The Indian Army’s .303 story

[farhan.lateefi]

The Indian Army’s .303 story
It is a beautiful gun to look at. With its wooden sturdiness, it has a dignity that many modern guns, like the plastic m16, do not
Aakar Patel
First Published: Wed, Sep 05 2012. 03 50 PM IST

The most interesting of all the mercenary soldiers of India in the 1700s were the Naga sadhus. They were ferocious, utterly reckless and totally naked. Their leader in the war of the Awadh Shias against the Mughals was Rajendragiri Gosain. During the siege of Delhi in 1753 the monk had the back of his head blown away by an idiot who fired from his own side. A historian said, “I ascribe it to the bad marksmanship and reckless firing for which Indian troops were notorious.” In the hands of Indians, guns were dangerous.

Exactly 100 years after Gosain’s death, the British introduced the rifle that would cause India to mutiny against them: the Enfield Pattern 1853 with its waxed cartridge. In the hands of Indians, even ammunition was now dangerous. Naturally, the Pattern 53 did not last long, and soon went through an evolution, the Snider-Enfield of 1860.
Jacob Snider was the inventor of the gun’s mechanism and the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield was the manufacturer. Rudyard Kipling sent this gun into legend in his poem The Grave of the Hundred Head:
A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of
his head.

The poem is about how Subadar Prag Tewarri avenges a fallen English officer in Burma. By now, the Indian jawan had improved his aim and had been drilled and disciplined into one of the world’s great infantrymen.

The next version of the Enfield rifle was a weapon fit for his qualities, the Lee-Enfield .303 SMLE. With this gun and British drilling and training, the Indian infantryman was no longer dangerous but deadly. The .303 was manufactured in Enfield, north London. Discovery Channel’s experts named it the third best rifle of all time (behind the AK-47 and the American M16). But actually it is No. 1. It has probably killed more men than any weapon in history.

With his .303, the British infantryman pacified the Boers and defeated the Germans to win two world wars. It is the rifle that the Anzac troops fired as they were slaughtered by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at Gallipoli. The rifle with which Lawrence of Arabia captured Aqaba. It is the rifle that cut down the Sikhs at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 and the Dalits at Ghatkopar’s Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar in 1997.

Jacob Snider was the inventor of the gun’s mechanism and the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield was the manufacturer. Rudyard Kipling sent this gun into legend in his poem The Grave of the Hundred Head:It is the rifle of Mumbai police and of the Afghan resistance. I find the .303 a beautiful gun to look at. With its wooden sturdiness, it has a dignity that many modern guns, like the plastic M16, do not.

The Indian Army’s standard issue Insas is possibly the ugliest gun in existence. Gurkhas interviewed after they went over the top at Kargil said they picked up the Kalashnikovs of the fallen Pakistanis because they were better and more accurate than their own guns. The greater beauty of the .303, however, came from its being reliable and brutally effective. In The Rifle Story, John Walter writes that an experiment in 1900 showed that the .303’s range was effectively 1.8km. This is why, for a century, Afghans have held on to this gun of their fathers.

The gun they’ve sniped Britishers with, Russians with, and now Americans with.

The quick-firing AK-47 is useful when overrunning trenches (which is why it’s an “assault” rifle). But it is not accurate at distance. When Afghans got the Kalashnikov in the 1980s, many warriors kept their old rifles. The New York Times carried a feature on arms captured in Afghanistan including one WW-II .303 that was patched up but still working.

The .303 had some great innovations. The first came from its mechanism, invented by James Paris Lee. It could reload quickly and trained infantrymen could let off 20 rounds in 1 minute with great accuracy. The rifle’s full name is the SMLE. The LE obviously stands for Lee-Enfield. S is for short but the .303 is short only by 19th century rifle standards. Modern police forces around the world carry assault rifles (like the AK series) or still smaller submachine guns (such as the Uzi). These are compact and easier to fire in restricted urban spaces and indoors. The .303 is a rifle from the era of trench warfare, and infantry arrayed in battle lines. It is not an urban weapon. The M stands for magazine, and this was the second great innovation.

