Bolt Action: Operation Sealion Minis

[Harry von Fleischmann]

I'd say a significant suspension of disbelief for a German/Irish invasion. If and that's IF I included IRA in a 1940s game, I'd limit it to a small cell of gunmen (or that man Devlin); I'd not make them super heroes and I'd balance it with a special branch team that would appear on their trail.

So, the IRA take the far bridge, the FJ the near bridge and it's how fast the Pz can drive up the road. You have full on Sealion action AND an IRA/ SB shootout at the far objective...

[Arlequín]

Also Arlequin, what would happen to much older firearms? Say sniders, martini-enfields etc?

I doubt they'd have kept them. The IRA was awash with modern weapons during the Civil War, but after being told to 'dump arms' at its end, apparently retained just 850 or so of the rifles. I doubt they'd dump repeaters and keep single-shot antiques that corroded when they used cordite-filled ammo.

This might be worth a read: http://www.theirishstory.com/2015/05/21/weapons-of-the-irish-revolution-part-iii-the-civil-war-1922-23/#.WYeZZcbTW2c

Harry has the right of it for me, small groups, like a sort of reverso-world French Resistance unit (they have little or no local support if in the UK), aiding their allies, not providing the actual muscle. Half to all of the unit should be paid SB touts unknown to each other.

[Kommando_J]

Woops my firearms query wasn't specifically about the ira but england in general, would the governmeny have taken such stock or would they be considered to old?

[has.been]

In the 1970s I was an Army Cadet in the Midlands. The rifles we had for target shooting were Martini-Henrys, Re-chambered but basically the same as 'Wot stopped de Zulus at Rorkes Drift' our instructor told us.
The British army is loath to throw things away, it just moves down the line.

[Arlequín]

I saw a Martini-Enfield racked besides SLRs in a TA armoury c.1980. Our cadet weapons were SMLE No. 4 Rifles or the .22 No. 7.

British Army rifle stock across the UK 6th June 1940, was 1,150,000. All .303 but there are no details beyond that. Typically obsolete regular weapons were passed to colonial 'native' units or Commonwealth reservists, so you would expect UK stocks to be mostly SMLE No. 1, with a fair proportion of No. 3s (the P14).

Older weapons might be kept for old times sake, but ammunition would be hard to come by if it wasn't .303 and some older .303 conversions didn't survive for long using cordite filled rounds, they soon became 'shot-through' and often unsafe.

[Kommando_J]

That's interesting perhaps a militia made up of ex-colonial chaps? I can't see the government needing their weapons then.

I think out of all the lists the Home Guard List is possibly the best/most flexible, it shall feature an old soldiers squad made up of colonial veterans (gives me an excuse to go out and buy some empress stuff ) also can the Home Guard list take chaplains/intelligence officers from the other books?

[Arlequín]

That's interesting perhaps a militia made up of ex-colonial chaps? I can't see the government needing their weapons then.

They didn't post them direct to individual reservists. 

 

They were passed to the appropriate government/administration and kept in armouries, the same as the good stuff and issued on mobilisation if they were that far down the proverbial barrel.

I also expect that ex-colonial chaps and others, who could afford to travel probably possessed far more interesting weapons themselves anyway, Big game rifles were quite hardcore items in themselves. I wonder what an Elephant Gun might do to a Panzer I, or how a Punt Gun might be used against a rifle section.

Certainly a variety of 'Nitro-Express' rounds (.450 - .70) were ordered via the War Office in the Great War, as the rifles firing them could pierce German body armour and 'loophole plates'. Fifty two such rifles were actually purchased by the WO in September 1915, on a proposed issue of two per battalion for selected battalions. Others were purchased privately.   

[Kommando_J]

Lol, I meant more that the government might not bother/put in too much effort to collect up obsolete weapons, allowing ex-servicemen to just keep em.

What would have happened to shooting clubs?

