The .280 British was an experimental rimless bottlenecked intermediate rifle cartridge. It was later designated 7 mm MK1Z, and has also been known as 7 mm NATO, .280/30, .280 Enfield, .280 NATO, 7 mm FN Short, and 7×43mm.
Like most armed forces in the immediate post-World War II era, the British Army began experimenting with lighter rounds after meeting the German StG 44 in combat. The Army began development in the late 1940s, with subsequent help from Fabrique Nationale in Belgium and the Canadian Army. The .280 British was tested in a variety of rifles and machine guns including the EM-2, Lee–Enfield, FN FAL, Bren, M1 Garand and Taden gun.
Despite its success as an intermediate cartridge, the .280 British was not considered powerful enough by the U.S. Army and several variants of the .280 British were created in an attempt to appease the U.S. Army. However, the U.S. Army continued to reject these variants, ultimately adopting the cartridge that was then designated the 7.62×51mm NATO.
History[edit]
Impetus[edit]
During World War II the standard British rifle and machine gun round was the venerable .303 British. Efforts to replace the .303 with a more modern round predated even World War I, but a series of events kept it in service in spite of its rimmed design causing a number of alleged problems[citation needed].
During the war the Allies encountered the new 7.92 “Kurz” cartridge on the battlefield and noted its effectiveness. The Kurz was an “intermediate power” round, less than a conventional rifle round like the .303, but more than pistol rounds like the 9mm Parabellum. This gave the Kurz rifle-like performance in close-range encounters, while still having a small enough recoil that it could be fired in fully automatic fire. This led British small arms designers to begin the development of their own intermediate round.
The goal of the British designers was to create a cartridge that would replace all small arms in .303 calibre including the Bren, the No.4 Rifle and the Vickers medium machine gun with a cartridge suitable for a “light rifle”. Thus the cartridge had to demonstrate ballistic performance equal to that of a full powered rifle round, yet exhibit as little recoil and blast as possible. This appeared possible through improved bullet shaping. A shorter cartridge producing lower recoil also enabled the weapon to be shorter and lighter, and hence easier to use.
Selection of the .280[edit]
After extensive tests by the “Ideal Cartridge Panel” in 1945, the British decided upon two 7 mm cartridges – the .270 and the .276. Both designations reflected the measurement of the distance between the rifling lands in the cartridges’ respective barrels; the .276 bullet‘s actual diameter was .284 inches (7.2 mm). In order to focus their efforts, the British ceased research on the .270 and concentrated their efforts on the .276. The .276 was later renamed the .280 British even though no dimensions were changed.
Recoil of the .280 British cartridge was calculated to be a little under half of the .303. Long range performance actually surpassed that of the .303, and shooters reported that it was much more comfortable to fire with the reduced recoil and reduced blast. It seemed that the British designers had accomplished their goals, and proceeded to introduce the cartridge to their NATO allies.
.280/30 British sectioned cartridges. Bullet types from left to right: type C mild steel core, type B 140 gr ball and type S12 140 gr ball based on the 1913 pattern 7×57mm Mauser spitzer bullet that was chosen for the 7 mm MK1.[3]
From left to right: .30-06 Springfield, .280 British and 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges.
Counterparts in Belgium and Canada proved very interested, and the Belgian company FN would introduce their own gun designs based on the .280 as well as produce the rounds in quantity. However, the Americans refused to adopt a calibre under .30 inch, or with ballistics inferior to the then-standard .30-06 Springfield round. The British then attempted to appease the Americans though a series of changes to the round. The first was a small change to the rim diameter of the .280 to the size of the .30-06 Springfield to produce the .280/30 cartridge, which was produced in large numbers and is the basis of the dimensions listed to the right. The .280/30 cartridge weighed 20.3 grams (313 gr), making it a rather heavy cartridge by intermediate standards.
When the .280/30 was rejected by the Americans as being too weak with too great a drop in trajectory beyond 800 yards (732 m), the British and Belgians made larger changes to the cartridge design. These resulted in several different variations; one was just a .280/30 with the bullet seated less deeply so more powder could be put in the case, another was a T65 cartridge case necked down to 7 mm. The different cartridges that the British and Belgians eventually came up with fired 140-grain (9.1 g) bullets at around 2,700 to 2,800 feet per second (820 to 850 m/s), but with a much greater blast and recoil than the .280/30, which defeated the design parameters of the initial .280 concept.