The .303 carries 10 rounds and was the most capacious rifle of its time. Germans facing British and Indian troops armed with the new .303 often reported that they had faced machine-gun fire. This training and disciplining under British officers, I repeat myself, is what produced the modern Indian army.

The massacre of Mumbai happened with the Pakistanis firing their AKs from the hip and the Mumbai constables firing back with their .303s.

Jacob Snider was the inventor of the gun’s mechanism and the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield was the manufacturer. Rudyard Kipling sent this gun into legend in his poem The Grave of the Hundred Head:Why didn’t they hit anything?

If I remember the videos from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus correctly, one constable fired with the rifle’s stock loosely under his armpit instead of on the shoulder. This guaranteed that the .303’s kick would send the bullet over the Pakistani’s head. The generations of training in firing the .303 Indians have received has totally worn off.

We’ve also stopped making the gun. It used to be made at the Rifle Factory Ishapore in West Bengal. But it doesn’t make them any more and doesn’t need to.
Rifles become inaccurate and unusable with time when their rifling (the spiral groove in the barrel from which the weapons get their name) is worn out from shooting. There’s no chance of that happening in India, which has no budget to spare for target practice.

And so the .303 will be around for another century, even if not in the hands of our constabulary.

Aakar Patel is a writer and a columnist. This article appeared in The Mint newspaper

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/BVzwjwA ... story.html

[inplainsight]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[timmy]

Thank you, Farhan, for sharing this. I enjoyed reading this recap of SMLE history. Regarding this statement:

Discovery Channel’s experts named it the third best rifle of all time (behind the AK-47 and the American M16). But actually it is No. 1. It has probably killed more men than any weapon in history.

I would agree.

It is a funny thing, comparing the SMLE with the AK47 and the M16/M4: The AK47 is still pretty much the same basic weapon that it started out as. There have been modifications and variations, to be sure, by all of the nations that have produced it, but it has not seen the constant development that the SMLE and M16 have in common with each other. Both of these two rifles underwent constant revision and improvements.

Regarding SMLE accuracy, it's not all about the bore condition the writer alludes to. Another large factor in SMLE accuracy has to do with bedding issues associated with the two piece stock. The critical areas are, in addition to the receiver ring area (common to all bolt action rifles), but additionally the area of the stock beside the trigger and the area that abuts the buttstock socket in the rear. Problems with accuracy often result from bedding issues at these points, a situation that's part of the two piece stock design.

Before one becomes critical of the British choice of arms, it is well to remember that the SMLE was not designed for country gentlemen out shooting stag for pleasure. It was designed to project British power in every imaginable condition and in every corner of the globe. Part of this need meant that the rifle must also double as a sort of pike -- it had to be a firm, reliable mounting for a bayonet. The weak point of almost any rifle, especially when it comes to bayonet use, is at the rear of the action, where the thin parts of the stock meet. The SMLE doesn't have this problem, because the buttstock is firmly affixed to the action by a long draw screw.The SMLE is going to keep on going on the battlefield where other rifles will crack in this critical wrist area.

So, the SMLE went from firing black powder to cordite, from long barreled to short, added a charger clip (a response to the clip-charged Mausers of the Boers), and changed the entire rifling arrangement to accommodate the hotter burning black powder. Toward the end, both India and Britain adapted them to the more powerful 7.62x51 NATO round.

In short, the SMLE was not a weapon that emerged fully formed from an engineering genius's mind, like a Browning or even a Kalashnikov. Instead, it was the product of constant improvement and development over the years and is one of the high points of the gunmaker's art.

[essdee1972]

Thanks Farhan! Apart from a great gun, the article also recalled to mind some of the greatest battles it was used in - Gallipolli, Aquaba. Also el Alamein, Tripoli, Caen..... a hundred other fields all over the world. Even to our own outnumbered, outgunned, out-generaled, out-politicianned soldiers fighting to the last cartridge of their SMLEs against the Chinese hordes armed with Type 56s in '62.

Here's to the only firearm I ever used.....once!!!

