Canada’s Ross rifle more peril than protection for First World War soldiers

[teenahlake]

Wasn't just stupid British General's. My Great Uncle's had joined the West Nova's. Because the french don't recognize naturalization for 6 generations when my family landed in France they were arrested and to be shot at dawn as deserter's. The Colonel advised the French that they were welcome to shoot his men, but that he would march his Regiment back on board ship, and they could fight there own battle's. Sadly only a few returned.

 

[flying pig]

Smellie, sadly there were very few trained armourers from what I read in TRRS.

There were plans in the works to shorten the MkIII to 26" and provide a much larger bolt stop to prevent breaking the rear locking lug.

A lot of the broken bolts resulted from very very poor attempts to heat treat the bolts in the field.

Many of the men had never seen or carried the MkIII before landing in mainland Europe.

Even McBride said the Canadian ammunition was prized by the Emma Gees. He talked in A Rifleman Went to War about storing certain lots of it for later use in their MGs. There are also reports of SMLEs not being able to chamber the crap. Picture shooting factory .303 out of your sloppiest chambered Lee-Enfield and then neck sizing it and shooting it out of your tightest chambered one. All the primary extraction on earth isn't going to close that bolt. And after you have been mad and hammered that bolt home it is going to be even harder to pull it back, and the damned thing won't even set it off if its out of battery. Ding Ding Ding there is your jam-o-matic. Add to that that you have forced the bolt back that much harder to remove the wedged heavily oversized case out of the chamber and you now have a bolt getting violently slammed into the bolt stop and damaging the rear lug, bening or breaking it off. Bending causing the head to wedge when rotated into battery and a broken one reducing the locking lug surface substantially. Now have a blockage in the barrel, maybe the added pressure there could cause a blowback? All of it adds up. Remember too that if the bolt became heavily fouled the average soldier was not to clean it. But I know I would if it meant life or death. If I didn' t notice the difference of the Rule Of Thumb for the MKIII bolt though it could mean death. Lose lose. Soldiers should have been better trained in its assembly.

They aren't perfect. All of my Rosses are quirky. Their stocks all fit differently. They all shoot a little different. They all have their own personalities and you can see the progression and things that Ross was steadily changing to alleviate problems as he or the troops discovered them. They were never going to have amazing primary extraction like a Lee-Enfield. They would always be more sensitive to dirt and junk ammo. But were the rifles themselves unsafe? No. Would I trust one with my life in a do or die fight over a Lee-Enfield, definitely not. But I would also cringe at the thought of having to do the same with ANY of the other major battle rifles of WWI or II. The Lee-Enfield is simply a rifle built for war at its most refined yet brutal. They are tough and yet get the job done exceptionally. You don't race rally in a Ferrari. The Ross made an excellent specialists rifle and an exceptional hunting rig. I honestly wish it would have stayed that way, its reputation may be very different today, maybe Canada would be the top builder of fine rifles if it had.

I always laugh at people "in the know" who say the Ross is dangerous. I own 7 currently. I shoot all of them. Sporters, .280, .303, Military Mks I-III. I have all my fingers, toes and am still as normal looking as anyone else. The problem remains as with everything else: there are too many damned people who think they know without any real experience with things. Great battle rifle: poor timing meant it never had a chance to mature so no. Great potential and a beautiful work of art: beyond comprehension yes.

 

[Tinman204]

I'm no expert but I own and shoot a good portion of the rifles used in the great war. The Ross MkIII is by far my favorite.

And I'll agree it's a tad long for trench warfair, but other then that I can find no other faults in the rifle.

But all of the above said if a TV program states that it's a piece of junk then it must be true. Everything in the news is true right??

 

[RRCo.]

Justin is that you? I know that the Quebecois were quite disturbed that they had to answer the call to arms of a country that many of them hate. Of course many answered and the rest is history.The sacrifice shown by so many is what the history of our country is based on.There is nothing wrong with a Ross as long as it has been properly assembled and maintained.Your opinions are yours, and ours are ours.