Unsatisfied with the U.S. Army’s response on the issue, the British adopted the EM-2 and the .280/30 as their primary rifle and ammunition in 1951 with the .280/30 being re-designated as the “7 mm MK1Z”.
Selection of 7.62 NATO[edit]
Britain, Canada and the United States, founding members of NATO, had all signed an agreement that member states would develop and deploy common small arms and cartridges, developed through competitive trials in co-operation together. Britain and Canada had been open about their developments, and the Americans claimed they were not developing a round of their own and were known to be trialing the British designs.
In fact, Colonel Rene Studler, head of the US Small Arms Bureau of Ordnance had been diametrically opposed to a bullpup design and the .280 cartridge, and had started two secret projects on a .30 calibre cartridge. These were the T25 rifle at Springfield Armory under the direction of Earle Harvey, firing the T65 cartridge being developed at Frankford Arsenal. Between 1947 and 1952 the British and Canadians made clear to the United States they were aware of their secret work, stating that it was against the open, collaborative nature of the agreement, making their disapproval clear.
Matters took a turn for the worse when Rene Studler went on record, stating that, any non-American design was “a waste of time” and refused point blank to accept any “foreign” design.[4] It was learned that Studler had gone so far as to bury reports that suggested the .280 was superior in US testing. During firing tests in 1950 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground the Maximum Average Pressure (MAP) for .280 British ball ammunition was measured at 43,600 psi (300.6 MPa). The highest measured maximum pressure was 47,300 psi (326.1 MPa).[5]
A change of government meant that the 7 mm, EM-2 and Taden gun projects were abandoned soon afterwards by Winston Churchill, who returned as the prime minister and desired commonality between the NATO countries. Small amounts of .280 British ammunition were later produced during the 1960s for various small arms trials. At the same time, the British and Canadians, who were very impressed with the cartridge originally planned to have their FN FAL rifles chambered in .280. However, eventually, they agreed to a quid pro quo where the British would use the US-derived .30 (by now the 7.62) while the Americans accepted the FN FAL. This too proved not to be the case, and the US eventually chose their M14 rifle over the FAL.
After .280[edit]
The .280 British concept would later prove to have been far ahead of its time, as the U.S. itself adopted an intermediate cartridge — 5.56×45mm NATO — by the end of the following decade. Soon after America’s large-scale involvement in Vietnam commenced in 1965 the 5.56×45mm NATO ArmaLite AR-15 rifle, later standardised as the M16, was purchased in ever increasing numbers and by the late 1960s had displaced the 7.62×51mm NATO M14 rifle in combat units. After insisting on a .30 calibre round with full-power ballistics almost identical to those of the existing .30-06 Springfield, the U.S. then adopted the 5.56×45mm NATO intermediate cartridge, which demonstrated the emergence and dominance of intermediate cartridges on the battlefield (the other notable one being the 7.62×39mm AK-47 round). The adoption of the 7.62×51mm NATO round and the adaptation of the intermediate cartridge CETME (later developed into the Heckler & Koch G3) and FN FAL designs to fire it, produced rifles that were relatively longer and heavier and had greater recoil. The result was weapons that performed well as longer-range semi-automatic rifles, but were more cumbersome and only marginally controllable in automatic fire. These guns also had a higher training burden and were not well suited to soldiers of smaller stature, again due to the recoil. Coincidentally, in 2002 the Americans developed a military calibre intended for the M4 version of the M16 family called the 6.8mm Remington SPC — with similar ballistic properties to the .280 British cartridge — which was intended to provide better ballistics than the 5.56×45mm NATO.
