SLR / SA80 or M16!

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I remember, after a number of years, the Army woke up to the fact that firing the SLR was causing High Frequency Deafness. and issued us with those daft little earplug-type ear defenders.

At long last, i now know why they were issued..Thank you so much Brum..I remember trying them for size ,stuck them back in the box and forgot about them..

And I never knew! But if there was an argument, we'd have lost on time of issue grounds....
We had those rubbery plug things given out in NS, and, to really swing a lamp, I have an idea they were freebies for civilians in WW2. . But I guess ours could have been for Gunners only. Standard shouts for range days were "Don't flinch, lad! It's only a bang !" Much later we were even required to protect ears on the indoor .22 range.

Seem to remember SLR came to us at the same time as someone decided to dig one man pits in front of the prone firing points.......... Apart from filling with water those holes seemed to add a volume to anything shot from behind them.

Dress back to the 100 meter point - DON'T forget the telephone!

Nothing like a day at the Warcop Target Ranges.

I remember only to well being in the butts with the mandatory watered down glue for the target patches, when the guy shooting on my target kept hitting the ground behind the butts.

Normally the sounds were a 'crack thump,' but quite often it was the richochet and 'twang' followed by a hand full of dirt that followed it.

Range days in the Butts was as far as most of us ever gotting shot at! Maybe even more dangerous than Active Service!

One duty which I never got, was the long lonely march and sitting it out with the Red flag on the hillside.

Must not forget the mandatory 'stew' for dinner in the hay boxes and urns of coolish tea. Or the guys who put a piece of 4x4 down the SLR gas piston chamber instead of a piece of 4x2 or didn't use the middle loop on the pull through cord.

gingerjim wrote:

303 .sten. bren,2 inch mortar 3.5 rocket launcher. energa anti tank grenade, knife fork and spoon , that was the weapons of the 50s, ginger

Don't forget the Enfield pistol mate. The double action job with no spur on the hammer.

(Energa grenade, wasn't that the one the SLR fired with a Ballastite cartridge ?).

In British service, the ENERGA was known as the Anti-Tank Grenade, No. 94 (ENERGA). It was designed to be fired from the Projector (No. 4 Rifle) Mark 5 (c.1952), an attachment for the Lee-Enfield No.4 Rifle. The later SLR could also fire the ENERGA, but it was not commonly done. It was made obsolete by the adoption of the 84mm L14A1 Medium Anti-tank Weapon (MAW) and the 66mm M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW).

brum wrote:

gingerjim wrote:

303 .sten. bren,2 inch mortar 3.5 rocket launcher. energa anti tank grenade, knife fork and spoon , that was the weapons of the 50s, ginger

Don't forget the Enfield pistol mate. The double action job with no spur on the hammer.

(Energa grenade, wasn't that the one the SLR fired with a Ballastite cartridge ?).

Wasn't that the Webley made for the tankies?.

Going to get technical again ! Sorry! The Enfield .38 pistol was designed and made as a single or double action weapon, but it was mainly issued to tankies who didn't like the spur on the hammer as it caught on bits of tank when they jumped about. Removing the spur effectively made it double action only. Unfortunately, users now had a pistol which retained the original trigger pull spring, one which was too strong for the accurate deliberate shooting which would have been possible if the weapon could have been cocked manually. Another CHOFU by all accounts. Answer...... swap it for a Smith & Wesson.

To be honest, I couldn't hit the proverbial barn door with a pistol until I got my hands on a 9mm Browning. For DR ing on schemes we always tried to get pistols rather than Stens, but there were never enough to go round. As a substitute I once went out with a Verey pistol which looked the same whilst it was in a holster. Nearly got away with it too, but the BSM decided to have a small arms inspection while I was still in BHQ's location.

Thanks for that "cartav", don't know much about pistols and had not picked up on the Enfield pistol being the "spurless" one. Do have a couple of colts at my sisters place in AZ that I bought in auction over the net but have not fired them yet. Fired a few Black Powder pistols at the club but can't be messing around loading the things with a smell like that powder gives off.
Only goes to prove you can still learn something every day.

gingerjim wrote:

303 .sten. bren,2 inch mortar 3.5 rocket launcher. energa anti tank grenade, knife fork and spoon , that was the weapons of the 50s, ginger

I only fired the 3.5 in once. I objected to that chain mail thing you had to wear on your face.

Having to use a weapon like that against a tank would take more courage than I ever had.

My shot did score a hit on the turret ring though.

After qualifying on the Bren,SLR,and SMG as an apprentice.i only fired the SMG twice more and the others never again..

