They did surrender, why try a build a hero myth around them? They lost and surrendered it was not one of the great heroic last stands. In any other countries military history it would be a side note.@@ForgottenWeapons
The Swedish Ks used in the movie were the ACTUAL Swedish Ks used in the conflict. Hire Arms in Johannesburg provided the firearms for the movie. Bruce Wentzel (friend) is the owner of Hire Arms and he traced the Swedish Ks by serial numbers using records in Ireland.
sounds like some marketing propoganda @@samopalusa5249 Like the kind an Irish patriot would want to believe... used car salesman style... the exploitation is real friend and every cultist needs their fantasy
@@eralehm "There is no reason why any of them would have found their way to South Africa, certainly not in any numbers" See, that's a BS statement. After the Congo conflict, southern Africa saw the Rhodie Bush War, the Border war, and multiple revolutions and guerilla conflicts between African militias. There are so many reasons and ways that those guns would make their way down to that neck of the woods.
Where did you get this information? I was talking to an Irish army armour. He said that they cut up all the Carl Gustav smgs in Connelly Barracks with gas axes🤔
The BREN scene bugs me, too. The absence of the armored cars bugs me, too, because it was key to how they managed to avoid having any of their troops killed. They used the armored cars as emplaced gun turrets which allowed them to suppress the attacking enemy with impunity because the enemy has no anti-armor weapons.
That was definitely left out of the movie!! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jadotville#:~:text=The%20aircraft%20attacked%20several%20times,a%20French%2075mm%20field%20gun.
And me too . Not the Vickers machine gun, after all Eireann was a neutral country, with a poor equipement ,but using a Bren like a sniper gun, I was very surprised and thought the shooter had a trick.
"the support weapon preferred by snipers is the M2 Browning" Hold on there, sparky. You might want to reel that joke back in. One of the longest confirmed kills on record for decades was made by Carlos Hathcock with an M2 in semi-auto mode.
Having fired the 7.62mm LMG (Bren) a lot during my time in the British Army I can say that as far as machine guns go, it was very accurate (for a machine gun) and a two man team can keep the enemys heads down very effectively with it using short bursts. I too though, when I first saw this film some years back, threw some words at the TV screen regarding the use of the Bren with a single shot over distance. Apart from that though, it really is an excellent movie and well worth a watch as the Irish army does not get enough recognition for their (often very hairy) UN work over the decades since WWII.
They really don't, Ireland has contributed the most amount of soldiers per capita to UN peacekeeping forces, although recent neglect of the defence forces by the Irish government has resulted in a fall in the amount of soldiers being deployed on peacekeeping missions.
A lot of smaller countries sent their troops into Congo, too, so many of them were newly independent nations. And many did see action like the Malayan Special Force of the Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) who didn't face a dire of a situation like the Irish did face some combat
My dad had a great laugh at that scene about the Bren. In the National Service he actually earned a marksmans badge with the Bren. His comment was the Bren was to make the other side keep their heads down, and the sniper’s job was to take their head off.
Indeed. Many people just don't get that a _gunners'_ job is to lay _suppressive fire,_ not be accurate. If you can piss 100 rounds in a couple of seconds and paint several feet across in lead in that period, you and your hardware are doing _a fine job,_ which is to force the other bastards to cower in cover so your squad can get into a better position. You off a guy or two, _that's already an overachievement._ It breaks my heart when I see people roast gunners and their LMGs as "hurr, they couldn't get tight groupings". They just don't get how valuable gunners are in preserving the lives of their brothers in arms, much vidya.
Oh my dad yelled out Bullshit as well. He didn't carry the Bren but the BAR and of course they are the most inappropriate weapons to be used in that context
@@TamLe-ig2ey And here is the thing that always baffled me a bit when it comes to the Bar. I get that this type of gun is meant to deliver suppressive fire, but what I don't get is how that 20 round standard magazine of the Bar was enough to do the job. 20 rounds does sound awfully sparse with suppressive fire in mind.
@@Furzkampfbomber I know this is a bit late in answering, but the whole mag thing comes down to two different methodologies of the interwar-wartime period for ammo storage. The one that won out in the end was for the machine gunner to feed their lmg from a belt with assistance gunner carrying extra belts and helping with the loading. LMGs like the bren gun however, being mag fed, had the ammo a bit less exposed to the elements and in the British army each rifleman in the squad carried a few bren magazines in their basic pouches of their webbing. This meant that, while lower in capacity, the bren gun’s magazines were distributed through the members of a unit and readily available to resupply unless they all run out of ammunition.