In the late 1960s, a version of the .280 British was created using a 6.25 mm bullet in a necked-down .280 British case. It was designed in response to experiments in the U.K. trying to find an ideal military small-arms round. Large caliber bullets were calculated to need more energy to penetrate various levels of body armor to inflict disabling wounds on soldiers. Out of several “optimum solutions” ranging from 4.5 mm to 7 mm, the 6.25 mm was the preferred solution. The 100 gr (6.5 g) bullet had a muzzle velocity of 2,680 ft/s (820 m/s) and 2,160 J (1,590 ft⋅lb) of muzzle energy. While the 7.62×51mm NATO required 700 joules (520 ft⋅lb) of force on impact to penetrate helmets and heavy body armor, the 6.25 mm required only 580 joules (430 ft⋅lb) of impact force to deliver the same penetration effects out to 600 m. It remained effective for a longer distance and produced recoil closer to that of the 5.56×45mm NATO.[6] However, it was not designed for very long range and its bullet was relatively light.[7] Testing of the 6.25×43mm was conducted from 1969 to 1971, when development ceased in favor of the smaller 4.85×49mm.[8]
In April 2022 in recognition of the decreased effectiveness of the NATO 5.56mm round particularly against personnel in body armour the American Army let a ten year contract to Sig Sauer for production of the XM5 rifle, XM250 Automatic rifle and 6.8mm (.277”) cartridge.
Chances are you already know the NRA’s Three Rules of Gun Safety (1.ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction; ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot; ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.), and those rules will always apply…everywhere, every time, every gun, every person.
But when you’re heading into the field with a firearm, there are some additional rules to follow. Any time you’re out in the wilderness with a long gun, these rules will help keep you, your hunting party and your legal status safe.
1. Be positive of your target’s identity before shooting.
This might sound overly simplistic, but the fact remains that, every year during whitetail season, farmers everywhere are forced to spray-paint their cattle or risk having them “harvested” by hunters who don’t bother confirming the species of the large ungulate in their sights. Why does this happen? The most likely explanation is “buck fever,” meaning that the hunter wants so badly to see a nice big buck that sometimes his eyes deceive him into thinking that there’s one there. When in doubt, don’t shoot. (This will become something of a refrain.)
2. Take time to fire a safe shot.
If, in order to make your shot, you must move too quickly or in a way that might allow your muzzle to cover something you’re not prepared to see destroyed…don’t do it. If you’re not sure of what’s on the other side of the game animal…don’t do it. It’s better to pass up a trophy animal than to put yourself or any other people in your vicinity at risk.
3. If you fall…
Things happen in the woods. No matter how surefooted you are or how great your boots, even the most graceful among us will take a tumble sooner or later. If you fall, try to control where the muzzle of your gun points. After a fall, check your gun for dirt and damage, and make sure the barrel is free of obstructions.
4. Scopes are not binoculars.
Never use a riflescope as a substitute for binoculars. The temptation to do so is real, but when one does this, one is by definition pointing the muzzle of the gun at unknown targets.
5. Know how to cross a fence.
When you are alone and must cross a fence, unload your firearm and place it under the fence with the muzzle pointed away from where you are crossing. When hunting with others, and you must cross a fence, unload the gun and keep the action open. Have one of your companions hold the gun while you cross. When over the fence, take your gun and your companion’s unloaded gun, so that he or she may cross safely.
6. Know when to unload.
When finished hunting, unload your firearm before returning to camp. You should also unload your gun before attempting to climb a steep bank or travel across slippery ground.
Categories
Ditto!
This piddly epistle is a followup to “The Greyhound Rules,” posted earlier. If you missed it or it has slipped from your Teflon-coated mind, it’s posted HERE.
Re-read that piece and you’ll note both sides screwed up before the first shot was fired. The Good Guys, lulled by a bright warm morning and pleasant company, were mentally in “training mode,” not possible-threat mode. I’m convinced the Bad Guys had reconned the site, and didn’t expect any interference until they approached the building complex where the small “organic security” detail hung out. As a result, neither side anticipated what they ran into where and when they stumbled into it. Upon confrontation there was a mental stutter-step or two. Fortunately, “Mutual Stupid” affected both sides for a couple of seconds.
Bullet #1: If you live with a gun, be ready to engage anytime, anywhere. If that training had occurred in the US, I know we would have been wandering out to the bushes for that potty-call with empty sidearms. The thought gives me chills.
Lots of poor choices were made about position and “cover.” Some Bad Guys fled into vehicles, where they were trapped. The BG’s really blew the whole concept of “cover,” with deadly results: glass and thin sheet metal won’t stop rounds. Good Guys who should have known better stood up to fire over chest-high flatbed trailers, leaving their lower bodies exposed. Both sides occasionally left feet, hands, knees and elbows stickin’ out from cover, and a few paid dearly for that.
