fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Just realized my folly of having bought a pamphelet on this rifle from Amazon.com entitled: "The Number 5 Jungle Carbine" by Alan M. Petrillo. Could have saved $ by passing on it, but curiosity got the better of me.
The following is from page 21, the chapter on the supposed wandering zero.
On the 'wandering zero':
The number 5 Mark 1 rifle suffered from what has been called the wandering zero. While the rifle was well liked by the British soldiers who used it,(why would they like a flawed rifle?) there were many complaints about the rifle's tendency to lose it's zero(supporting material absent from his book on this claim)
Then he goes on:
But British armourers were stumped to solve the problem of the wandering zero. It was determined that different batches of Number 5 rifles did not shoot to a consistenf norm(I really doubt British armourers would be 'unable to resolve it', but again he does not cite any supporting documentation).
And this guy goes on like this for another half page or so, nowhere does he cite ANY reference work whatsoever.
I have no idea why the Crown would put precious resources on the development of a novel gun like this, have it 'liked' by the troops, yet the thing was found to be a piece of junk(no disrespect to the British who devised it), I also find this veiled hatred of the British coming out in forum after forum when threads on the #5 MK I rifle are started.
According to at least Wikipedia, the rifle was part of the order of battle for British troops serving in the Malayan Emergency, at least during the first part of that war.
From Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
During the conflict security forces killed 6,710 MRLA guerrillas and captured 1,287. Of the total number of guerrillas, 2,702 surrendered during the conflict and about 500 at the end of the conflict. There were 1,346 Malayan troops and 519 British military personnel killed. 2,478 civilians were killed and 810 recorded missing as a result of the conflict.
I realize that the Commonwealth forces there were not solely armed with #5 MK I rifles, they had numerous other weapons systems to rely on to close with and destroy the enemy, but I fail to see the logic in putting garbage in the hands of your elite front line troops.
I guess I'm just seeing more British bashing in this guy's book, which lacks hard facts. I am very disappointed and don't reccomend this guy's book to anyone. I can understand somewhat where the Americans are coming from, what with things going in the UK(from over here, through our media filters, anyways, it seems things are going south over there). What do you think?
The following is from page 21, the chapter on the supposed wandering zero.
On the 'wandering zero':
The number 5 Mark 1 rifle suffered from what has been called the wandering zero. While the rifle was well liked by the British soldiers who used it,(why would they like a flawed rifle?) there were many complaints about the rifle's tendency to lose it's zero(supporting material absent from his book on this claim)
Then he goes on:
But British armourers were stumped to solve the problem of the wandering zero. It was determined that different batches of Number 5 rifles did not shoot to a consistenf norm(I really doubt British armourers would be 'unable to resolve it', but again he does not cite any supporting documentation).
And this guy goes on like this for another half page or so, nowhere does he cite ANY reference work whatsoever.
I have no idea why the Crown would put precious resources on the development of a novel gun like this, have it 'liked' by the troops, yet the thing was found to be a piece of junk(no disrespect to the British who devised it), I also find this veiled hatred of the British coming out in forum after forum when threads on the #5 MK I rifle are started.
According to at least Wikipedia, the rifle was part of the order of battle for British troops serving in the Malayan Emergency, at least during the first part of that war.
From Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
During the conflict security forces killed 6,710 MRLA guerrillas and captured 1,287. Of the total number of guerrillas, 2,702 surrendered during the conflict and about 500 at the end of the conflict. There were 1,346 Malayan troops and 519 British military personnel killed. 2,478 civilians were killed and 810 recorded missing as a result of the conflict.
I realize that the Commonwealth forces there were not solely armed with #5 MK I rifles, they had numerous other weapons systems to rely on to close with and destroy the enemy, but I fail to see the logic in putting garbage in the hands of your elite front line troops.
I guess I'm just seeing more British bashing in this guy's book, which lacks hard facts. I am very disappointed and don't reccomend this guy's book to anyone. I can understand somewhat where the Americans are coming from, what with things going in the UK(from over here, through our media filters, anyways, it seems things are going south over there). What do you think?