[Arlequín]

Sure, there were shooting clubs, even an NRA. The Firearms Act of 1920 shifted the right to bear arms to it being a privilege though and built on 'Emergency Restrictions' introduced for the Great War. To get a Firearms Licence the police had to determine you had a 'need' for one.

Before 1934, if you could demonstrate a need for a Vickers Gun, you could have one. Few people would be able to do that though. After 1934 machine guns and 'short shotguns' became illegal. At one time if you owned a pistol that never left your home, it didn't need to be licensed, but now it did.

So if you were a competitive shooter, or a hunter and similar, getting a licence was fairly simple. These were middle and upper class pastimes however. If you played golf with anyone with any influence, you would probably have little trouble either. If you were a working class bloke and especially if you were a trade union member, what was your need for a weapon? You see where I'm going here I'm sure; ordinary people didn't 'need' a gun for any lawful purpose.

Likewise 'automatic pistols' (anything that held and could cycle more than one round, so covered revolvers too) were restricted by 'need' in the same way. You could buy a single shot target pistol without a licence, but not a .38 Webley.

Shotguns and miniature rifles didn't require a licence back then however and when Home Guard recruits mustered, those were the weapons they brought from home if they had them.

Obviously criminals ignored all the above, but even so, why take the consequences of being caught with an illegal pistol when a shotgun wouldn't bring any heat? Using one in a crime was a different matter, but again the heavy sentences for doing so were quite a dissuader.

[Arlequín]

Good of you to say, thanks. 

I get distracted by petty details and then obsessively dig for definitive answers to the most mundane of questions. Still it soaks up the time I would have just wasted painting figures and playing games; oh wait...

 

[carlos marighela]

Our friend Sgt Dixon is quite correct about the firearms legislation. It's also worth noting that firearms usage amongst criminals of the time was relatively uncommon. That's not to say that firearms were unknown to criminals or that offences were not committed with them but on the whole there seems to have been a sort of broad criminal consensus against their use, in particular against the police. So much so that a much later and infamous incident like the shooting of a Cumbrian PC in the mid sixties caused considerable outrage amongst the criminal community.

[joroas]

To be fair, killing a police officer was a hanging offence, criminals would have been loathe to go that far.

[Plynkes]

According to folklore, criminals in the UK only began regularly arming themselves after the Great Train Robbery. The robbers were given sentences that criminals with firearms would normally get, because of the outrage the establishment felt at the audacity of the crime. The underworld figured after this that if they were going to be sentenced as if they were armed anyway then they might as well be armed.

Not sure how true this is, but it is the 'folklore' version of the story.


The siege of Sidney Street back in 19-whenever-it-was created shock and uproar too. Way back then villains just did not shoot at policemen. Those were the rules, and everybody played by them. Unfortunately those Anarchists from the Russian Empire were used to dealing with Tsarist secret police rather than London Bobbies, and they didn't know the rules.

[Bullshott]

When considering weapons available in 1939/40, remember the OTC (Officer Training Corps) units in large private schools. My research of Dorset on the late 1930s has come up with several schools that had OTC units. Possibly the largest OTC unit in the county was that of Sherborne Boys School, which could field a company strength uniformed force armed with SMLEs. They would have had a sizeable armoury, probably in excess of 120 rifles and possibly even including the odd machine gun for training purposes. These armouries would provide for a useful source of weapons, or even trained schoolboys!

This video clip of Sherborne School in the 1930s includes footage of the OTC (about 7 minuites into the clip):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4q8l7tHswc

So for your Sealion games do some research of which independant schools were present in your area (boys schools associated with the church are a good starting point).

[SABOT]

Spot on with that as far as I am concerned. In my earlier post I suggested their use and you have just put the meat on the bones and therefore validated my plan so we think alike.

Another thanks to Arlequin for all the info.

I am currently on the ITP course at Combat Stress (treating PTSD ) and their are some old boys here who can back up the info of varied weapons still hanging around and also the wealth of `home owned` weapons e.g. campaign trophies - it has always and still goes on.