabre rattling between Pakistan and India again, one of my sons asked me if they both used lee Enfields against each other over the years, before adopting more modern arms. Assuming yes, I looked up some history on them and inadvertently came across a web site asking why more countries didn't use or copy them.

The numerous replies were all very negative towards the SMLE, and gave myriad reasons why the mauser and its copies were better in nearly every way. The usual tripe about the weak action, inaccuracy, head spacing, how it should have been replaced by the P14 , rim jam, how mediocre it was etc etc.

One misguided soul even said he would trust a mosin over an Enfield.........

Information

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[Paul S.]

Those who don't know tend to parrot the ramblings of the ignorant.


That said, there is a reason Australia used SMLEs from before WWI right through the Korean War and beyond. It soldiered on with the Australian Army Reserve even after the SLR was readily available.

As for the BS that it would have cost too much to re-arm, it doesn't matter how many of a given tool of the trade you may have, you'll find a better tool for the job if the tool you have is crap. Witness Canada and the Ross rifle circa 1915.

[smle addict]

Ditto on that. Every time I go to the range with an LE, someone asks either what caliber or type of rifle I'm shooting. When I tell them it's a Lee Enfield in 303, the response is the same; "I hear those things have headspace problems." When I ask where they heard that BS, it's always "some guy had one blow up on him" or "the internet" or "a gunsmith told me that." My brain goes in check-out mode and I politely and minimally explain I have had no problems with headspace or grenading guns. I return to shooting and they eventually stumble back to their own shooting point.

[Surpmil]

Those who don't know tend to parrot the ramblings of the ignorant.

That said, there is a reason Australia used SMLEs from before WWI right through the Korean War and beyond. It soldiered on with the Australian Army Reserve even after the SLR was readily available.

As for the BS that it would have cost too much to re-arm, it doesn't matter how many of a given tool of the trade you may have, you'll find a better tool for the job if the tool you have is crap. Witness Canada and the Ross rifle circa 1915.

I'm afraid the Ross is a classic example of this habit of "group-think". There were actual front line veterans who had used the Ross and damned it, there were others who swore by it. However, once it was damned, every Tom, Dick & Harriet repeated the "stories" they heard, just as now they repeat other stories they've heard, without knowing any more about the facts of those matters. (Not that I am including you in that BTW, though we are all prone to "group-think".)

For those who haven't read the book, Iriam used the Ross in France from early 1915 to late 1918 when he was wounded.

Now we have been told by lots and lots of people who were not there, and did not happen to have lived through it that the Ross rifle was a failure as a military arm, and that 1st Division was handicapped by being armed with it , and lots of men lost their lives through its jamming in critical places etc. and so on. Even men who did live through that fight, [St. Julien] but happened to hail from Merrie England will tell you solemnly it [the Ross Rifle] was no good and never was. I cannot see it that way at all. If even a small fraction of the attention, time and money and labour of experts, had been put on the Ross, that has been spent on the Enfield and Springfield, we would now have a rifle that Canada might be proud of..... This record does not come from a base camp in England, neither does it hail from [the School of Musketry at] Hythe or [the N.R.A. ranges at] Bisley [Camp], nor yet from the lines of the motor transport back of [Mont] des Cats.

[Iriam's manuscript was published as he wrote it in the 1920s and 30s - although this text was strangely omitted - I can only assume that his son felt it would discredit him if included - a demonstration of that same phenomenon?]

[Paul S.]

I'm afraid the Ross is a classic example of this habit of "group-think". There were actual front line veterans who had used the Ross and damned it, there were others who swore by it. However, once it was damned, every Tom, Dick & Harriet repeated the "stories" they heard, just as now they repeat other stories they've heard, without knowing any more about the facts of those matters. (Not that I am including you in that BTW, though we are all prone to "group-think".)

For those who haven't read the book, Iriam used the Ross in France from early 1915 to late 1918 when he was wounded.



[Iriam's manuscript was published as he wrote it in the 1920s and 30s - although this text was strangely omitted - I can only assume that his son felt it would discredit him if included - a demonstration of that same phenomenon?]

My reading of history tells a different story. It tells of how political influence was a component in the Ross Rifle being adopted in the first place. It speaks of political influence being used to keep it in service in France. I know from reading war histories of CEF battalions (available for study) that some were issued 'Enfield Rifles' before 2nd Ypres.

[Surpmil]

My reading of history tells a different story. It tells of how political influence was a component in the Ross Rifle being adopted in the first place. It speaks of political influence being used to keep it in service in France. I know from reading war histories of CEF battalions (available for study) that some were issued 'Enfield Rifles' before 2nd Ypres.

Where isn't political influence a factor? Wherever it isn't economic influence is there instead.

I've read a little history myself, have even ferreted out the odd bit here and there.

Politics was as much against the Ross as for it. Many hoped to keep the Dominions and Colonies as captive markets and suppliers of natural and human raw material.

You probably know that the SMLE was an unpopular compromise arm when introduced and suffered from too light a barrel throughout its life. It's virtues are self-evident, as are its weaknesses, but its suitability for trench warfare was a happy accident, nothing more.

The SMLE jammed plenty as well with the rubbish ammo supplied at times. The difference of course was that when the SMLE jammed it was automatically the fault of the ammo, when the Ross jammed it was automatically the fault of the rifle.

And of course Iriam was right that had more development been put into it, it would indeed have been a much better service rifle; dogmatic protagonists like Sir Sam Hughes insisted on the long barrel and close chamber tolerances, and with such friends who needs enemies?

The Ross' great defect was said to be the lack of primary extraction, but of course that was not strictly true as the angle on the interrupted threads provided a very good primary extraction. The problem if any, lay in the lack of mechanical advantage - leverage - in rotating the bolt. Who knows, the Ross might easily have become a turn-bolt action in subsequent development, which is what Newton did in the 1920s with his sporting rifles, except that his steel and heat-treating don't seem to have been as good as Ross'!

The Ross Mk.III is about the same length as the Gew98 and did the Germans suffer from the length of that rifle?

One of the two strongest bolt actions ever made, and one of the most accurate service rifles ever made.

Like anything else, those that want to look into it seriously will, and some of those will have the judgment to sift out the likely facts. Until we make that effort we tend to unthinkingly accept what we hear around us.

That's why we have juries of twelve, not two or three.

[pocketshaver]

THe main issue is that I don't recall the british government allowing anyone other the United Kingdom from MAKING them. If you don't let anyone build their own, or buy them from you.... no one gets to use them.

Mauser tried to arm the entire world. anyone with money could buy one, and if they had enough money they could purchase a manufacturing permit and make their own.

[Paul S.]

Mauser was and is a private, commercial concern for whom licencing a patent was basically pure profit, and profit was their sole motive. Licencing gave them a monetary percentage for each rifle produced without the costs of labour, materials or tooling. Enfield, or more rightly, HM Government, was not profit motivated (short-sighted thinking that), but solely interested in producing a military rifle - 'tools of the trade'. That said, Australia and India also made SMLEs by the thousands. Canada made No. 4 rifles right into the middle 1950s.

[Alan de Enfield]

Canada made No. 4 rifles right into the middle 1950s.

The USA (Savage) and Pakistan (POF Wah) also manufactured No4's

[mr.e moose]

And Britain kept and used thousands of Ross rifles.