[TwoRivers]

So, the SMLE went from firing black powder to cordite, from long barreled to short, added a charger clip (a response to the clip-charged Mausers of the Boers), and changed the entire rifling arrangement to accommodate the hotter burning black powder. Toward the end, both India and Britain adapted them to the more powerful 7.62x51 NATO round.

Surely you meant cordite?

[Raptor]

since late sixties we haven't used the .303 but the 7.62 ishapore. They look somewhat similar but that's about it. Otherwise a wonderful post. I loved it!

[mundaire]

@ Raptor - actually both (.303 & 7.62 SMLE's) are still in use, an easy way to tell the difference is to simply look at the shape of the magazine. The 7.62 SMLE's have a "boxier" looking magazine.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[Raptor]

@ Raptor - actually both (.303 & 7.62 SMLE's) are still in use, an easy way to tell the difference is to simply look at the shape of the magazine. The 7.62 SMLE's have a "boxier" looking magazine.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

yes sir...the boxier magazine is a twelve round detachble...though they made .303 with detachable mags too but i've seen the only cops carrying them...they have a ten round capacity...the sight markings on the .308 is in meters, the older .303 sights were marked in yards but since I have neither seen nor fired the converted .303 i have no idea about if those too were equppied with similar sights... well, one learns something new everyday..thank you for correcting me

[Glock 25]

Thanks for informative story

[timmy]

So, the SMLE went from firing black powder to cordite, from long barreled to short, added a charger clip (a response to the clip-charged Mausers of the Boers), and changed the entire rifling arrangement to accommodate the hotter burning black powder. Toward the end, both India and Britain adapted them to the more powerful 7.62x51 NATO round.

Surely you meant cordite?

Yes, sir, sorry!

[timmy]

@ Raptor - actually both (.303 & 7.62 SMLE's) are still in use, an easy way to tell the difference is to simply look at the shape of the magazine. The 7.62 SMLE's have a "boxier" looking magazine.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

yes sir...the boxier magazine is a twelve round detachble...though they made .303 with detachable mags too but i've seen the only cops carrying them...they have a ten round capacity...the sight markings on the .308 is in meters, the older .303 sights were marked in yards but since I have neither seen nor fired the converted .303 i have no idea about if those too were equppied with similar sights... well, one learns something new everyday..thank you for correcting me

All of the magazines on No. 1 and No. 4 Lee Enfields are detachable, although it was not British military practice to detach them in use.

I have neither seen nor fired the converted .303

What is a "converted .303"?

[ckkalyan]

Thank you farhan.lateefi for posting about the iconic 303!

[Raptor]

@ Raptor - actually both (.303 & 7.62 SMLE's) are still in use, an easy way to tell the difference is to simply look at the shape of the magazine. The 7.62 SMLE's have a "boxier" looking magazine.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

yes sir...the boxier magazine is a twelve round detachble...though they made .303 with detachable mags too but i've seen the only cops carrying them...they have a ten round capacity...the sight markings on the .308 is in meters, the older .303 sights were marked in yards but since I have neither seen nor fired the converted .303 i have no idea about if those too were equppied with similar sights... well, one learns something new everyday..thank you for correcting me

All of the magazines on No. 1 and No. 4 Lee Enfields are detachable, although it was not British military practice to detach them in use.

I have neither seen nor fired the converted .303

What is a "converted .303"?

a SMLE with a detachable box mag in .303 caliber...please refer to sir abhijeet's post above.

[TwoRivers]

a SMLE with a detachable box mag in .303 caliber...please refer to sir abhijeet's post above.

That's the Lee-Enfield. What do you mean by "converted"? Converted from what and to what?

[Raptor]

a SMLE with a detachable box mag in .303 caliber...please refer to sir abhijeet's post above.

That's the Lee-Enfield. What do you mean by "converted"? Converted from what and to what?

converted from the old style 'let's keep it in place till we need to cleanit and till then let's use the charger clips' old lee enfield mags to the ishapore made .303 'let's slap on the mag now and rack the bolt and do drop the mag to load the next one '...does that explain it better, sir? At least that is what i think sir abhijeet was talking about. :p