Bren gunners ?

[LawnRanger]

Hi lads
   Can any of you help me out please how many Bren Gunners would you find in a platoon in 1941-42 in the 8th army (Rifle Brigade /Kings Royal Rifle Corp )

would it be 1 per section at that time or is that too many? OR 1 per platoon.

 If so would he be attached to the PLT H.Q ,with the SJT, 2" mortar,runner, radio op oh and the Boss ?

and later on did they get to have 2 bren gunners per section late war? or is that wishful thinking 

On the books I take it that it was 4Plt to a coy ? not 3 plt?

would like your feed back on this please LR

[Cubs]

I've always thought it was one Bren per section - one gun group of three men (gunner, loader and junior NCO) and seven riflemen (section leader NCO plus six OR). Having said that, the longer a campaign went on, the more 'rules' became malleable to fit the circumstances in theatre.

It's also possible that as casualties mounted, two small sections (each with gun group) might be tasked with a role that one section would be given in the training manual. That's kind of a guess though.

[Rod Robertson]

Hi.
For an infantry platoon there would be normally be three Bren guns. Each Bren gun would be manned by a gunner with no other weapon and a rifleman loader. A team leader might or might not be attached. Often times platoons tried to find extra guns but this was often discouraged by the officers who were by the book.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

[webhed666]

In the osprey about the bren gun it mentions that with the home units taking priority for equipment, colonial units suffered shortages of bren guns through 41-42. Unhelpfully they don't specify any actual units.

[LawnRanger]

Big thanks lads for the input on this .#

am happy to take the line that each section would have a Gunner (bren gunner ) god its like going back to the late 80's where we had a gunner (GPMG gunner in every section ) then we got the bloody LSW  and then we had 2 per section ! ..Cheers lads

happy gaming LR