@@manofconstantgold That makes sense, thanks a lot for the explanation! I still wonder about the usufulness of a weapon meant to suppress the enemy with only 20 rounds in the magazine though. My thought is, you fire 20 rounds, then you have to reload, which also means you have to suspend your suppressive fire. I guess it was a weighing up of all advantages and disadvantages and in the end, they would not have used it on such a large scale in case the disadvantages predominated, but still, I wonder how practical/useful the BAR was in combat due to this.
Sorry, but all ammo will run out FAST very soon. If you can't remake your own propellants w/ geo-resources (dig, baby!) you will wear out rifling & steel parts not easily replaceable. SOLUTION : the cardinal Three Self-Made Weapons : Atlatl / Blowgun / Sling (in all permutations of the 3 groups). Easy to master techniques (especially by feral children in treetops) & an unlimited number of variants possible with (previously) modern materials. "We'll vacuum the ocean bottom for precious plastic particles, Captain Crabs!"
The irony of substituting a magnified optic marksman/sniper rifle with a iron sight light support machine gun... I mean, at around 500 yards your front sight post on your Bren is going to be larger than the human target you're firing at. It's almost like... magnified optics are useful for shooting at range. Whoddathunkit.
Funniest to me is the thing Ian mentioned last and his "there is no front sight". ..... I think something got crossed between the FX department and directing. The reason there is no front sight visible is..... that is supposed to be a sight view from magnified optic with hairline cross hair. One can see the big round silhuette. So FX people thought "well this is sniper shot, obviously we make up fake scope silhuette and hairline cross hair and stylize it with little out of focus and so on. It also gives the best view of the target aka action". Where as action director was "no this sniper is so bad as he makes that shot with bad ass Bren gun with iron sights". Since one must remember *they wouldn't have shot that shot in filming through any kind of sights* . You don't do that, way too much focus problems and so on. You shoot the aiming view through cinema camera on cinema quality with perfect lenses ..... and then ask the FX department to mess is up to make it look being silhuetted with iron sights or optical sight. If you want zoom, you don't use the telescope zoom. Trying to get the experience of all of both rear sight, front sight and target being in focus is not possible easily with limited focus lenses. So you fake it. Film the supposed shot (and input blood spatter) on cinema camera and then post process silhuette in the scope reticle and housing (and possibly distortions) or the iron sights. So it's... oopsie post processing thought this shot was supposed to be sniper shot with a scope, but ooopsie that is not what is actually in the script. They faked the wrong kind of sight in the shot. I think most likely also since, well the front sight would obstruct the view of the actor in the sights.
@aritakalo8011 Doesn't look like they were going for a scope, that's just how the rear sight would look up close. If you look at the rear sight a little earlier in the video, you can see its round like it's shown in the close up. They still messed up not having the front sight though, so vfx could have been the problem there.
At 500 yards i've known plenty of people (including myself before my eye injury) who can hit better with irons than magnified optics i've only recently started using optics after losing partial sight in my dominant eye and i am having a lot of trouble hitting out to the same distances
As an Australian sniper who specialised in the Lee-Enfield, but also trained with the Bren, I can assure you that you are 101% correct, from actual experience.
There is also a myth about the Lee Enfield was inaccurate which is laughable. I constantly get flak about my hunting rifle being a LE and how inaccurate it is... I'm a terrible shot, but the bullet always hits exactly where its aimed, every time.@@edwarddailey21
@@edwarddailey21 The Chieftain just released a video addressing this point. On the range in Ireland, the Bren were heavily perceived to be a precision weapon by the soldiers, born from the Inter-Unit shooting contests. If the soldiers are absolutely convinced that the Bren can be used as a sniper rifle, they are going to use it as such, even if the actual ballistics don't back that up. The Irish Inter-Unit shooting contests even had the rule you couldn't single fire the Bren in competition to try to get them to use it more as a LMG, but this only made the Irish soldiers shoot 2 round bursts instead.
@@edwarddailey21to add to the comments about Chieftain’s video, that reputation could well have been aided by the superior practical accuracy of the bipod-equipped Bren gun compared to the free-resting Enfield
That particular Bren was the legendary Irish magical one, blessed by St Patrick himself, it will not miss, even if you shoot it blindfolded, with no front sight and looking sideways at it...
It was hammer forged with shilleaghs and stored in nitrogen flushed Guinness to reduce oxidisation and wear. Hand loaded rounds with propellant made from dehydrated whiskey and bullets made of post colonial spite. The exit wound was the size of a football. 😅 And cursed the family line of the target for all eternity 😂
The "Bren is too accurate" myth was so pervasive that actual British service personnel were taught that it was true during training, and continued to be taught this through the 1950s and 1960s.
