Battle Rifle Recce
Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam, 1970. Sergeant John (Jack) Gebhardt of 1 Sqn Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) of Mount Yokine, Western Australia, points to direct while on patrol. “The Special Air Services (SAS) men creep through the jungle to spy on the enemy to provide raw intelligence for the Australian Task Force Commander to act upon.”
Photo by John Geoffrey Fairley, AWM FAI/70/0312/VN
SGT Gebhardt is armed with a well-camouflaged L1A1 SLR, a semi-auto-only “inch pattern” development of the Belgian FN FAL, which was the standard rifle of the Australian (and British) Army from 1960 to 1992, sandwiched in Ozzie service between the No. 1 Mk III Enfield and the F88 AuSteyr.
The new L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle is being examined by “Pig Iron Bob,” Prime Minster Robert Menzies, 1962. Made at Lithgow, the SLR replaced not only the Enfield bolt guns in .303 but also stocks of Owen and STEN 9mm SMGs left over from WWII and American M1/M2 .30 caliber carbines left over from Korea. Some 175,000 were made.
One particularly curious use of the L1A1 by Australian SAS in Vietnam to break contact while on a recce was the “Slaughtermatic” (AKA, “Beast” or “Bitch”) a field mod SLR tweaked to run full-auto with L2A1 parts and shortened via the removal of handguards and given a chopped barrel. To keep it running, 30-round L2A1 mags were likewise acquired.
Such a modded L1A1 is seen in the two circa 1971 2SASR images, below left, along with M16s equipped with experimental Colt CGL-4/XM148 40mm grenade launchers and lots of grenades.
Nui Dat, SAS Hill, South Vietnam. 1971-04-08. Members of No.25 patrol, ‘F’ troop, 2 Squadron, Special Air Service (SAS), at Nadzab LZ (landing zone) after returning from their second patrol. The patrol of nine days was from 1971-03-30 to 1971-04-08. Left to right, back row: Corporal Ian Rasmussen, second-in-command; trooper (tpr) Don Barnby, signaller; Tpr Dennis Bird, scout; Second Lieutenant Brian Russell, patrol commander. Front row: TPR Bill Nisbett, rifleman; John Deakin, United States Navy (USN-SEAL). AWM P00966.084
“Special Air Service” by Kevin Lyles • (Patrol member, 3 Sqn SASR, 1969 • Patrol member, 2 Sqn SASR, 1971 • Corporal, 2 Sqn SASR, 1971 • Patrol member, 2 Sqn SASR, 1971)-
Sadly, while most of the Australian Enfields were sold on the commercial market in the 1990s when the L1A1 passed into reserve use and are popular with collectors, with a reputation for being meticulously maintained, it was later decided by the disarmament-minded Ozzie government post-1996 to dispose of almost all of their inventory of SLRs and parts via outright destruction (“110,000 rifles melted down at BHP, Australia’s largest steel producer”) or being tossed into the sea.