Numbers of weapons obtained by Canada?

[Nyles]

Does anyone (Smellie and GrantRCanada come to mind) know the actual numbers obtained of the various weapons used by Canada in the 20th century? Info on 19th century procurements is easy enough to obtain, and GrantRCanada's excellent article on Canada service pistols has those covered, but what about rifles and MGs?

I have an old Military Arms of Canada booklet from the Upper Canada Historical Arms Society which gives a figure of 342,000 Ross rifles, but doesn't specify the breakdown of Mk.II vs Mk.III. It states that 3000 out of 12,000 Mk.II rifles were delivered, but that must only refer to the Mk.II proper (no *), not the whole Mk.II series.

I have nothing for SMLE or No.4s, or the Colt, Vickers, Lewis and Bren machine guns, or Stens and Thompsons (I know there are figures for how many Stens were made at Long Branch, but there's pictures of Canadian troops with Mk.IIIs so not all Canadians had Long Branch Stens, and not all Long Branch Stens went to Canadians), or or the Boys ATR.

If this information available?

 

[stencollector]

Doubtful. Even the production records are often contradictory. In the haste and fog of war, with firearms sold, sunk, loaned, begged and borrowed, then some returned, some gifted or mutual aid, I don't think you could ever pinpoint numbers.

 

[smellie]

There was a little yellow paperback book available from the Queen's Printer about 40 years ago called "Military Inspection Services in Canada" or something very close to that, with two dates appended. IIRC the publicaton date was 1965; could be wrong but that's approximately correct. There SHOULD be a copy in the National Library, available on Inter-Library Loan through your local Public Library.

What it dealt with was locations of Inspectorates and numbers of Inspectors..... and also the total numbers of which items were inspected, mostly 20th Century figures. SOME of the figures were absolutely perfect, for example, numbers of Ballester-Molina .45-calibre pistols purchased from Argentina (yes, we had a few) but other figures were COMBINED. Example there might be Motorcycles, which came in at least 2 main Makes (Indian and Harley-Davidson) and 4 or 5 Models (Harley 45 and 74, Indian 30.50, 45 and 74). I tried sorting out SOME of this, many years ago, and can tell you that, of all the Motorcycles, 23,222 were Harley-Davidson Model WLC (45-cubic-inch, medium cam, convoy gearing, AM-suppressed ignition, Canadian mods) which were purchased by Order In Council. Included but not counted were enough critical spares to build several thousand more and spares galore. Of course, others were purchased by DND CONTRACT.... so that is entirely a different paper-chase. And Canadian Inspectors APPROVED 4.2 BILLION rounds of .303" smallarms ammunition..... but there were no breakdowns as to type (Ball, Tracer...... 5 types, AP, Incendiary..... 4 types, Practice, Drill, Blank or anything else), nor of actual Manufacturer: Dominion Arsenals or Defence Industries.

As Stencollector has said, I don't think it will EVER all be sorted out.

Try for a copy of the book. It's a starting-point, if nothing else. Inspectorate Services should have an Archive. They might let a researcher in for things that old. It SHOULD be in the Public Archives in Ottawa. I found the English-speaking staff there to be most helpful when I was there; the hard part is making it through the "officially bilingual" fashion plates until you get far enough down the food chain to find somebody who understands what he is doing and is willing to help. GAWD! What day that was!

Hope this helps.
.

 

[wheaty]

The best book you will find on the numbers of arms issued in Canada is: Defending the Dominion by Dave Edgecombe
Dave has done a lot of research on the subject and had all the resources to do it.
The best 50.00 you will spend.