Did you mean France, Canada or both? What cracks me up is how many Quebecers seem to love their American Cousin which has sucked more francophones down the assimilationist drain than the rest of Canada put together and several times over. And once NA union rolls up the rest will go the same way. The funny part is that the same Anglo-Canadian identity they worked so hard to erode through their control of the federal government over the last 40+ years was the greatest buttress against NA union. How's that for a Pyrrhic victory?! But that's all moot now anyway, so back to the Ross...

 

[highlander]

The parallels are very similar.
Both rifles were dismal failures when issued and resulted in a great deal of needless deaths to the men they were issued.
Both times the respective political powers that be knew the rifles were a liability to draftee enlisted men but didn't care.
Also in both cases more effective/reliable rifles were readily available.

Quite true; but Then the parallels differ.

The Ross was regulated to second and third line usage (Home Guard, etc.) and was replaced as soon as time allowed. After that, except for hunting or as a collectable it quickly went on to obscurity.

The M 16, on the other hand, was improved on, garnered considerable more combat experience, and is still used today.

Not exactly an even comparison.

 

[Mike Webb]

Quite true; but Then the parallels differ.

The Ross was regulated to second and third line usage (Home Guard, etc.) and was replaced as soon as time allowed. After that, except for hunting or as a collectable it quickly went on to obscurity.

The M 16, on the other hand, was improved on, garnered considerable more combat experience, and is still used today.

Not exactly an even comparison.

As the Ross may have been if flaws were corrected and upgrades made as in the case of the M16.

 

[Tinman204]

If the MkIII Ross had the chambers reemed to the same specs as the MkII then they may have been able to eat that out of spec british ammo. But they were never modified.

The M-16, lee enfield have/had gone through numerous updates. Smellie and a few others here are more qualified theb me to list the updates to the Lee Enfield platform.

To me it's a moot point as out of spec ammo was the culprit and was no fault of the rifle.

 

[mikerock]

MANY of the Ross's problems came directly from the SSAC: Standing Small Arms Committee, which was a Canadian Government committee staffed by "experts". It was endless nitpicking and criticism on the part of the SSAC which resulted in most of the EIGHTY-TWO catalogued changes to the specification of the Ross Rifle Mark II.

The Mark III was the (new) standard model at the outbreak of the War, only small numbers having been delivered prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. These first-delivery Mark III Rosses may be identified by their anomalous serials on the right side of the Butt. The rifle shown in the large colour photo at the beginning of this thread has such a serial number. It is not at ALL like the numbers found on regular-production Mark III rifles. I have a similar serial number on one of my own rifles, which is marked A16XX and lacks the regular "roundel" and standard Ross 123/1914 AA type of serial. It is a rifle marked to 16 Battalion which served in Canada and Bermuda before going to England and then to France and finally to Chile with our superdreadnought HMS CANADA. Mark III rifles were manufactured in Quebec and delivered directly to the troops at Valcartier, many of whom had received their first training on the Mark II rifles.

Not generally known is the fact that the Ross Rifle Mark III was the choice of TWO Dominions in the Great War. Newfoundland, which had NO military prior to the outbreak of the War, swiftly raised a tiny Army which was trained at Quidi Vidi on Lee-Metfords from the HMS BRITON (HMS CALYPSO prior to 1905). I am happy to be able to state that I also have a Mark II Lee-Metford from the CALYPSO; her wreck was 500 yards from my house when I lived in Newfoundland. The DOMINION OF NEWFOUNDLAND decided that they wanted the most accurate rifle in the world for their troops. A huge flag was put up in the main window of Ayres' department store in St. John's and at the bottom of the flag rested a brand-new Mark III Ross Rifle, lying upon a bed of crushed red velvet. A sign stated that this was the most accurate rifle in the world and that it had been selected to arm the Newfoundland Contingent. It was also mentioned that the rifles cost $28 each and that CONTRIBUTIONS from the Public for the purchase of these rifles would be taken inside the store. Newfoundland's ordered 500 Ross Mark III rifles were made and shipped from the factory, but did not arrive in St. John's before the SS FLORIZEL had sailed with the First Contingent. The Rosses followed the "Blue Puttees" to England on the next available ship..... where they were seized by the British Government and "put into storage". They have not been seen since and there is today no confirmed specimen of a Newfoundland Ross Rifle.

