Paratroop British No.5 Mk2 takedown rifle

[Lee Enfield]

Any recollection of price?

It wasn't for sale - it was a case of "show and tell"...




this little item was at the same show (sorry for the image clarity)
I don't want to hijack PB's thread, just interesting that these things are often previously known.

[Alan de Enfield]

Look like one of the 'last ditch' Enfields

Born of the desperate times, following the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, that saw the development of the STEN MkI and the BESAL Light Machine Gun, the Simplified Rifle, 1941 was an attempt to develop a cheap and efficient rifle design which could be rapidly manufactured to re-equip the British Army. With production of Lee-Enfield rifles still ramping up the Enfield Design Department developed a number of prototype simplified rifles which could be quickly manufactured.

Chambered in the British military’s .303 service cartridge the Simplified Rifles took the action of the Pattern 1914 and simplified it. Commercial engineering workshops and factories were to manufacture the rifle. The design simplified the furniture and minimised the amount of machining needed to make the receiver. As a result the rifles had simple stocks and slab-sided receivers. The flip-up sights were simpler marked for 300 and 600 yards. A minimal amount of wood was used to save resources and one prototype had a simple half-stock and metal skeleton butt. Another prototype, perhaps an earlier model, had a full-length, more traditional butt-stock as well as front-sight protector posts.

The rifles retained the Pattern 1914?s 5-round internal magazine and had a push-button safety just behind the trigger. A spike bayonet was also added with a carrying point just under the barrel. To use the bayonet it was removed, reversed and reattached to the carrying point. While the British rifles were simple they were not as simple as some of Germany’s late-war Volkssturm rifles.

Historical Firearms - Simplified Rifles Born of the desperate times,...

[Peter Laidler]

It is the 'parachute troops' part of this that puzzles me a tad. Rifles are container loaded and if a No4 rifle would fit neatly into a container, then, er........., so would a No5 rifle! So the need for a SHORT No5 rifle is a bit self defeating. Then there is the notion that after landing you've got to assemble the rifle while sat around the container. Notice that I have not even mentioned that the rifle and butt came as two separate pieces. Guess what WOULD happen. Unless the butt part was linked to the rifle - linked together - it WOULD get separated just as sure as god made little green apples

[Gil Boyd]

Peter,
Totally agree, clearly a fad for someone who thought it a good idea at the time, and one can only summise at this stage until any papers are found to the contrary for that comment I put in earlier to be relative to this particular venture in modification:

"Not taken forward as parts may separate in the parachuting roll and render the weapon superfluous".

Of course the man portable container attached to your bergen came after the war, so any full sized manufactured rifle, would as you state be in a metal container on the DZ so would negate any modification in the first place!!

[mrclark303]

Morning Gil and Peter, wasn't the initial point of developing a shorter, lighter No4 (No5), to enable a Paratrooper to jump with it strapped to him?

It begs the question that if equipment containers were utilised early on, why was considerable effort wasted on No5 development?

I know it was also envisaged as superseding the No4 as the main service rifle, but all that effort into basically the same rifle a bit shorted and a bit lighter seems like an odd decision to make, with scarce resources on a War footing...

You would think that effort would have been better put into developing the Fn designed self loader, developed at Enfield during the war.

It would have given the British Army an Fn49, years before that rifle was actually launched...

[Gil Boyd]

John,
The only weapon EVER invisaged to be strapped to PARA's was the Sten. It was trialled and positioned just under the chest straps above the locking lug. After many broken ribs and other injuries that too was scrapped. Even then, there was a very strong chance of losing the butt.

So like Peter, I reserve my comments on why they would have bothered attempting it when containers were introduced to do just that. Conversely, we have no documented evidence from any major battles including the drop on Ginkel Heath for the Battle for Arnhem of ANY containers going missing leaving men without weapons.

So in short if it don't need fixing and it works OK don't try to change it, I suppose was the sensible phylosophy.

[mrclark303]

Cheers Gil....

So, I believe the original thinking for the No5, was for Airborne use, it's just curious to go through all the lightning/shortening troubles and trauma, just to chuck it in a parachute drop container that they might as well have put a No4 in anyway...

Or have I got it wrong, wouldn't be the first time mate....

[breakeyp]

Perhaps the johnny who thought up the two piece sten for paratroops had a go at the No.5? He was given this program so he would not muck up a more important one? Leek this to Germans to use their time and resources?

[Daan Kemp]

Basic military fact.

Equipment that is designed to be used fitted together will always be shipped separately [in many different ways].

[Gil Boyd]

These are pictures I found in the archive dated 1942, and the second one is dated 1945 No2's with sniper lads carrying stens, and it can clearly be seen how their No4T rifles were covered in bags too, with early bag containers at their feet which like today would have been lowered on exit.