This Hollywood scene lets the film down a bit. The FN FAL (SLR in Britian), the rifle the Irish also had, was far more accurate than the Bren. I fired both, I know. And unit snipers at the time (if they had any) used the .303 Lee Enfield with scope, if they were equipped with it.
@@Andy_Ross1962Well, my father-in-law was trained on the Bren in that time period, and he was taught that it was highly accurate. Whether they said “too accurate” I don’t know.
I think it is part of the good old WW2 propaganda, "E have the more accurate weapon, you have nothing to fear", similar to the American propaganda that "the bark of the MG42 is worse than its bite" or "our Thompson machine guns are way better than those mp 40s". The Brits were always proud of their high accuracy, so of course they needed the "most accurate machine gun". This is also the reason why Britain didn't have an SMG at the beginning of WW2, because they thought 10 rounds are enough if you can kill a guy with one shot, while an SMG would work great if you could kill the same guy multiple times over. But all of that Ideology didn't survive the first contact with the enemy...
Somewhat anecdotal, but my grandfather was a Bren gunner from 1939-46 in the AIF. He was widely regarded and self confessed rotten shot with a rifle, so he got given a Bren gun- of which he qualified on and spent the next 7 years dragging it around through all manner of godforsaken, tropical hell holes. It wasn't so much he was a good shot or the Bren was any +/- better than any dodgy SMLE rifles they also got issued, but you just had plenty more rounds to get some effect on target!
I remember this scene! It looked so stupid that started screaming in my screen - like WTF is that guy doing?!? At least now i understand what this was all about...
I remember it sending me down a wikipedia hole cause I wasn't super versed on british guns... "Well maybe it's got a more appropriate round?.... same round. Maybe it's got a longer barrel? Same barrel length..... Maybe the sniper had parkinsons and needed the bipod to hold it steady...."
@@PolenarTactical To be fair, this was one (very) stupid scene in a movie that otherwise is quite correct when it comes to the guns used. There are tons of movies that have send me into a 90+ minutes screaming fit, because of how historically inaccurate, stupid and silly they are and this movie was actually a refreshing exception in this regard. So calling the producers retarted because of that one scene seems a bit harsh if you ask me.
I thought it was pretty dumb also. Dude had an enfield (same bullet as bren) with a telescopic sight on it, why would you use the bren? T.B.H though, the Bren did have a bipod on it, which would help, and if you're a true marksman you should be able to shoot 300 yards at a human sized target no problem with those adjustable sights. Still really redundant and stupid, but there's at least a minimal amount of reason behind it, bipod n all.
I was in the Congo in the late 80s/early 90s, the situation then was far simpler and we still could have used a spreadsheet to keep all the factions in order in our minds. Nothing is simple in that crazy place. While I'm sure it would be possible to pull that shot off with a Bren if you know that particular weapon well enough, if you have a #4 sniper why the hell would you use a Bren? This kind of stuff is one of the reasons I don't generally watch movies about places I contracted.
I think an applicable observation for African politics is a quote one of my professors lifted from the movie Congo. "When these little African countries get into a dispute, they tend to just murder everybody. They live for the opportunity to settle scores... and they have a lot of scores to settle." (We were discussing Rwanda at the time.)
i'd heard the Bren accuracy 'myth'. I agree, an accurate weapon, relatively low ROF, but not up to par with No.4 MLE! It is a bit annoying in the film...unless it actually happened of course, maybe the Bren was close to hand in moment?( or most like, tall story from a squaddie!)
...and if you had to take the shot with the Bren, why not fire a burst? The first shot is going to go to exactly the same point of impact either way, the only difference is you're also putting out additional fire to ensure a hit. If you REALLY want to hit something, fire more bullets at it.