The Canadian Artillery requested a Ross Rifle which was shorter than the standard Mark III and shaped to fit the brackets on the limbers of the British-built guns. The Company built a specimen rifle fitted with a 26-inch barrel. The Standing Small Arms Committee rejected the entire idea.

I have written SEVERAL times in this Forum regarding ACTUAL combat experience with the Ross, as told to me by men who actually USED it. My own Grandfather was a Sniper with 54 Battalion ("The Kootenay Regiment" until there were no more British Columbians to refill its ranks again, then it became the "New Brunswick" battalion: rough fighting). He had the greatest respect for the Ross and carried both rifles, the SMLE and the Ross, until the end of the War. He said the SMLE was useful for "quick work" but the Ross was better for deliberate long-range shooting. The only shot he ever talked about was a night shot in total darkness, firing at the flash of a German sniper's rifle. The range was about 400 yards. There was no more enemy sniping in 54th's sector of the Front for some time afterwards.

I knew TWO men who took part in the horrific fighting in the St. Julien sector of Second Ypres when Fritz put the gas through on 23 April, 1915. "A" Company of 8th Battalion ("Little Black Devils": Royal Winnipeg Rifles) went up THROUGH the gas when the French Colonial troops broke. A single Company faced THREE German DIVISIONS in what likely was the worst single pure rifle-to-rifle engagement ever fought. L/Cpl Robert Courtice told me that they fired their Rosses until they were TOO HOT TO TOUCH, then replaced them with a cold rifle from a casualty, fired that one until it, also, could no longer be touched, then went back to their original rifles, now cooled. Private Alex McBain, who was with him that day, confirmed the story in a separate interview. They fired all of their own ammunition and scavenged piles more from the massive number of casualties. Each of those men fired AT LEAST 150 rounds that day and likely the number was considerably higher; both men refused to give me an exact estimate. I asked Cpl. Courtice at what ranges they were firing and all he did was hang his head and shake it, whispering "Too close to miss....". The interviews were 56 years after the fight but both men had extremely clear memories of the fight, Pte. McBain because it was his only big battle: he was wounded during the fight and returned home. Cpl. Courtice was blown up by a 90-pounder which dropped into his trench bay a couple of night before the big assault at Givenchy, only a couple of weeks later. He was the only survivor of the 12 men in the bay. When I knew him, he still had chunks of steel working their way out of his face.... and he had a matchbox of steel chunks which had worked their way out of his head, arms and brain over the years. Both men defended the Ross Rifle, Pte. McBain in MOST vehement fashion ("It's ALL LIES!! There was NOTHING WRONG WITH THE GOD-DAMNED ROSS RIFLE!!!")

If I had to take an EXPERT opinion from the men I have known who used the Ross in combat, it would have to be that of Captain George Dibblee, DCM (Regina Trench). Capt. Dibblee was a cowboy before the War, driving 700 head of cattle into a corral where the Husky Tower now stands in Calgary. He quit being a cowboy and took a job as a Guide for the North-West Mounted Police in 1907 or 1908. He joined the 5th Battalion, Canadian Mounted Rifles in 1914 as a Private soldier and worked his way up to Captain, which rank he held when he was the second man to enter Cambrai in 1918 ("The bridge across the Canal was blown and there weren't enough pontoons to cross all the way, so they put up a plank. The plank broke when I was halfway across and so my Sergeant fished me out!"). "The Ross Rifle," said Capt. Dibblee, "was UNPOPULAR due to its length and weight; you couldn't get into a dugout with your rifle slung. ..... We had NO troubles with the Ross in our Regiment, but we kept our equipment CLEAN, not like some outfits that never cleaned their equipment."

I think Capt. Dibblee's opinion sums things up for me rather well.

Were I 50 years younger and still in the military, would I want THE MOST ACCURATE RIFLE EVER BUILT? Even if I had to clean it? Damned right!

That's why I have close to 20 of them on my racks.

