Tag Archives: British tanks

Like the Original, but Worse

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In July 1879, the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield was ordered to produce a self-extracting revolver to compete against foreign models for an upcoming British Army test. Enfield’s first handgun, it was accepted, but soon found “a clumsy weapon” and, within a decade was replaced by a Webley-pattern break top design.

The mighty Webley .455 Mark VI, seen here at the Berman Museum in Anniston, Alabama with an aftermarket Pritchard-Greener bayonet, was the standard British Army revolver of the Great War-era. (Photo: Chris Eger)

For the next almost 50 years, Webley had a lock on the British sidearm trade but, in 1932, this changed after Enfield was ordered to cough up a second revolver design in a short-cased .38 caliber chambering, and did so with a model that looked a lot like the Webley.

The Enfield No. 2 was born and was soon made worse by the Enfield No. 2 Mk. 1* standard.

More in my column at Guns.com.

The Grants go into action

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The Grants go into action - El Alamein

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“The Grants go into action – El Alamein,” circa November 1942, by Peter McIntyre, OBE, (1910-1995)  a soldier and official war artist serving New Zealand during the Second World War. McIntyre served as an anti-tank gunner with the 2NZEF in Egypt, from April 1940 and you can feel how well he knew the subject matter in the piece.

This image depicts the use of ‘Grant’ tanks at El Alamein. The ‘Grant’ tank was a derivative of the American-built M3 medium tank, known by the British as the ‘General Lee’ (after General Robert E. Lee). The ‘Grant’ M3 medium tank was a modified version built to British specifications (named after General Ulysses S. Grant). Allied forces used the ‘Grant’ during the North African Campaign (Archives New Zealand)