Well, so here's the catch. I'm old enough to have been trained on the Bren by the Irish Army before even the reserves moved to the FN-MAG, and it had a serious reputation for accuracy. Whether the reputation is valid or not mechanically, it was there. You are correct that loading the single round instead of firing from the mag is silly. You are also correct that it was deliberately written, but the writer wouldn't have come up with it for no reason at all and I am very willing to believe it came up after interviews with the veterans. It's worth noting that on Irish fora, nobody complains too much about that scene apart from the magazine bit. One of the problems with the Bren in Irish service was convincing the troops to operate it in the manner it was intended, as a sustained fire weapon. The Army had (and presumably still has) annual inter-unit shooting contests. Personally I was on the Falling Plates team but there were other contests like pistol and, yes, Bren. The rules had to be written to specifically prohibit the use of single shot in competition and, indeed, as the ROF was so low that deliberately firing 2-round-bursts was very easy, the issued magazines in competition came with 15 rounds to ensure at least one three-round-burst would be fired. That way if the umpires heard seven double-taps, they knew they didn't even need to wait for the final round to be fired before penalising the team. Scoring took a while as the double-taps often ended up in 'single' elongated holes, requiring assessment from the guys in the butts and not infrequently arguments over whether two rounds had gone through the one hole. Were I the shooter in the movie, I'd have fired a two-round burst to be sure, but hey, ammo was limited in the siege. So, you have a very heavy gun, with a sturdy bipod you can really lean into, thus a very steady sight picture. Whether the gun is as accurate mechanically as the Lee Enfield is a bit academic if both are mechanically good enough to do the job, and the telescopic sight is kindof irrelevant if the target is bright white. Yes, the movie takes liberties for the sake of the story, but that the Bren could be taken in preference to the sniper rifle for specific shots (even if not necessarily that specific shot in the movie) is nowhere near improbable and would be doubtless relatable to the troops of the era.
I personally believe this scene is a legend that was created and has become embellished throughout the years of the retelling of the tale of Jadotville. Those in the know of the Irish army will recognise the saying " A story of a mouse in Collins barracks in Cork at breakfast, is an Elephant by the time it reaches the Currach in Kildare at lunchtime!" I assume that at some point in the conflict, in the firefight one of the snipers was either seen near a Bren gun and/or had been complaining of some sort of problem with his rifle, and soon after a target of value was dropped with a single shot from the same position...Assumption the kill was made by the sniper using the Bren...Instant legend... I mean, there is the other legend of the aircraft attack of the Fouga jet fighter on the Irish troops. There was a legend going around the Irish army for years that that exact Fouga fighter had been inducted into the Irish airforce when Ireland actually had Fouga fighters as their main combat aircraft, and that it is on display in the Irish army museum .
I remember being told the Mk1 bren was the more accurate model than the Mk3, as the Mk3 was designed to be used by paratroopers and had a larger "beating zone". However I think @GarandThumb should put this to the test
There is one added aspect to the accuracy of the Bren and that is the replaceable barrel. No matter how good the fit might be when it locks in place, there will be movement and that will change trajectory. A sniper rifle has everything fixed that can be fixed in place. No unnecessary movement.
I've used the L4 both in basic in JLR in 77 and on a refresher course with reserves in the 80s. I found with my limited experience with it that it was pretty accurate.MT Troop also had L4s to go with our SMGs and supposedly a Charlie G.
The key problem is that a consultant is always an advisor. The consultant ultimately doesn't get to decide something that is a director-level decision; if the director wants cool factor, the director gets cool factor.
As someone who was briefly a consultant, you're basically just there so they can claim they had a consultant. And all the production people have no frame of reference for your knowledge base. We had them film a stunt that from a K9 handlers perspective was an amazing showcase of dog and handler skill. The NSWDG guy and LEO SWAT handlers that were also brought in for consulting and stunt work thought it was the coolest thing in the world. But we were the only ones. The director and the rest of the production team were confused by it and didn't see what was so impressive about it. We only did one take and moved on and to the best of my knowledge none of that footage ever made it into the final project.
I think the Bren myth started because it was slightly more accurate than other light machine guns like the MG 42, and then people took that nugget of truth and blew it way out of proportion.
Exactly. By open bolt machine gun standards, it is very accurate. And of course most of the "sniper" rifles of the time it was introduced were not very accurate so by comparison, it was kind of a big deal. It didn't take very long for sniper rifles and even some machine guns to surpass it but the myth continued to this day, just ask Lindybeige, LOL
I had a late Uncle who was a Korean War vet and later on the Army marksmanship team. He used to complain about how inaccurate the 1918 and 1919 machine guns were.
It was a pervasive myth amongst ANZAC troops in WW2 that the Bren was too accurate for use against light aircraft, even amongst several Vickers crewmen I met.
One thing to remember, though, is that just because something is a myth doesn't mean soldiers won't *believe* the myth. The Bren's seriously inflated reputation for accuracy was something widely believed by soldiers.
its like how people think the PIAT sucks, and in the hands of a novice its absolutely horrendous. but someone that knows its limitations and its benefits can do a lot of damage with one
Bren was not typically fired in ten round bursts. Was more 2-4 this changes throughout ww2 as manuals show. The point well made why would you swap an already accurate scoped rifle for iron sights is purely cinematic for the myth. However (depending on the range) a single shot from the Bren (in the right hands) can be extremely accurate.