Bullets #2, 3, and 4: Ordinarily, distance is your friend, but the urge to put distance between yourself and muzzle blast can override your good sense. “Know cover,” or it’s no cover. Most walls ain’t cover a’tall. If you have any doubt that what you’re hunkering behind will stop slugs, it prob’ly won’t. Be as aware as any human experiencing “Pucker Factor 9.7” can be of exposing stray parts of your body. One of my standing rules is, “If all you see is a piece of your target, shoot the piece! Shoot it to pieces. Then shoot the pieces to pieces.” Your opponent might have the same policy. Don’t show him your elbow — or even an earlobe. He might be good.
Crabs & Gazelles
The Bus Farm Fight occurred on crazy-quilted uneven ground — basically flat, but cut with abrupt minor changes in height from asphalt to earth to old, tilted sections of concrete. Stumbling while running, scanning for targets and shooting cost a few lives. Mixing movement and shooting can be disastrous unless that movement is very deliberate — or charmed.
Bullet #5: If you feel that shooting during movement is a viable option for you, first work hard on your “combat shuffle” and your “agile crab sideways scuttle,” or, just hold onto your piece with your finger outta the triggerguard and take off like a cheetah-chased gazelle. I’ve found I can shuffle straight ahead and deliver semi-accurate fire without trippin’ much, but that’s it. Simulations can tell you what you’re capable of, and I recommend you find out before you try any ballet moves or “sprint’-n’-spray” techniques under fire. Falling and shooting yourself or a comrade can ruin more than your day.
In the midst of a vicious gunfight, nobody expected a glass-rattling voice to command “stop shooting!” – so everybody did. When you’re low on ammo and a sweaty, a smiling teenager in a Chicago Cubs baseball cap suddenly appears, dashing from bus to bulldozer passing out loaded magazines, you first wonder if you’ve gone completely nuts — and then you grab some.
Bullet #6: Weird things happen in gunfights. Expect an Albanian satellite to fall on your head, or a gopher the size of a grizzly to erupt from the ground at your feet. It will happen during a gunfight. Believe your eyes, shrug off bizarre twists, and stay focused on the threat.
Combat Cool & The Samurai Class
The most striking thing about the Bus Farm Fight was the “combat cool” exhibited by the Hard Hombres. I had seen veteran fighters engaged all over the world, and few had the uniform cool of this thrown-together group. Wounds were expected; death was casually considered. Should they be maimed or crippled, they would be respectfully cared for — even lauded — by extended families and their villages or towns. They knew and embraced how they would live and quite possibly die.
An absolute of their lives was that they would fight well and never yield — never. More than anything else, it was this cool and this refusal to yield that won the Bus Farm Fight.
If not born to it, they had become a Samurai class. I learned something about it, and that’s a tale for another time. But let’s close with this: the Hard Hombres’ combat cool had less to do with how much actual fighting experience they had, and more with how much time they had been tumbling “fighting” around between their ears.
Connor OUT
Slim should be remembered as the greatest British general of World War Two.
Even the most sketchily educated Briton today will nevertheless recognise in the murky depths of their consciousness the name of that great British general of World War Two, Montgomery of Alamein. To an older generation perhaps another name resonates equally and perhaps more strongly, the name of a man Montgomery airily dismissed as a mere ‘sepoy general’, and yet someone whose military legacy has arguably outlasted even that of the great ‘Monty’ himself.
That the name of Field Marshal William Slim is remembered by only a few old soldiers and interested military buffs today is a tragedy of enormous proportions, when one assesses in the great weighing scales of history his contribution to Britain’s success in the Second World War and his more longer lasting contribution to the art and science of war as a whole.
The war in the Far East is easy to forget, given that it took place far from home and in the shadow of the titanic struggle against Nazism in Europe. Yet the war against Japan in Burma, India and China was no less titanic, as two competing empires collided violently, with profound implications for the future of the post-war global order, not just in the Pacific but also for the whole of Britain’s creaking empire. Slim played a significant part in the whole story.
Slim was, first and foremost, a born leader of soldiers. It would be inconceivable to think of Monty as ‘Uncle Bernard’, but it was to ‘Uncle Bill’ that soldiers in Burma, from the dark days of 1942 and 1943, through to the great victories over the Japanese in 1944 and 1945, put their confidence and trust.
