If you are in the clan and you have comments,suggestions or want to join the clan please sign the guest book, and i will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanx.. :)

The Kings regiment is a local LIVERPOOL regiment.

==========
Ranks
==========

Private Soldiers and Non-Commissioned Officers: (we call privates Kingsman).

Kingsman
Lance Corporal
Corporal
Sergeant
Colour Sergeant
Warrant Officer 2
Warrant Officer 1


===========
Officers
===========

Second Lieutenant
Lieutenant
Captain
Major
Lieutenant Colonel
Colonel
Brigadier
Major General
Lieutenant General
General

Ranks are Direct From the Kings Regiment.
Thanx to Martin Amlot


A quick Rundown of some of the allied weapons used in WWII....

As long term suppliers to the Services Webley were somewhat bemused when their Mark 4 revolver was rejected for British service pre-war especially as the Enfield revolver was a copy. Demand during 1939 to 1945 though ensured it was destined for major use.
The British (therefore Australian) Army retained its faith in the revolver throughout the war, despite introducing the semi automatic Browning for certain specialist units. The Enfield was officially the standard sidearm, but as the Army increased in size the Webley was obtained to make good the shortfall.

The Webley was a standard design, with a double action trigger. The hammer could be pulled back to the cocked position where it would lock, requiring only a light pressure on the trigger to release it. The Enfield deleted the hammer comb, so could only be fired by applying full pressure on the trigger. This amendment was made for those men serving in armoured vehicles where the cramped conditions meant the hammer was constantly being snagged or struck.

WEBLEY Revolver Mark 6 (.445 cal.) Mainly a personal side arm for officers and senior NCO's. Sometimes an individual digger would scrounge one from a wounded or dead comrade and the AIF used to turn a blind eye. Adopted in 1915, it was the "ultimate" Webley .455 six-shooter. Mark 6 featured redesigned, more squared grip, 6 inch (152 mm) barrels, removable front sights.

It was a traditional safety precaution with revolvers to carry the weapon with the hammer on an empty chamber. This meant if a sudden blow forced the hammer forward there was no chance of a shot being fired. 18 rounds were carried, six loaded (less one as above) and twelve in a small belt pouch. At the outset of the war the revolver was widely distributed to tank crews, despatch riders, MPs and a host of others. Every officer carried one also. The Sten (or Owen) gradually replaced it in many areas, but tank crews could only find space for one Sten so wore their holsters as well.

The Aluminium "knuckle-knife" was issued to commando and special services troops.

The SMLE (re-designated the No 1) rifle and bayonet combination remained almost unchanged from WWI as did the Mills Bomb (grenade). The SMLE was joined by the newer version the No.4 rifle. Both models were made under licence in Australia at Lithgow.

The M36 Mills bomb (hand grenade) made a return and provided good reliable service in all theatres.

In July 1939 a 24 year old by the name of Evelyn Owen took his prototype of a .22 calibre submachine gun (sometimes called a machine carbine) to the Victoria Barracks in Sydney. It was inspected by Ordnance Officers. It could be made with little special equipment using the parts from a .22 calibre rifle. The Officers told Owen that in would not be accepted by the Army because it was .22 calibre. Owen said that the gun could be easily adapted to larger calibres and that he only chose .22 for convenience. The gun was rejected because, before World War II the Australia Army did not realise that the submachine gun was very important in attacking and defensive roles. Also, the British Army hadn't adopted the submachine gun into their Army, but . . . the war started, we needed weapons and more importantly we needed jungle fighting weapons.

The Owen went into production about mid 1941, with about 50,000 produced by 1945. Although quite large and bulky, the Owen was a first-class gun and very popular with those who used it, for it stood up well to the hard conditions of jungle fighting and stoppages were remarkably rare.

MACHINE CARBINE, 9MM OWEN, MARK 1 STATS....

