Club Obi Wan

Was at the National War Musem in Ottawa on Remembrance day, and saw this little trio in the WW1 display...if you discount the colt (or if you think this is what they meant to use instead of the Browning Hi-Power), its all of Indy's guns! (and the Webley has a nice bayonet attatched to it - good for when you run out of bullets!)

Nice! I wouldn't mind having these three beauties hanging on my wall (though the danish police might mind - quite a bit actually).

Does anyone know where the bayonet on the Webley comes from? Has it ever been officially issued to military personel anywhere - or is it one of the many privately purchased/improvised weapons from the trenches of WWI?


/Jakob

When I hosted the 2005 Canada Summit here in Ottawa, we went to the War Museum and saw these guns in person, as well. The German submachine gun is elsewhere in the museum, too.

Crowe, next time you are there, look at the top of the slab from the Berlin Wall..you will find 'COW 05' written there, commemorating the visit!!

Cool...definately something to check out next time. I have a picture of the actaul piece from the wall...but not of the replica wall they have as the display around the piece (I take it thats what has COW on it)

looks like i'm going to ottawa with an empty mk vii bag. hey crowe, you didn't happen to notice any large boulders suspended up on a ramp in that vicinity, did ya?

I can honestly say I've never seen a set up like the one on the Webley! Wow! Talk about last resort weaponery!

Regards! Michaelson

indy had that setup in LC but spieldberg was tired of replacing the horse after every scene so the bayonet came off. why do you think wested never runs out of HH?

...ohhhh, i shouldn't have went there!!!!

groan..

Regards! Michaelson

A revolver bayonet is news to me too. Takes a cold-blooded trooper to charge with that in hand...

Nope...didn't notice any large boulders...so wished i had an empty MKVII and no one around though...lol

Heres some other good Indy-ish stuff they had there though

They had alot of Brownings scattered about...some hi power...some other types:


I dont think this is exact...but it sure reminded me of LC.:



And for the Star wars fans....


Anywho, anyone going to Ottawa shoudl definately see this...I went back when it was in teh old location before it moved..talk about cramped! But now the exhibits have tons of space.

Guys

It's a privately produced 1916 Pritchard pistol bayonet. They were manufactured by WW Greener, utilising a cut-down French Gras bayonet blade and were meant to attach to the Webley Mark IV - the only weapon ever carried by British Army officers in WW1. Think of it as being like a fighting knife you could shoot with if you got really desperate. The idea of a bayonet on a pistol wasn't new but was probably as ineffective in WWI as it was in the 18th Century. Only around 200 of these were ever produced, so it's rare.

Alan

Hmm the L1A1/FN-FAL-ish rifle to the left of the Sterling is interesting. Slim forestock, no carrying handle, and the mag well appears to be open on the other side. Have to look through the FN book, abd find out what that is.

Look at the wooden furniture, and machined parts, now those are rifles.

Looks like there are some guts missing on the Webley.
(stop it.)
Look where the trigger is resting.

The FAL in the photo is the heavy barrelled sustained fire version. Note the ramp sight. Just out of the frame, the fluted forestock ends (it's about half the length of the 'normal' version) and the upper gas cylinder is exposed. It will have a bipod.

Alan

So, is the mag well open to allow belted ammo?

Looks much lighter than the Israeli version.

Thanks for the info, in any case!

It uses the standard 20 round magazine (which makes the use of the term 'sustained fire' a bit questionable). I have often wondered why the carying handle wasn't fitted, as that would be more usual for a section support weapon.

Many of these were captured from Argentine forces during the Falklands conflict and have ended up in museums as a result.

Alan

Well, the "sustained fire" has more to do with the heavy barrel and being able to handle a higher consistant rate of fire without the barrel melting more than being able to be fired longer between reloading.

It's an automatic rifle, like the BAR (mag fed, non-crew served, non-quick change barrel) meant to be used by troops in the assault as opposed to a belt fed machinegun, originally designed to provide a base of fire for the maneuver element to move off of.

Though it's always been a real fine line between AR and LMG. I'd call the Bren Gun an AR but it, even being mag fed, is considered an LMG. Today we have a true LMG (the M249 SAW) in the AR role.

Matthew,

I agree. There are clear signs of the influence of the BAR on most modern heavy barrelled ARs. Even as early as WW1, of course, the 20 round mag. capacity of the BAR was being criticised.

The WW2 Bren gun also had a 20 round mag. too of course, but the moer modern L4 LMG version had a 30 round mag., which makes a suprising difference. H & K, of course, went down a really complicated route and produced mag. (HK-11), mag./belt (HK-21) and belt (HK-21A1) versions of its FAL equivalent.

FN just went ahead and developed the Minimi (M249).

Hey! Are we far enough off thread yet?

Alan

http://www.czub.cz/index.php?p=32&idp=1 ... 71&lang=en

Check this out.

You can't keep a bad idea down...

RC Halliburton wrote:Looks like there are some guts missing on the Webley.
(stop it.)
Look where the trigger is resting.

did the Webley come in a single action model. that may be the answer as to why the trigger is soo far back.

I think that's too far back even for single action.

I imagine the MKI version from Victorian era may have been single action.

The Bren has a 30 round magazine, but we found in use that 28 was max, before the spring started doing nasty things with the feeding. They als ohad a rare 100 round pan-shaped magazine as well.

Veering even further off topic.....

Right, RC. All Webleys revolvers except the Fosbery and the Mk IV were single action. The trigger comes forward when you cock the hammer, but it doesn't usually go that far back!

Coincidentally, I am involved in some research into the war-time manufacture of the 100 round magazine. It was used on the Bren in the anti-aircraft role and was developed from the Vickers GO magazine. The reason for the research is that they were made in large numbers at Austin Motors at Longbridge in a part of the works that is still known as the Bren Gun Shed. Austin eventually became Rover and Rover was recently taken over by a Chinese company, who are in the process of demolishing the part of the works were the Bren Gun Shed is. So, like Webley and Scott, another British institution with historical links goes by the board. Some of us think it is important to find out as much as we can before they go (hence the Webley thread above).

Oh, and here's a FN FAL in the heavy barrelled version, with an airborne FAL, both captured at Goose Green.

Alan

Actually, I think the FAL in the pic might not be the sustained fire version at all, rather the FN FAL (Model 50) 0.280in rifle.

http://world.guns.ru/assault/as24f-e.htm

the one at the top.

... must... not... go... into... .280... procurement... rant...

IndyParise,

I think you could be right, although the left side of the mag. housing looks more like a later model FAL. Maybe it's a later model with the prototype forestock. We need to see more of it to be sure.

I'd forgotten that Canada was involved in the .280/7.00 fiasco - in fact it was in the forefront. I've no wish to start Matthew off on his rant, let's just say that some people believe that the US pressure to go with the 7.62 round as the new NATO standard set back assault rifle design by more than 10 years and (thanks to Winston Churchill) the demise of the EM-2 in 1952, which would still be a 'state of the art' weapon in 2006.

Way off thread!

Alan

How do you DO that?!?

Post so succinctly and summarize without rancor....

I gotta get on medication.