Africa has always had a ridiculous hodgepodge of small arms in a wide variety of calibers, so I am unsurpised about this situation. Certainly it would make logistic sense for everything to use the same caliber, but in this case I think they brought what they had rather than what they wanted. This was a transition period after all. That said, there are only really 2 different cartridges we're talking here: 7.62x51 for the FALs and .303 for both the SMLE and the Bren Guns, and these would be impossible to confuse.
Mercenaries.... ie French foreign Legion and Congonese free forces. Not just some random Mercs. Again we shouldn't have been there thanks alot De Gaulle
That's awesome! Does the book mention this scene at all? Maybe for some reason he DID swap his sniper for the bren for some reason? (Possibly because it has a bipod and was more stable?)
Oh yeah, I had him as a lecturer in Ballyfermot! He definitely knew his stuff, although he did have a tendency to use artillery related metaphors a lot
I carried and used both the GPMG and the bren or LMG whilst serving in the British Royal Marines Commandos ,the former was a very good spread pattern weapon whilst the Bren was slightly more accurate, the bren was lighter easier to use and i loved it, so much so i carried it on operational tours of Northern Ireland where the SLR was the normal weapon used. The only fault with the bren was the clip that held the barrel on when jumping over a drystone wall after an IED went off the barrel detached itself and i had to go back for it.
Yes the LMG 7.62 version of the Bren? I have seen the 7.62 30 round mags fitted to an SLR ! although I reckon that would be prone to jamming? as it was gravity fed in its normal configuration on the LMG?
@@0p.4 They were usually too stupid to know which way to point their weapons, luckily.. Over a century spent resisting the British, only to surrender the country to Africans without a shot 😂🤦♂️
Makes absolutely no sense, even if his rifle was broken for some reason it'd make more sense to use an FAL to take the shot or just saturate the area with the Bren
It’s what was to hand in his elevated position, plus the dude probably thought like Carlos Hathcock whom duct taped his armalite scope to a Browning M1 .50 in Vietnam…
Why was that mine owner even out in the open like that what an idiot. It's not the 11th century anymore bro you don't actually have to be on the battlefield to command the battle do you want to wind up like Harold Godwinson?
@@VHS_Broadcasting except the M2 is very accurate up to long ranges, a scope was used, and .50 BMG is an anti-materiel round that will most likely kill you if you ever get hit by it
@@staringgasmask the .303 round hits with 50,000 psi of force, that’s 3,214.2 Tons of force, it took limbs off, the Bren weighs quite a bit and a fairly robust man on lean-in prone the muzzle climb - inaccuracy for a single round at that short a distance isn’t really going to be that much of a factor…
Bro what? 3214 tons of force??? Even if you got the units wrong that’s still roughly 50% more muzzle energy than it actually has Also what in gods green earth are you talking about? He literally says is a 4-5moa gun that’s not a rifle I want to lean on to try to make a single shot on a man sized target at 500+
In fairness, you'd really need the very stoned girl from 'Lock, stock & two smoking barrels', a full mag-dump from ten feet away & not a scratch - impressive control : )
Hi Ian. I love the "Gun Jesus" lectures. For me, the story of Jadotville is an example of the bravery, courage and sacrifice of Irish soldiers on the battlefield. It is proof that the unexpected could be expected. I have great respect for these brave people, even though Ireland did not welcome them upon their return as the heroes they are. I am not Irish but as a former active soldier I can appreciate courage.
I have a Jadotville veteran as a neighbour, he was my sergeant in the old FCA, now the Reserve Defense Force. I never knew he was there until the film was made
I'm reminded of the time the IRA used a Boys anti-tank rifle against the Royal Navy in 1965. They had no magazine and only a few loose rounds that had to be extracted with a screwdriver. They shot a couple of holes into HMS Brave Borderer.
@@r0bw1l73 in the instance discussed here the british vessel literally went full speed ahead without returning fire after getting nailed with the boyes AT rifle. talk about "I Ran Away"
The Armourer's Bench tested this, running a No 4 Mk 1 (T) against four different marks of Bren at the range. The Lee Enfield sniper rifle came out in front, but only just.
Looking at the segment of scene you showed, I can think of one big reason for the swap: The shot of Bren's bolt sliding forward to trigger the round is more cinematically impressive than anything that the Lee-Enfield could show.
it was legit done that way as it was more cinematically impressive to make him shoot a bren gun, than him just taking his Lee Enfield sniper rifle and take the guy down within a second.