Calibre: 9mm
Length: 32 in ( 806 mm)
Weight (unloaded): 9 lb 5 oz(4.21kg)
Barrel: 9.75 in (247mm), 7 grooves, right-hand twist
Magazine: 33 round detachable box
Ammunition: 9mm Parabellum, bullet 115 gr, charge 6 gr
Rate of Fire: 700rpm
Muzzle Velocity: 1250 fps


Its two outstanding features were the top mounted magazine -- a feature rarely seen on submachine-guns since the Villar Perosa -- and the provision of a separate bolt compartment inside the receiver so that the bolt was isolated from its retracting handle by a small bulkhead, through which passed the small diameter bolt. This ensured that dirt and mud did not jam the bolt and it was highly successful, although expensive in terms of space.

Two other unusual mechanical features: the ejector is built into the magazine rather than into the gun body, and the barrel is rapidly removable by pulling up on a spring-loaded plunger just ahead of the magazine housing. The latter feature is necessary since, due to the method of assembly and construction, the gun can only be dismantled by removing the barrel and then taking out the bolt and return spring in a forward direction.

The OMC stayed in service through Korea where the extra distances worked against it and in the early days of Vietnam. It was replaced by a newer less efficient model, the F1, in the 1960's and that was quickly replaced by the American made Colt AR15 (M16) Armalite.

Early in the war the British held a bias against submachine-guns, declaring them "gangster guns" and not fitting for soldiers. This opinion shifted quickly after they ran into the German MP38/MP40. While they quickly took an order of Thompsons to fill the gap, they immediately began developing a home grown SMG. That Gun was the Sten Gun which was technically called a "machine carbine" by the British.

The Sten was inexpensive and simple to manufacture and unfortunately suffered from a problems with quality control. The Mark II was the most common version and was used in every theatre of the war from about the end of 1941 until the end of the war. However it was not very popular due to its tendency to jam at the worst possible moment, especially in the earlier years.

The American designed and manufactured Thompson 0.45 inch (11 mm) calibre sub-machine gun made famous by the Chicago gangsters like Al 'Scarface' Capone and others. It went to war in WW2 and did good work. The troops called it the Tommy Gun. The military version had a box magazine, not a cylinder magazine as in Capones day.

The Bren Light Machine Gun was introduced into the British Army in 1937. The Bren revolutionised the British & Australian Army organisation and equipment from the organisation that had been in place since the First World War to what we know as the organisation of the Army in World War Two.

Equipment was designed so Bren Gun magazines could be carried. An Infantry section always contained a Bren Group (1 gun, 1 gunner, 1 No2) for local automatic support fire.

The introduction of the Bren meant that tactics could change. It was now possible to have light, fast moving automatic fire moving just as fast as the men themselves could. With the Bren's predecessor, the LEWIS, this could not be done as the weight and dimensions of the Lewis meant it was not possible to carry forward an LMG in an attack at speed.

1942-12-28. Papua. By experience allied troops have learned to take no chances with enemy tree top snipers. Every tree top that could house snipers was sprayed with hundreds of rounds from automatic weapons. One Bren gunner varied the treatment when he sighted a sniper. Using this extremely accurate Australian-made weapon he fired several bursts at the top of a coconut tree concentrating his fire at a spot six feet from the top. The weight of the sniper caused the tree top to break and he was killed when he hit the ground 60 feet below.

The Bren was noted for its accuracy and a good gunner could chop a tree down with it.

The Bren gun was used in many roles from light support in the Infantry section to a Medium MG role when used with the sustained fire tripod that was issued with every gun. It was also used largely in the Anti-Aircraft role and special items of equipment were issued with it for this purpose such as 100-round drum magazines and tripod extension legs.

THE BREN LMG STATS...

