Just goes to show how effective she was 
Lack of funding, and the Ten Year Rule. Much of what there was went to the Air Force and the Navy. The Army Estimates were cut year after year in the Twenties.
Army weapons were the concern of five organisations:
Research Department - largely concerned with explosives and artillery ammunition
Inspection Department - quality control
Royal Ordnance Factories - making the weapons; most efficient organisation of them all
Design Department - The Design Department was divided into three sections, Gun Design, Ammunition Design and Small Arms Design, the latter being the least efficient of the lot. It was staffed by infantry officers, on the theory that end users were best suited to specify their own requirements. Few of these officers had any professional engineering qualifications and no civilians were employed in a higher rank than draughtsman. The end result was the Design Department produced very little of value in the smallarms field, and most of what they did do was confined to adapting foreign designs to British requirements and producing inch-systems drawings of them for the Ordnance Factories.
Ordnance Board - coordinating all the above and advising the Chiefs of Staff on weapons questions. This was a rigidly conservative body, steadfastly opposed to such innovations as blowback guns and nitro-cellulose propellants. Marshal of the RAF Lord Tedder later commented of it that he had never believed there could be an organisation so unsuited to modern methods or decision-making. It reminded him of the Mad Hatter’s tea Party in Alice - except that there was certainly more than one dormouse.
The British did acquire an M1 rifle, (no. 7114), in 1939, one of the early muzzle-cap rifles, presumably through the Military Attaché. By then war was inevitable and a mass re-equipment with an entirely new design using a non-standard cartridge was never seriously going to happen.
Towards the end of the war the General Staff Requirements for a new rifle were stated in terms of the .30-06 cartridge but this was rapidly dropped once it became clear that the Americans themselves were looking for a replacement.
Enhance, please?
Rosie the riveter, without the balls.
Seconded. I bought one years ago when I had a C&R FFL, and the caliber and finish are the only differences I noticed. I’ve fired mine a few times, and had no problems with it
Both popular during WW2, one a singer (VL) the other a comedian and ukelele player.
A quick Google will give you all the info you need.
Incidentally, Formby is the only man ever to win the Grand National and the Isle of Man TT races on the same day.
The 2A’s have a slightly different shape to the magazine, which may be what makes them look “off” to Argent Towers.
It’s true. I wish they had rounded off the bottom of the magazine, just for the sake of aesthetics, so as not to break up the lines of the rifle. I realize they had to be concerned with function and not form, but if I got a .308 Enfield I wonder if I could have a mag custom-machined to look like the .303 one.
“We got them and we shot them under Rule .303!” - Harry “Breaker” Morant, during the Boer War
And that’s not Edward Woodward’s only experience with the Enfield rifle.
In this screen capture which I have conveniently linked to, from the film The Wicker Man, you can see an Enfield rifle mounted on the wall of Lord Summerisle’s castle, as Woodward’s character Sgt. Howie is being led in to meet the Lord (Christopher Lee.) Right underneath it is, I believe, a Springfield M1903.
Because using semi-auto’s would have been terribly unsporting. Obviously. :rolleyes: 
There was a Military Channel special the other day - *Greatest Rifles Evar * or somesuch - which posited that a reasonably seasoned soldier with an LE could fire upward of 20 rounds per minute, while a decent rate of fire with a Garand was 16.
I have no idea if that’s true or not, but it would certainly make upgrading to semi-auto much less of a pressing concern.
I was an Air Cadet in my youth (1986-1988 approx) and we still used the Lee Enfield then. As I remember it was fairly easy to shoot and although it was supposed to have a big kick didn’t seem too bad. I could certainly shoot straighter with the 303 than with the SLR which we also used at the time. We only had 5 round magazines, which were a bit of a drawback, but I’m sure that there was a 10 round magazine as well.
That hump on the top does make it look like a M1903; can’t tell if it has leaf sights or the 1917 stairstep sights. But it really looks like it has the semi-pistol grip of the later M1903A
Thank you. 
The SMLE has a reputation for being faster than other bolt guns. I’m not buying that it is faster than the Garand. With an auto rifle, there is no repositioning hands between shots. A very skilled SMLE expert works the action during recoil, but that still would make him only about even, or a little less, with a run of the mill rifleman armed with a Garand. A highly skilled Garand shooter can keep very nearly continuous fie going as fast as he can regain his sight picture from each shot. The en bloc clips are very fast to load into the rifle.
The AK and the SMLE are the 2 rifles whose fans are most prone to overstate their virtues IME.
Quite so old chap, just not cricket y’know 
Given the prevailing doctrines and philosophies of infantry combat during WW2, what advantage did a semi-auto rifle confer vis a vis a bolt action?
With a semi-auto, you never have to take your finger from the trigger. This enables you to regain your sight picture faster. Under desperate circumstances, the Garand may be operated entirely one-handed. This is rather an exercise in futility with a bolt-action weapon.