No.5 Jungle Carbine ..used in WW2

[x westie]

i was wondering if the No.5 rifle {Jungle Carbine} was actually issued to British troops in the Far East before the end of the war,...in photos of the war in the Burma , all troops seem to be carrying the SMLE ,..very rarely do you see even a No.4 rifle ,..perhaps because of the long supply line from Britain the No.5 never got issued on large scale ,

Lots of photo's of the No.5 being used by the troops in Malaya after the war,..also in Palestine ,..but those photo's put the time frame around 1947-1948

 

[simonsez]

The no5 was adopted in 1944. I guess it was used during the last 2 years of the war

 

[TheIndifferent1]

Not sure. Mine was made in 1945

 

[Robbs]

There is photographic evidence of British Royal Marine Commandos using them during the liberation of the islands off the Dutch coast in 1945 and British paras in Norway in 1945 too. Safe to say the No. 5 saw limited action during the last days of the war.

 

[TheTooner]

It wasn't intended to be specifically a Jungle Carbine. It was developed to meet a requirement for a "shortened, lightened" version of the No. 4, which requirement was first identified as being important to airborne troops, most of whom were then allocated to European theatre of operations.

But not a lot of them got into front line service there, and then the Pacific theatre closed down rather suddenly only a few months later. So actual use in combat in WWII was limited, as Robbs stated. It was in the post WWII period of smaller wars and colonial insurgencies that it was used widely, and it was from these venues that it got the unofficial name Jungle Carbine.

 

[tiriaq]

I believe that the "Jungle Carbine" term originated with a US retailer of surplus arms.

 

[John Sukey]

Yup, just like the term "assault rifle" That was a gift to the gun grabbers from a bunch of dealers.