BTW the Ross may not have been good enough.... but it certainly served the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines Light Infantry well enough.... through BOTH WORLD WARS. And it served well in Latvia and Estonia as well. So where are they all? Russia is sitting on better than HALF of the total production. They only use them when it is time to clear OUR teams off the international ranges.....

Agree 100% with you and Buffdog.

Out of spec British ammo and politics are to blame for the downfall of the Ross. All accounts I have read about combat soldiers who used the rifle praised it. "In the Trenches" by Iriam is a great book by a sniper who used the Ross throughout the war.

Forgotten Weapons even did an episode where they assembled a Ross bolt incorrectly and fired it. The result was that the safety features built into the bolt stopped it in the action instead of launching in back into waiting ballistic gelatin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaSui_UqDX8

Fast forward to 13:30 for the money shot.

 

[Nyles]

The Winchester 95's were highly revered by the czarist forces.
The Ross was definitely not up to military service.

I'm curious as to your source on that, considering they were sent mainly to troops in Finland and the Baltic, away from the front. And when the US evaluated them in the Phillipines they were declared unsuited for military service. I own two 95s, a Russian contract Musket and a .30-40 Krag carbine, and they're both difficult to load (especially the Russian - those fat 7.62x54s don't want to slip through the feed lips) and require a lot of force to get the round to pop up into the feed path - difficult to do in the prone position. It's especially pronounced on the last round - you have to slam down the lever hard enough that it's painful on the firing hand.

 

[cyclone]

I fire my Ross rifles all the time. I still have both eyes and all of my cheekbones!

What you didn't hear talked about in the British or Canadian Press corp., or the either countries newspapers, was the fact that the much vaunted Number 1 Mk3 (SMLE) during the early part of the war also had the oversize British contract ammo stick in the chambers of their rifles and cause much grief in combat. However, unlike the lambasting the Ross got in the press due to stuck oversize cases, the SMLE's reputation remained unscathed as their rifles were quietly removed from service long enough to ream their chambers larger, and be re-issued. It is not unreasonable, even during war time, to expect ammunition to be made to spec. The fact that these British Contractors got away with producing crap ammo, should have been the real story.

The politics of business also played a great part as well. Don't think for a minute, that after soundly getting trounced at Bisley for several years by the Ross, that the members of the British gun makers trade weren't above complaining bitterly to their masters and weren't also glad to see/contribute in any way possible to the demise of the Ross.

As is so often the case, the worst of it was the cover-up, not the "crime".


The extent to which Canadian industry & ministers went to "deny, deny, deny" that issues existed once they knew there was something to be addressed...was reprehensible. Whatever the design/design-flaws, the "red flag" was raised regarding the Ross' main-force battlefield performance, and definitely ought to have been dealt-with promptly.


Which was very much akin to the M-16 "saga". In C.J. Chivers' book "The Gun", he devotes a significant chunk of pages to detailing just how much Colt (and the government, but also Colt in a big way) kept denying/evading/downplaying known, identified issues with front-line main-force M-16 usage. Again, whatever the design/design-flaws, the responsibility (for human lives) was "activated" once the "red flag" was prominently raised over battlefield performance issues.


Curiously enough - and IIRC - the parallel "also" extends in that both the Ross and the M-16 suffered from problems related to "issue ammunition"; the Ross with case-dimensions that were "out of spec", and the M-16 with issues relating to the powder used in the issued ammunition. IIRC, that is!

 

[milsurpo]

This all reminds me of arguments I have with a cousin who thinks the Avro Arrow was the greatest jet interceptor ever (sort of) built. The Ross's reputation is a fact. Like all reputations it may be partially based on misinformation but it (the rifle) had it's chance and now resides in the sewers of history. The Mannlicher M95 was infinitely more successful but was pretty much obsolete by the end of WW1. Straight pulls had no significant future. Conventional bolt actions continued on for a long time even after many functional semi-auto systems had been perfected. I've read the big book on the Ross and it's not really a feel-good story any way you look at it. Canada and his Lordship were in way over their heads in attempting a home-grown infantry rifle and much of the tale is cringe-worthy.

milsurpo