'Lo Daveb ! Should have given you credit for mentioning the Webley pistol...............
Understand it was submitted for Army trials but was rejected because of some issue with the lock mechanism. However, it seemed good enough for the Enfield to be pretty much a copy with some variation to the internal bits. At a casual glance I think it would be difficult to say which was which until the spur was deleted on the Enfield.

Only ever fired the Charlie G with an adaptor and tracer. Think it was 7.65? I did knock out a canvas tank once at Warcop but then we set the grass on fire and had to make like firemen. Good fun.

The Carlie G Sub-Calibre L1A2 device most will remember looked like a 84mm HEAT round and fired a 6.5mm Tracer Round - this being the Swedish small arms calibre

There is a later version, still used (the FFV553B) which uses standard 7.62mm Tracer plus a small cartridge to simulate back blast.

Nobody remembers the old PIAT, then. From the same era, I'm keeping up correspondence with an ex-Wehrmacht combat engineer who was i/c of a Panzerjager group who were seeking out Shermans & Cromwells to loose off their Panzerfausts........ that's like an early and very effective RPG which could blow a hole in 200mm of armourplate from something less than 60 yards away. He was captured by airborne lads at Petershagen, near Minden, in April '45.

The PIAT was discussed previously on the Forum, possibly before you joined us cartav. In one word it can be described as a 'bugger' to load and fire, but for its time fairly effective.

Len (Ciphers)

the trouble with the energa was you had to virtually lie down on the deck dig the butt of the 303 into the ground point it in the general direction of the target and quickly flick the trigger making sure your finger gets out of the way very sharpish , otherwise you ended up with a broken diget, that ballastite cartridge really packed a punch, i was the camps armourer and it was my job to instruct on various weapons, i was on the range one day and the lads were firing the energa, . our csm, . a right bloody idiot with university degrees loaded his rifle , with the ballastite cartridge and lifted the 303 to his shoulder, i yelled at him sir you will injure yourself, , he answerd dont try to tell me how to fire this weapon cpl , dont you dare, he pulled the trigger , flew back into the air about 15 feet and landed flat on his back with his collarbone and elbow out of place, what an idiot the man was , he just would not be told, a csm of all people, .ginger

The PIAT was declared obsolete in 1956 and no stocks of grenades existed as A1 for issue beyond that date.

The M20A1 3.5" Rocket Launcher continued in service till around 1978ish when in was replaced with the 66mm pre-loaded HEAT [M72 LAW] rocket in second line use. The 84mm Carl Gustaff and 66mm were in front line service from the late 60's

There was a No94 Energa Grenade attachment for the SLR which locked onto the bayonet lug, and a 7.62mm Ballastite Cartridge, half stained black like its .303" counterpart to signify it was not a blank round.

If I remember corectly the grandes came with a .303" cartridge in a cork pushed into the end of the granade tail ready for use, and 7.62mm cartridges were issued to units in bulk to replace them. Some stocks in BAOR were reworked at 3 BAPD to replace the cartridge.

The attachment for both the .303" Enfield and the 7.62mm SLR had a perspex graduated sight which you flipped up before loading the grenade, which as "gingerjim" points out you grounded the boot before firing as it gave a hell of a kick. The Navy & Coastguard also used them (as a dummy grenade) to fire a guideline to haul a rope for various types of work!

For interest the small pocket on the right hand ammo pouch on 58 pattern webbing is for the Energa adaptor.

Back in the 70s, JTR Rhyl, up behild the camp, was a half submerged tank, I later discovered it was a yank Stuart Lighight Tank. But, we had, one of many, a demo of a ENERGA grenade, the redoughtable Cpl Canavan ( Royal Welsh Regiment, a profesional infantryman if ever there was one) launched a practice grenade from an SLR. It was a lovely shot, hit the turret smack on, but I did notice he was shakeing his right hand in pain, It was obvious that the kick back was tremendous. Lucky us RCT bods' aint no heros.

Well it`s a comfort to see i`m not the only non hero on here.

We are all Heroes

The part a I like most about this thread right now is that I've handled, fired or seen most to these items. Even the PIAT, in a fire power demo in 70 or 71 in CFB Petawawa and a Bren Gun Carrier. Where they found them lord knows. Incidentally an armoured carrier got stuck and the Bren Gun carrier ran circles around him. Worth a laugh especially for the military attachies from the various embassies.

I SEEM TO REMEMBER SOMEONE TELLING ME YOU COULD USE THE LOOP ON THE PULL THROUGH TO PULL THE TRIGGER TO FIRE THE ENERGA, I'M PROBLEY TALKING OUT MY AR#E OR DREAMING

merchant6690 wrote:

For interest the small pocket on the right hand ammo pouch on 58 pattern webbing is for the Energa adaptor.

Thanks for enlightening me, I allways wondered what that was for !

I used to keep my blank attachment in it.