I am fairly certain this plot point is lifted from the famous Carlos Hathcock M2 'sniper' story. As for the myth of the "too accurate" Bren this first appears in print in the novel 'They die with their boots clean’ written by a Coldstream Guards chap in 1940-41, published 1942. Later the same year Oct 1942, the unofficial manual 'Know Your Weapons' No.5, Sten and Bren guns, by Nicholson & Watson (author anonymous) says the same thing. Every chance both of these originate in actual training but I've yet to find hard evidence of that.
Yeah it was definitely a ripoff of Carlos Hathcocks shot, but they failed to reconsider why Carlos used a.50 for that particular shot in the first place.
In theory, very slightly more accurate than the unsuppressed Mk.II. In reality, the same, basically. However, being integrally suppressed, you will get more bullet drop at range and thus be less accurate as a shooter@@plazzy9911
8:03 id imagine they originally shot the scene using the Enfield to make the shot then someone came up with the awesome idea of using the bren because of the myth, they then spiced in a scene where the sniper was taking aim down the Enfield scope and edited out the cross hairs
Nah, just watched it 4 times. They filmed it through the brens iron sight. He adjusts it and everything. You can see the whole ring and what side it's attached to.
These Soldiers did a remarkable feat of overcoming a huge attack. Their government basically shamed them for decades. I believe the recognition did come about and the movie did help by showing their valour . It would be interesting to dissect conflicts ,skirmishes etc with era firearms matched.
Irish governments from then to now the only reason they acknowledge it now is they were shamed into it even at that they only acknowledge a few of the troops also the UN "shower of useless ba$%£"!s", would not stand up and support those Irish heroes ..
Thanks Ian, I watch these videos with an 81 year old work colleague who has collected a number of fire arms and it's so interesting when he says something a few seconds before you do. It's also interesting when you debunk myths that I had never heard until this friend of mine brought them up (typically in the antique firearms department)
The fact that they showed the bolt dropping forward makes me think that it might not have been the armorer but the director who had heard that myth and wanted to lean into it for interesting visuals. Showing the view through the rear sight without the front sight also fits with that decision.
The problem with knowing a little bit about weapons, is that every single movie you watch gets things wrong in a weird way, like them thinking it would be cooler to discard a pretty good sniper rifle for a Bren or attacking a broken down Sherman by running at it with Mausers rather than hiding behind a bush and Panzerfaust-ing it.
This is true of basically any type of specialized knowledge. You're constantly noticing how movies/TV shows get it wrong. "that's not how that works. That's not how any of that works!" is constantly playing in my head; I have to bite my tongue to keep it from getting out my mouth.
Hi Ian. To probably muddy the waters about the Bren gun and its accuracy . My father went in at D Day with his regiment and fought through to the Rhine before the surrender . My uncle was a marine commando in the war. Both of them told me, as a lad, how the Bren could be used as a sniper weapon. It seems that the rank and file of the British army did really believe this and both of them were at the sharp end. Thank you for your great videos , always interesting , with great content. Dave Cutting
My grandad told me the exact same thing he was a paratrooper who served with the Gurkhas in Italy. He used to joke and call it a squad automatic marksman's rifle.
IMHO, the Bren would have been ideal as a Designated Marksman’s Rifle as it was the only weapon in the Platoon with semi automatic capabilities with rifle ammunition. When bolt action rifles were replaced by ‘assault rifles’ for the riflemen then the LMG with a magazine became less relevant and the move to the GPMG happened. The Bren was crucial for the British in WW2 because it filled a gaping hole in section firepower. A 1 man weapon that could be used for sustained fire with a second man, decent enough on single shot and it used a decent cartridge.
4-5 MOA is accurate enough that you could reliably hit a man sized target out to several hundred meters away (1 MOA is 1/60th of a degree). 5 MOA is still only 0.36 meters wide at 250 meters, and I believe a typical person is about 0.4 meters from shoulder to shoulder. 250 meters is at the far end for typical combat ranges. So if Bren gunners were generally good enough marksmen that they could regularly hit German soldiers with single shots at 250 meters or less (which covers most of the ranges that combat actually takes place at) then it wouldn't be all that hard for the Bren to gain a reputation for accuracy. But 4-5 MOA isn't more accurate than a typical rifle of the time. I've seen videos of people achieving ~2 MOA with both the SMLE and Kar98k.
Saving Private Ryan protrayed the 1903A4 as a much more effective sniper rifle than it probably was. Siege of Jadotville portrayed the Mk1T as less effective at range than an open-bolt gun with no magazine and no optic.
Also reminds me when I watched Fury, and every tank was doing these outrageous skill shots (and general completely insane tactics like rushing Tiger tanks head on through an open field?!) that were taking off people's heads and legs with tank shells. Such a cool film ruined by the experts being ignored for the purpose of some throwaway gore in a film that already portrayed very well the dangers of tanking and infantry warfare without a gratuitous shot.
