Can Someone Please Explain to Me Why...

[Skofnung]

Could one of you please tell me why the English (and their Commonwealth) decided upon guns with funky magazine locations?

I mean, why did the STEN and Sterling (Patchett) guns have right angle mounted magazines when a bottom fed gun would balance better? I know they kind of stole the 90 degree idea from the Bergman SMG, but why would they keep this feature?

Also, why did the BREN and the Owen guns have top mounted magazines? Why go to the trouble of offsetting sights when you can feed from the bottom? I can't imagine offset sights being very accurate. I might be able to understand the BREN magazine being top mounted for ground clearance in prone, but wouldn't the offset sights mess up long range accuracy?

I guess these guns worked well for what they were intended for, but was there some sort of reasoning applied to the odd magazine locations?

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I think the early machine guns had the top mags since they were influenced by the trench warfare. You don't want to force the weapon to be higher because of a mag going out the bottom, also it would be a bit harder to change.
Also, think some of them were used on the early aircraft, top fed worked better since a pilot/gunner could change it out easier.

Not sure why the sten was on the side though.

Think it just seemed to be the way things were done then.

 

[Chipperman]

They wanted to be sure Lefty's could not use them.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Well, for the BREN and Owen the reason for the mag location has always been cited as gravity assisting with the feed.

Obviously a lot of guns were made that simply didn't need gravity assist, so who knows.

On the Lewis gun it was definitely a case of gravity.

Oh, by the way, the BREN wasn't a British design. It was a Czech design slightly modified for production in Britain.

As for the offset sights not being very accurate, don't kid yourself.

There are many documented cases of BREN gunners sniping targets with single shots at several hundred yards.

 

[armoredman]

BREN - BRno and ENfield.

 

[cheygriz]

There were two reasons, actually for the side mounted magazines in the Sten, and later in the Sterling.

First, the designers wanted the soldier to be able to get as low as possible in prone position and behind cover, while still being able to fire.

Secondly, it was thought that the side mount was superior for firing "from the hip" as a soldier would do in room clearing and bunker clearing, or while running.

Was it a god idea? I don't know. But I've interveiwed several foreign (British, German and South African) "security professionals." (LOL) They generally have access to a wide assortmant of personal weapons. Those I interveiwed said they would take a Sterling, if it was available, over any other submachinegun ever made.

Did they know what they were talking about? I don't know. But they make their living in the "security" business.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Forgot another machine gun with a top-mounted magazine -- the Soviet Degtyarev, which used a pan magazine similar to the Lewis gun.

 

[c_yeager]

Ive seen a few VERY high end smallbore competition rifles built for cross-dominant shooters that had offset sights. (i think the sight setups are still made actually). If it can be made acurate enough for competition then i would imagine that its plenty accurate for combat. The fact is that as long is the sights are firmly attached to the rifle they can be most anywhere and still be as acurate as traditional sight setups.

 

[Teufelhunden]

The fact is that as long is the sights are firmly attached to the rifle they can be most anywhere and still be as acurate as traditional sight setups.

I would also posit that since MG's and/or squad automatic weapons are concerned with the cone of fire and beaten zone, single round accuracy would be less relevant. If they can work well on a point target at range, great, but pitting all of your rounds on the same flea kinca goes contrary to the point of a MG...


-Teuf

 

[Mike Irwin]

"I would also posit that since MG's and/or squad automatic weapons are concerned with the cone of fire and beaten zone, single round accuracy would be less relevant. If they can work well on a point target at range, great, but pitting all of your rounds on the same flea kinca goes contrary to the point of a MG..."

I've seen one instance of a person complaining that the BREN was TOO accurate, that it was tough to get a good suppressing dispersion of rounds...

 

[Jim K]

Please permit a couple of comments. Neither the Lewis gun nor the Russian DP depends on gravity to feed from their top pan magazines, although they work a bit differently. The Lewis was very commonly used as both an anti-aircraft gun and a flexible gun on aircraft, impossible for a gun dependent on gravity feed. The rounds are held in the drum, points to the center held by the inner ring and rims held firmly. The outer casing is rotated by a bolt-operated cam, which also has a surface to pull the round to be fired out of the drum and push it into the feed path. It is a positive feed, and in no way depends on gravity. The DP feed is simpler, since the inner spool is rotated and the outer casing is motionless. But it too, is quite positive, and is not gravity dependent.

As to the Bren, its magazine uses a conventional spring and follower, and it was never intended that feeding would be aided by gravity. The magazine is top mounted for the same reason the STEN and Johnson LMG have side magazines - to reduce the profile of the gun and firer.

One little known point about accuracy of a machinegun. The BAR, with no bipod or with the bipod mounted on the gas tube was so accurate that the bipod was moved to the front of the barrel deliberately to spoil the accuracy. As was noted, there is no point in putting 20 rounds through one enemy soldier's third jacket button.

Jim

 

[SMLE]

And the German FG42 had a side mounted magazine.

At one time, left handedness was strongly discouraged. Left handed childern were sometimes physically punished in order to force them into right handedness. And if you were a left handed shooter going onto the military, well you'd get THAT beaten out of you RIGHT now! And if you couldn't qualify shooting right handed, then it was cooks and baker's school for you. Acomodating lefties is a fairly recent innovation in even the US military.

My Father was in the US Marines in WWII. He served along side some Australian troops. The Marines were HIGHLY impressed by the Aussie BREN gunners and their weapons.
Dad once related an anecdote of an Aussie BREN gunner calmly cutting a Jap officer in two vertically, then with out missing a beat, turning to Dad and trying to bum an American cigarette.

In fact, the BREN was such a good weapon that the Commonwealth updated it to 7.62x51 NATO(L4A2) and kept using them into the 1980s. I know they were carrying them in the Falklands War in 1982.

FWIW; The barrel change mechanism of the BREN was copied on the US M60 GPMG.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Jim,

Note that I didn't say that the Lewis gun, or even the DG, fed solely by gravity, I didn't, and they don't. I should have been a little clearer.

That said, the gun's designer specifically chose the top mounted magazine because he felt that gravity would be of great benefit in helping the gun feed reliably while being able to mount a magazine of greater capacity -- or so I've read. Supposedly there were experiments done with bottom mounted pan magazines that were less than successful.

Remember, thought, that this gun was designed in a time when Gatling-style guns with gravity feed magazines were still in fairly common usage around the world, so that concept would not have been foreign to him at all.

I'm trying to remember who was responsible for the magazine, McLean, the initial designer, or Col. Lewis, who perfected the gun.

As for whether or not the top mounted magazine on the BREN was specifically chosen to reduce the profile of the firer, aid in the feed of the gun, or both, we can't tell for certain what was in the designer's mind as to the best of my knowledge nothing from the design process survived.