He inspired confidence because he instinctively knew that the strength of an army lies not in its equipment or its officers, but in the training and morale of its soldiers. Everything he did as a commander was designed to equip his men for the trials of battle, and their interests were always at the forefront of his plans.
He knew them because he was one of them, and had experienced their bitterest trials. Brigadier Bernard Fergusson (later Earl Ballantrae and Governor General of New Zealand), believed that Slim was unlike any other British higher commander to emerge in the Second World War, ‘the only one at the highest level in that war that… by his own example inspired and restored its self-respect and confidence to an army in whose defeat he had shared.’
Not for him the aristocratic or privileged middle class upbringing of some many of his peers, but an early life of industrial Birmingham, relieved only by the opportunities presented for advancement by the upheavals of the First World War. The 100 day 1000 mile retreat from Burma to India in 1942, the longest in the long history of the British Army was, whilst a bitter humiliation, nevertheless not a rout, in large part because Slim was put in command of the fighting troops.
He managed the withdrawal through dust bowl, jungle and mountain alike so deftly that the Japanese, though undoubtedly victorious, were utterly exhausted and unable to mount offensive operations into India for a further year. In time Slim was given the opportunity no British soldier has been given since the days of Wellington: the chance to train an army from scratch and single-handedly mould it into something of his own making, an army of extraordinary spirit and power against which nothing could stand.
By 1945 Slim’s 14th Army, at 500,000 men the largest ever assembled by Britain, had decisively and successively defeated two formidable Japanese armies, the first in Assam in India in 1944 and the second on the banks of the great Irrawaddy along the infamous ‘Road to Mandalay’ in Burma in 1945.
Slim’s victories in 1944 and 1945 were profound, and yet were quickly forgotten by a Britain focused principally on the defeat of Germany, and by a United States gradually pushing back the barriers of Japanese militaristic imperialism in the Pacific. In late 1943 the 14th Army had begun to call itself the ‘Forgotten Army’, because of the apparent lack of interest back home of their exertions. 
Sadly, from the time of the last climactic battles and the dash to seize Rangoon in May 1945 Slim’s achievements as the leader of this great army have equally been forgotten, although not of course by those who served under him who were all, as Mountbatten declared, ‘his devoted slaves’, nor indeed by their children and grandchildren who together make the Burma Star Association the only old soldiers’ association that actually continues to grow, rather than diminish.
What were these achievements? In terms of his contribution to Allied strategy in Burma and India between 1942 and 1945 they were threefold. First, he prevented, by his dogged command of the withdrawal from Burma the invasion of India proper in 1942 by a Japanese Army exulting in its omnipotence after the collapse of the rest of East Asia and the Pacific rim.
Second, he removed forever any further Japanese ambitions to invade India proper by his destruction of Mutaguchi’s legions in the Naga Hills around Kohima and the Manipur Plain around Imphal in the spring and early summer of 1944, and in so doing he decisively shattered the myth of Japanese invincibility that had for so long crippled the Allied cause.
Third, despite the prognostications of many, and subtly influencing Mountbatten to conform to his own strategy, Slim drove his armoured, foot and mule-borne and air-transported troops deep into Burma in late 1944 and 1945, across two of the world’s mightiest rivers, to outwit and outfight the 250,000 strong Burma Area Army of General Kimura and in so doing engineer the complete collapse of Japanese hegemony in Burma.
Given the pattern of British misfortune in 1942 and in 1943 it is not fanciful to argue that without Slim neither the safety of India (in 1942 as well as in 1944), nor the recovery of Burma in 1945, would ever have been possible. Slim’s leadership and drive came to dominate the 14 Army to such a degree that it became, in Jack Master’s phrase, ‘an extension of his own personality.’
Slim’s achievements need also to be examined from a more personal, professional perspective. That he was able to defend India’s eastern borders from imminent doom, and crush both Mutaguchi and Kimura in the gigantic and decisive struggles of 1944 and 1945 was due to his qualities as a military thinker and as a leader of men.
Slim was a master of intelligent soldiering. That a man becomes one of the most senior officer of his generation is not always evidence per se that he has mastered this most fundamental of requirements: in Slim’s case it was.
