SE5 Machine Guns

[Ginger.]

Must admit the stuff I fired was dated 1942.You have intrigued me with this one John,I will try and find out when it was introduced.
If you live somewhere warm I might take you up on the range offer!Went this morning and it felt just like a survival excercise.

[stephen]

I'm sure somebody has made a bigger, meaner rifle round than the British .303. But I ain't seen it yet... and if I ever do, I don't wanna shoot it. I can already set off my own personal earthquake.

I'm used to popping shotguns, pistols and .22 LR's. The first time I lowered the hammer on my Lee Enfield I thought I'd been hit by lightning. I held my box target down with a bowling ball sized rock, which exploded on the first shot like a grenade and was the size of a baseball afterward. No foolin'. Gifted with a firm grasp of the obvious, I thought "Yep. I got me a big frickin' gun here. Now all I need is 5 rounds and tickets to an N'Sync concert."

[alex_revell]

By a strange coincidence I was listening today to a taped interview I did with Charles - 56 Sqdn's engineering officer - in 1973. I haven't played it for over 20 years. He talked about how, when McCudden joined the squadron, the guns on the SE were fired by pulling a trigger on the straight topped joystick, rather like a brake lever on a motor bike. McCudden was of the opinion that this tended to slightly jerk the joystick and consequently throw off the aim. He asked Charles to install a spade grip on top of the stick and equip it with buttons to fire at 3 onz pressure. Charles got hold of a Camel spade grip and did just that. After this, all the squadron's SEs were modified. In actual practice the Lewis gun was hardly ever fired in the pulled down position. Given the SE's excellent zoom this was not necessary. Ball used the Lewis like this because it was a throwback to his Nieuport days. Many pilots - including Crowe - never even bothered to pull down the Lewis to reload it - no easy thing to do. I can see no reference in his combat report that RD fired the Lewis in the vertical position to shoot at Voss. The only reference (and I'm going from memory here) is that he pulled the Lewis gun down to reload it.

Also going on memory, I believe it was in "Heroes of the Sunllit Sky" by Arch Whitehouse (who was an observer/gunner in the RFC). Having jumped 5 of England's top aces, Voss was busy. Rhys -Davids came up under him and "did a Ball", i.e., pulled the Lewis back on the Foster mount, aimed it under Voss' cockpit and shot him. It mentioned that both pilots were just 20 years old.
There is an excellent picure of a Lewis on an SE's foster mount in Rosbud's collection.

From recollection (I may be wrong), the S.E.5 had a straight joystick with the bicycle-brake type of lever for the guns, but the S.E.5a had a circular grip (doughnut) on the top with the two rectangular topped thumb levers for actuating the machine guns projecting from the stick into the centre of the doughnut. The Camel used a triangular-shaped grip with a similar arrangement for the gun actuators as the 5a.

(American readers please substitute "donut" and "center" as needed).

[Barrett]

I can't find it now (natch) but I recall reading the original specs of the .303 British rifle round, which included the ability to stop a horse at 500 yards. (Cavalry, don'tchaknow...)
The round itself (OK, OK, the various .303 rounds that I have fired myownself, including some Iraqi stuff of nebulous vintage) is pretty mild: roughly a 150 grainer at maybe 2,500 fps, I sorta kinda semi-recollect. The felt recoil is probably due as much to stock design as anything--something akin to the bounce from a plain 1903 Springfield as opposed to the '03-A3, etc.

The SMLE buttstock was made in several different lengths to fit colonials and others who needed a shorter buttstock. I'm willing to bet that Stephen did not have 1. His elbow elevated above shoulder level and 2. He did not have the brass buttplate solidly against his shoulder muscle.
If you do it properly, there is no great amount of pain involved.
When you re-play "Hell's AAngels" note how Monte holds his elbow when firing the Parabellum gun with shoulder stock. The military rifle calibers aren't as innocous as a .22 single shot using shorts.
Now, if you want some real PAIN, try firing a few rounds from a Ruger #1 in .458 Win Mag caliber. THAT is recoil! (Have you ever wondered when you found a Ruger .458 #1 on a table why it had a box of ammo with it containing 18 rounds?)

[stephen]

You're half right, John... I failed to elevate my elbow above the shoulder, but I most certainly had proper placement and pressure of the butt against my shoulder muscle. It wasn't painful, just a bone-jarring body jolt accompanied by monstrous BOOM that left me pleasingly deaf (I know, I know. I wear ear protection now).

And if I ever have occasion, I can drop a horse in its tracks at 500 yards! Not bad for a such a mild round, eh?

[Ginger.]

From Ginger's Manual of Small Arms.
Lesson 2.
Fire the Lee Enfield Rifle from the hip.Targets being house bricks,at 30 yards they explode in a very satisfying cloud of dust.Ear muffs are optional.

[stephen]

My world-class rock shot was from 120 yards, sir. And yer darn lucky it wasn't a horse.