I’ve been playing Call of Duty 2 lately (a great game, by the way) and it has left me wondering something. Why is it that the British never developed a semi-automatic rifle during World War II?
The M1 Garand, of course, was the standard armament for the American soldier. The Germans mostly used the Mauser bolt-action but they also had the Gewehr 43, which was a semi-auto. The Russians likewise had the SVT40, a similar rifle, though their standard troops used the Mosin Nagant.
But the British chiefly used the Enfield bolt action rifle, and never developed a semi-automatic infantry rifle during the war as all the other countries did.
One of the reasons I’ve heard was that the British generals were afraid their men would burn through their ammo too rapidly if they switched to a semi-auto. Besides, the SMLE was good enough for the last war, etc.
Oh, it does. I can rip through a loading in a couple of seconds. But British generals were real big on tradition and all that. Aimed fire was what won battles, not the spray and pray that semi-auto would bring on.
In Call of Duty 2, anyway, I think it’s a pretty slow and shitty rifle and I don’t like the sights. But that’s just a game. I’ve never actually fired one in real life - I might like it. AIM Surplus just got a bunch of Enfield No. 4 Mk. 1s in - now that I have my C&R maybe I’ll go for it.
They also offer an Ishapore Enfield made in India. It’s in .308 instead of .303. But something about its appearance somehow looks “off.” Am I alone in thinking that?
Between the wars, the Brits played at developing a new rifle and a new cartridge. The other nations did as well. When hostilities broke out , only the US had gone as far as adopting an autoloader…and the Garand was in short supply still when we entered the fray a couple years later.
For the other countries, it made much more sense to continue using the rifle for which they had tooling, ammunition, and training than it did to try to switch to something new in the middle of a war. Introducing new weapon is always a painful process as bugs are detected that didn’t reveal themselves during field trials. A war for your nation’s very survival isn’t a good place to be ironing out the kinks in a new weapon design when you have a proven weapon in use that is adequate to the task.
Because the Sten is not semi-automatic? I believe it is select-fire, but an automatic setting kind of takes precedence in naming. I read semi-automatic and my brain sort of drifts to “the standard firearm for civilians.”
Argent Towers, I have a 2A. I haven’t gotten around to firing it yet. It’s pretty much the same thing as a Mk III except the caliber. A lot of the metal is coated with black paint, is that what makes it look off to you?
From reading Quartered Safe Out Here, by the recently-late George MacDonald Fraser, there was a strong Army tradition of putting aimed shots where they were wanted, not just popping caps. Posed less of a logistical problem too, obviously.