His approach to the building up of the fighting power of an army – from a situation of profound defeat and in the face of crippling resource constraints – is a model that deserves far greater attention today than it has received in the past. It was an approach built on the twin platforms of rigorous training and development of each individual’s will to win, through a deeply thought-out programme of support designed to meet the physical, intellectual and spiritual needs of each fighting man.
Slim’s description of General Sir George Giffard, his superior for a time, can equally be applied to himself: Giffard’s great strength, Slim commented, lay in his grasp of ‘the fundamentals of war – that soldiers must be trained before they can fight, fed before they can march, and relieved before they are worn out.’
Second, Slim was a remarkable coalition commander. The Army that defeated the might of the Japanese in both India and Burma during 1944 and 1945 was a thoroughly imperial one, seventy-five percent Indian, Gurkha and African. Even in the British Empire of the time it was not self-evident that a British officer would secure the commitment of the various diverse nationalities he commanded: indeed, many did not. 
In his study of military command the psychiatrist Norman Dixon considered Slim’s quite obvious ability to join many of these diverse national groups to fight together in a single cause to be nothing less than remarkable, and the antithesis of the norm.
That he did so at a time of social and political unrest in India with the anti-colonial ‘Quit India’ campaign, and in the face of some early desertions to the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose, makes his achievements even the more remarkable. The British soldier was also suspicious of officers of the Indian Army, but Slim succeeded effortlessly in winning them over, too. 
He ‘was the only Indian Army general of my acquaintance that ever got himself across to British troops’ recalled Fergusson. ‘Monosyllables do not usually carry a cadence; but to thousands of British troops, as well as to Indians and to his own beloved Gurkhas, there will always be a special magic in the words “Bill Slim.”
But in addition to his success in defeating the Japanese in 1944 and 1945, and in building up 14 Army to become a formidable fighting machine, Slim’s most abiding legacy was his approach to war, which at the time was singularly different to that adopted elsewhere during the war, either by Monty in Africa and North West Europe or Alexander in Italy.
Slim’s pre-eminent concern was to defeat the Japanese army facing him in Burma, not merely to recover territory, and he determined to do this through the complete dominance of the Japanese strategic plan. Training his troops relentlessly through monsoon, mountain and jungle, joining the command and operation of his land and air forces together, so that they served a single object, and delegating command to the lowest levels possible, Slim created an army of a power and fighting spirit rarely ever encountered in the history books.
In 1944 he allowed Mutaguchi’s 100,000 strong 15 Army to extend itself deep into India, there to be met by a ruthlessly determined 4 Corps, supplied by air and attacking at every opportunity the tenuous Japanese lines of communication back to the Chindwin. It was high risk, and more than one senior officer in Delhi and London despaired of success.
Slim, however, knew otherwise, and in the process of the climatic battles of Imphal and Kohima he succeeded in shattering the cohesion of a whole Japanese army and destroying its will to fight, a situation as yet unheard of for a fully formed Japanese army in the field. There were a number of close calls, and Slim was always the first to admit to his mistakes, but his steady nerve never failed. He moulded the Japanese offensive to suit his own plans, and step-by-step, he decisively broke it in the hills of eastern Assam and the Imphal plain.
Many commanders would then have sat on their laurels. Not so Slim. He was convinced that real victory against the Japanese required an aggressive pursuit, not just to the Chindwin but into the heart of Burma itself. Single-handedly he worked to put in place all the ingredients of a bold offensive to seize Mandalay at a time when every inclination in London and Washington was to seek an amphibious solution to the problem of Burma and thus avoid the entanglements of a land offensive.
Slim believed, however, that it could be done. Virtually alone he drove his plans forward, winning agreement and acceptance to his ideas as he went, particularly with Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Far East, and went on to execute in Burma in 1945 one of the most brilliant expositions of the strategic art that warfare has ever seen.
He did this in the face of difficulties of every sort and degree. Employing his abundant strategic initiative to the full, he succeeded in outwitting and destroying an even larger army under General Kimura along the Irrawaddy between Meiktila and Mandalay in the spring of 1945, Kimura himself describing Slim’s operation as the ‘masterstroke of allied strategy’. In both these operations Slim prefigured the doctrine of ‘manoeuvre warfare’.
