From: http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Bren_and_L4_Light_machine_Gun The Bren was developed from the Czech 7.92mm ZB26. Prduction started at Enfield in 1937 and during WW2 it was also produced by Inglis in Canada where in addition to the .303" version they also made a 7.92mm version for Nationalist China. So accurate it was claimed to be a fully auto Sniper Gun, Last used in Gulf War 1. http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/4893/303bren3fw.jpg L4 7.62mm version of the .303 Bren Gun. View attachment 587
I have the Infantry Training Volume 1 Infantry Platoon Weapons Pamphet No6 - The Light Machine Gun (All Arms) 1948. it gives some interesting details on the bren and its use. Here is one of the illustrations showing the correct way to clean the barrel! I wonder how many people actually carried out the proceedure!
I did training as a bren gunner when in high school cadets and it was a beautiful weapon. Its main problem was that it was too accurate the beaten zone being too small. It was also one of those weapons that never seemed to get lighter the longer you carried it or was it perhaps I was only 15 at the time? Our instructors were WW2/Korean war vets and boy could they use that bren, even playing tunes on or shooting a 4 gallon drum and then keeping it in the air with bursts. They were pretty to watch. One cadet tried holding it like a rifle until he got a handful of hot empties and another had it run away on him as it pulled forward unlike the 303 that "kicked" back. A friend of mine used a bren converted to 7.62x51 calibre NATO as a door gun in Hueys in Vietnam and said it was so good he hated to part with it when the M60GPMG replaced it. Rod
My dad didn't speak too much of his time going through to Tobruk however he would defend the Bren against all comers. "You might shoot the same bloke three times but his mates didn't want to be next, so they kept their heads down."