Except it was a good idea to close the distance and try to flank the Tiger? Trying to take it head on from an extreme distance is the worst possible idea because that's where a Tiger would excel. The 76mm was a solid gun but you'd still want to try and go for a side shot not a frontal one. Maybe they could've pulled back, but once you're engaged it's very hard to disengage.
@killianlile173 The 76mm will penetrate a Tiger 1 from any angle, out to beyond the accuracy limits of tank guns. And that's without HVAP. Except, Fury was set in the very late war period (it kind of had to be, the featured tank was an HVSS late variant!), and would have had HVAP available. Charging was stupid, it was totally unneccesary ballistically and merely delayed their ability to line up an accurate shot. The better (and doctrinally taught) solution to this kind of ambush would have been for the 75mm-armed Sherman to immediately put smoke shell on the Tiger to blind it, then maneuver into a favorable position to engage. Which, in that scene, would have been to actually OPEN the distance and use the forest and embankments on the opposite side of the road as cover.
Private William Ready has the dubious distinction of being the first Irish soldier to be injured in combat on foreign soil. He passed away in 2016. RIP (n.b. official reports don't credit him as sniper or bren gunner, but he certainly did his duty in real life)
It's great to see Ian dispel myths we argued about as kids in the schoolyard in Ireland. I am going on FB to send some links to some old buachaillí of mine.
Hi Ian, interesting video as always, thanks. I was in UK forces from the 80's to the nineties and trained and qualified on various small arms including the SLR and LMG (which as you know was the Bren with minor improvements). We were trained to fire single well aimed shots with the rifle and short bursts with the LMG. When we were on the ranges re-qualifying over the years if there were some rounds left over we'd have a go at firing the LMG from the hip and the shoulder. It was remarkably accurate in my experience, not a sniper for sure, but if I were firing at a man standing still (and wearing a white suit!) at the distance depicted, while prone and using the bipod I'd have hit him first round. But you're right, if I also had the SLR available it's a silly choice.
This summer I attended a literary convention and attended a panel where a bunch of authors were discussing writing and one of the writers made a remark that made me roll my eyes. "I'll blow off a major plot point for a good one liner in a heartbeat". Movies are so exciting now because of the same attitude toward visuals. Screw reality, it looks cool!
As a writer myself that sounds like top tier lazy writing. If you want to add a one liner then you have to put in the work to make that scene happen *realistically* . It might take an entire chapter to shift pieces around to make it possible but it can be done in most cases, that said sometimes like or it not even when you go through the effort trying to make it happen you the writer have to be able to sit back and admit that this idea just isn't going to work and you will have to come up with another idea.
It does make sense from a writing perspective to do the scene like this. It makes it seem as though he's not just the only person with the skill but with the specific knowledge of what weapon and technique to use to make this shot, which adds interest and makes it feel more earned since the kill has such a large and immediate effect on the battle. It's like the equally unrealistic scene from Saving Private Ryan where he has to swap out his normal scope for a special one and carefully dial it in, it makes the scene more interesting and dramatic at the cost of realism in a way that most people won't be able to detect. Now, could you write both of those in different ways to be dramatic and also realistic? Yeah probably, and if they were going to such effort in every other scene it's weird they didn't, but still.
@@Hybris51129 theres a big difference between writing a book and writing a screenplay. a screenplay is intrinsically going to be made into a visual story, and the bottom lines of a visual story is that it should /look good/ otherwise theres no point in watching.
Fantastic movie, thanks for the analysis of that scene Ian. When I saw Siege of Jadotville, I wasn't focused on the shot, I was mostly shocked that the mine foreman would stand there in a white suit as an easy target. I did think the group salute at the end was very powerful.
For what it’s worth this is The Chieftain’s thoughts on that scene “You may underestimate the reputation that the Bren had for accuracy in the Irish military, to the point that the shooting competitions with it had to have rules to penalise single-shot fire. The weight, and solid bipod lean to accuracy at the cost of flexibility of the Lee-En”
Under-rated comment. The issue isn't really "Is this technically probable?" it is "Is this something a soldier of the time would have tried?" and a lot of people asses these myths from the perspective of a modern hindsight that is directly contrary to what was "conventional wisdom" at the time. I don't know about the Irish Army, but the doctrine of the British Army was to give the Bren to the designated marksmen, and the myth of the insane accuracy was well established there.