Although Slim would not have recognised the term, his exercise of command in 14 Army indicates clearly that he espoused all of the fundamental characteristics. The modern British Army defines it as ‘the means of concentrating force to achieve surprise, psychological shock, physical momentum and moral dominance… At the operational level, manoeuvre involves more than just movement; it requires an attitude of mind which seeks to do nothing less than unhinge the entire basis of the enemy’s operational plan.’
It argues that the extreme military virtue does not lie, as Monty practised, in the direct confrontation of the enemy mass, in an attempt to erode his strength to the point where he no longer has the physical wherewithal to continue the contest, but rather in the subtlety of the “indirect approach”, where the enemy’s weaknesses rather than his strengths are exploited, and his mental strengths and, in particular his will to win are undermined without the necessity of a mass-on-mass confrontation of the type that characterised so much of Allied operations on both the Western and Eastern Fronts in Europe during the Second World War. Slim’s exercise of command in Burma makes him not merely a fine example of a ‘manoeuvrist’ commander but in actuality the template for modern manoeuvrist command.
‘Slim’s revitalisation of the Army had proved him to be a general of administrative genius’ argues the historian Duncan Anderson: ‘his conduct of the Burma retreat, the first and second Arakan, and Imphal-Kohima, had shown him to be a brilliant defensive general; and now, the Mandalay-Meiktila operation had placed him in the same class as Guderian, Manstein and Patton as an offensive commander.’
Mountbatten claimed that despite the reputation of others, such as the renowned self-publicist, Montgomery of Alamein, it was Slim who should rightly be regarded as the greatest British general of the Second World War. Slim’s failing was to deprecate any form of self-publicity believing, perhaps naively, that the sound of victory had a music all of its own. The ‘spin doctors’ of our own political generation have sadly taught us something Monty knew instinctively and exploited to his own advantage, namely that if you don’t blow your own trumpet no one else will.
The final word should be left to one who served under him. ‘“Bill” Slim was to us, averred Antony Brett-James, ‘a homely sort of general: on his jaw was carved the resolution of an army, in his stern eyes and tight mouth reside all the determination and unremitting courage of a great force.
His manner held much of the bulldog, gruff and to the point, believing in every one of us, and as proud of the “Forgotten Army” as we were. I believe that his name will descend into history as a badge of honour as great as that of the “Old Contemptibles.” Sadly, Slim’s name and achievements have not done what Brett-James hoped, and it is now the responsibility of a new generation to understand and appreciate his achievements.’
Robert Lyman’s A War of Empires will be published by Osprey in November 2021.
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Lord William Slim in the House of Lords London UK
Photo by Alex Landeen
The Standard Manufacturing G4S Tommy Gun
I was in my mid-20s the first time I picked one up and started emptying stick and drum magazines in full-auto. It was amazing. To be honest, the gun was a little too long for me. I also found it to be considerably heavier than most of the carbines I was accustomed to shooting.
But the feel of the polished wood, the balance, and the amazing lack of recoil won me over instantly. Guns like this aren’t simply mass-produced, injection-molded hunks of plastic. They are the products of craftsmen, and both their beauty and utility stand the test of time.
New Tommy Take
Standard Manufacturing in New Britain, Connecticut, knows a thing or two about American craftsmanship. They were inspired by the look and feel of the old Tommy Gun of yesteryear, but they wanted to create a modern gun.
First, they dropped the caliber down to .22 LR to make it affordable and fun to shoot. Next, they kept the price down by foregoing the classic, polished wood stock and grip. However, they kept the milled receiver and metal magazines and designed the gun with some serious heft, just like the original.
The forend needed a little updating because these days we like to add red-dot sights, lights, lasers, bipods, and all kinds of accouterments to make it more fun. Likewise, the stock was based on the collapsible M4-style stock. Finally, it was given a thumbhole-style grip and a slotted charging handle on top.
The G4S has a vertical safety lever that also locks the bolt to the rear in the top position. Click it down one position, and it releases the bolt to go forward but keeps the gun on “safe.” Click it down to the bottom position, and it is on “fire.”
This is a lot different from the original Thompson, which had a rotating safety that had to go 180 degrees forward to go to “fire.” It had a second rotating selector switch to go from semi to fully automatic fire.