Manufacturer: Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield Lock
Calibre: .303 inch British
Length Overall: 1,150mm (42.5 inches)
Weight empty: 10.15kg (22.38lb)
Barrel: 635mm (25.0 inches), 6 groove Right Hand
Feed system: 30-round detachable box
Rate of fire: 500 rounds per minute
Muzzle velocity: 731 metres per second (2,400 ft/sec)

The Bren went into Front-line service as soon as the numbers were available. It went to France in 1939 with the British Expeditionary Force in the Mk. I version of the gun. It served in North Africa and Italy. Australian troops used the Bren in all the theatres of war in which they served. The Bren soldiered on post war as well in Korea and Malaya. It was then converted to 7.62mm NATO with the introduction of the L1A1 Self-Loading-Rifle (SLR) the Bren became the L4. It has a service history of over 60 years!

THE MILLS BOMB...

The ones in use during WW1 were mostly Model 5. There is VERY little difference. They were still in use in the mid 1960's. Each one had to be assembled by the user, unlike today's grenades that come ready to use . Each battalion had a "Bombing Platoon" that specialised in explosives, mostly Mills Bombs and Gun Cotton.

Grenades (small bombs thrown by hand) were first used in the 16th century. In the opening months of the First World War the British Army used Grenade No 1. This was a cast-iron canister on an 18 inch stick. Soldiers soon discovered that they were dangerous to use when in a front-line trench. There were several cases of soldiers being killed when the grenade hit the front of the trench.

In 1915, a grenade developed by William Mills, a Birmingham engineer, began to be used by British troops. The bomb had a central spring-loaded firing-pin and spring-loaded lever locked by a pin. Originally it had a 7 second fuse which required that the bomber held the bomb for 3 seconds after ignition otherwise the enemy could throw it back before it exploded. In the newer models once the Mills Bomb was in the air, the lever flew up and released the striker, which ignited a four-second time fuse, allowing the thrower to take cover before it exploded. When the grenade went off the cast-iron casing shattered producing a shower of metal fragments.

The grenade developed by Mills soon became very popular with British soldiers and remained in short supply until the end of 1916. By the time the Armistice was signed, more than 33 million Mills Bombs had been issued to soldiers in the British Army.

THE ENFIELD AND BAYONET.......

The .303 Lee Enfield rifle, introduced in 1895, was the main military service rifle of the British Empire and her Commonwealth countries for over 60 years, over this period of time it went through various upgrades and modifications. This model had a five round magazine. It was a single shot, (cock after every round fired) design. The most notable alteration being the adoption of a single size of rifle in 1903 for both the cavalry and infantry use. This rifle, known as the Short Magazine Lee Enfield, or SMLE was still Britain's service rifle in 1939 and was not declared obsolete and officially replaced until 1941 with another Lee Enfield, the No 4 rifle. Both models stayed in use until the end of WWII.

The rifle originally introduced in 1895 was designed by James Paris Lee (1831-1904), a Scottish born firearms designer who worked chiefly in the USA and Canada. His design incorporated a "cock-on-closing" bolt with rear locking lugs and a detachable 10 round magazine.
This action was combined with Enfield rifling to create the Lee-Enfield. It was the common British practice at the time to designate their service rifles with the name of the action and rifling, hence, the Lee-Metford or Martini-Henry etc.

The standard issue bayonet for the Lee-Enfield rifle was about half a metre long (blade was 43cms, handle extra) and when on the end of a rifle held by a cranky ANZAC was a fearsome weapon. ANZAC's were on average taller, heavier built and stronger than Europeans and the idea of an Australian bayonet charge became a thing of fear amongst German troops.

And finally THE LEWIS GUN....

The Lewis Gun, a light machine gun, was developed in the United States in 1911. At 12 kg it was far lighter than the Vickers Machine-Gun and in 1915 the British Army decided to purchase the gun for use on the Western Front.

Another advantage of the Lewis is that six of these guns could be made in the time taken to produce one Vickers gun. Although too heavy for efficient portable use, it became the standard support weapon for the British infantry during the First World War. It used either a 47 or a 97 round cylindrical magazine.



GERMAN WEAPONS OF WWII CAN BE FOUND ON THE CONTACTS PAGE!!!!!!