Also, the original Thompson fired from an open bolt, so when the trigger was pulled, the bolt slid forward, loaded a round, and fired it. Because the G4S fires from a closed bolt, it is nice to have a way to lock the bolt to the rear for cleaning, checking if it is safe and empty, and clearing malfunctions.
Getting Better with Age
Why doesn’t the G4S fire from an open bolt? Open bolt systems are used primarily in sub-machine guns that fire fully automatic. These guns get hot a lot faster than semi-automatic guns. So, holding the bolt open allows airflow so the barrel and chamber can cool faster.
However, because the guns are firing literally as the bolt is slamming into place, they tend to be less accurate. Is this a problem? Not really. If you are using a shoulder-fired weapon on full-auto, you are either at pretty close range, or you are wasting ammo.
The advantage of a closed-bolt system like the G4S is it has increased accuracy and less chance of external fouling from dirt and debris falling into the chamber.
The magazine release on the G4S is also radically different from the traditional Thompson. It sits in the same place on the left side of the receiver above the trigger, but instead of being spring-loaded and pushed upward to release the mag, it swings down 90 degrees to “lock” the magazine into place.
To change the magazine, you swing it back up and pull the magazine out of the side horizontally. The old Tommy Gun stick mags slid up from the bottom in the way we think is normal today. The drum mags slid in horizontally from the left side. On the G4S, both the stick and drum magazines slide in horizontally from the left side.
They have two offset aluminum tabs that slide into slots in the receiver before the magazine catch is rotated down to lock it in place. It takes a little getting used to, and it is not fast.
My solution: Forego the 10-round stick magazines, load up the 50-round drums and keep plinking away. Both styles of magazines are easy to load.
Letting Loose
The G4S turned out to be as fun to shoot as the traditional Thompson. My one overriding complaint is this .22 was made for adults. Now, I stand a solid 5-foot, 6-inches with my lifts and a stiff, cold breeze blowing up my skirt.
When I collapsed the stock all the way, the gun fit me pretty well. But as I moved the six-position, collapsible stock out, it became obvious that this gun was made for the Paul Bunyans and Amazons of the world. The G4S was not made for Hobbits. The traditional Thompson fits me exactly the same.
Shooting it felt great. I forgot to bring a vertical foregrip to attach to the forend, but it feels like it was made for one. It also feels like it should be shot from the hip as often as possible, perhaps while sneering, “Keep the change, you filthy animal!” A fedora is a must. I draw the line at a three-piece suit, but personal mileage may vary.
Before I started my plinking session that ran through most of the .22 ammo I hoarded over the last three years, I began with an accuracy test. I mounted an EOTech Vudu SR-1 1-6x scope on top.
This has recently become my favorite tactical scope because of its unique ability of its first-focal-plane reticle. That allows it to function well as a red dot at low power and then have its mid-dot reticle bloom into view for hold-overs and windage when magnified.
I shoot a lot of different scopes, and it stands head and shoulders above the normal 1-4x or 1-6x tactical scopes. It is a bit too much scope for a .22, but I like to give every gun the benefit of the doubt and see how it does with really good glass mounted on it.
The G4S Handled All Ammo Nicely
Ammunition for the accuracy test ranged from normal, cheap plinking ammo to top-of-the-line, almost competition grade. It all functioned great in the gun. I tested it at 25 yards, which is typically pretty far for a .22, but I have taken plenty of rabbits at this distance, so I thought it seemed fair.
I really liked the trigger and how short of a reset it had. The iron sights seemed a bit crude, so I was happy I used a good scope for accuracy. The last round does not hold the bolt open, but that is a common complaint for a lot of .22s. This isn’t a tactical gun, so feeling the gun go “click” instead of “bang” is merely a mild inconvenience.
Other than that, the Standard Manufacturing G4S embodies the very soul of why we love to go to the range, the train tracks, the old pond, the woods, or wherever your happy place for plinking may be. It is one of those guns that make you smile. Likewise, it is the perfect .22 to share with a friend or your dad as you burn through a brick of .22s and create memories of what makes America great. It is a step back to a classic era but with a modern twist.
By the way, my wife, kids, and I have a three-day camping trip planned two weeks from now. The Standard Manufacturing G4S, a bunch of aluminum cans, and a whole lot of cheap .22 shells will be our main entertainment. I will be making awesome family memories that will outlive me. There is no place I would rather be.