@@92HazelMocha Well the chieftain doesn't refute the points Ian makes, just points out its a bit more nuanced than looking purely at the mechanics of the guns. Plus he did serve in the Irish Army (albeit well after Jadotville) and was trained on the Bren, so he probably has some first hand experience of the perception of the weapon among the soldiers.
@@92HazelMochathe tanker isn’t refuting any of Ian’s arguments. The tanker Leads the viewers perception on psychology because not-worth-it-but-soldiers-felt-better-so-it-was-probably-worth-it is a very real thing in the tanker world because “upgrades” of tanks that were sometimes even counter productive are a real thing. It happens quite now actually with the so called “cope-cages” on Russia tanks. They never helped against top attack ATGMs and yet I bet the crews felt better with it (initially). So if you’re a tanker or a handgun expert is totally irrelevant here: it’s about the common soldiers psychology.
@@Grimshak81 I mean you kind of just contradicted yourself; thinking something is more capable than it is, is just plain dangerous in warfare. The cope cages are a perfect example. They don't actually add protection, but they do add weight and make it harder to get in and out of the vehicle. Additionally thinking you're protected from something your not protected from is a lethal mistake on the battlefield, and Russia's armored losses just reinforce that. "Feeling invincible" inevitably leads to dying and soldiers dying leads to losing strategically.
This bounced off my eyes too. Thanks for the clarification! Because I am overly enthusiastic to contribute, I can only add; in the film “ a bridge too far,”during the first attack on the bridge, a British paratrooper makes a headshot, through a viewing slot in an SDKF.Z armored vehicle,causing a collision which halts the attack. It’s in the film, and depicted in the scene. It’s also in the book. Cornelius Ryan, the author, used impeccable research. It’s true! Thanks, I am recovering from a stroke, I live to try and contribute!
I was certainly told the Bren gun accuracy story as an army cadet back in the mid 70s. The source of the information was a former para who was dropped into Nijmegen during WWII. So it’s an old saw for sure.
We were told the story when I was in the ACF as we had Brens with long and short barrels and were told the short barrel ones were an attempt to make it less accurate - in reality it was a jungle version to go with the No 5's we had - most of our instructors had served in Malaya
As a cadet in Canada in the 60's we got the same stories from the vets of WW2 and Korea. We fired the Bren a fair bit because there was a ton of .303 ammo left over from Korea even though we had the FAL. When firing bursts we often spiked the bipod down to keep it from jumping around so ya, it had a short barrel as well and I doubt it would make a good sniper at any kind of distance.
In Call of Duty: World at War, there's a mission where you play a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad. You infiltrate the German rear area and assassinate a general with your rifle at a hundred yards or so. But there's an achievement you can unlock if you can kill him with your pistol instead. It's really hard. It took me so many tries, but I did it. Obviously, the writer for Siege of Jadotville played the same mission and took inspiration from it.
Despite pistols being close range weapons, It's not impossible to achieve a hit at that distance. One of the competitions in the annual Bisley meeting (in the 1980s) was Long Range Service Pistol, which at the time involved using my Browning Hi-Power 9mm with the standard open sights- no optical sights allowed. The ammunition was military issue. If I remember correctly, the target was a figure 11 at 200 yards. Hitting something at only half that range, is certainly possible, so if it will improve your score on Call of Duty, go for it!
"In Call of Duty: World at War, there's a mission where you play a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad. You infiltrate the German rear area and assassinate a general with your rifle at a hundred yards or so." Yeah, we all have seen Enemy At The Gates... as if COD did something original there.
Actually there's an easy way to achieve that trophy: you simply have to glitch yourself on a certain wall and well... you can shoot the general literally from the backseat of his car
I highly doubt he took inspiration from a call of duty game. It's not the kinda film where a sniper would make his job harder just for the sakes of showing off. It's trying to reinforce that old urban legend of the "Super duper accurate bren" (which even my own grandad beleives after a 48 year army career!)
The French mercenary is the really interesting character in that movie. I believe it's the only time he lost and pulled off a bunch of other coups across Africa.
@@jamesr792 Roger Louis 'Rene' Faulques. He was Denard's buddy and an absolute legend in his own right, having fought in every dirty war the French found themselves in between Dunkirk & the Biafra crisis.
Back in '82, I trained on the FNC2A1 in the Canadian Army. I won't claim to be an expert, but I got the strong impression that it was a very accurate LMG when in semi auto. Mind you, it fired from a closed bolt.
I'm going to try to make this as short and sweet as possible. I've subscribed to forgotten weapons for years now. And in when you say you're nitpicking a little bit I feel your pain. As a former military veteran self subscribed firearms expert, my girlfriend and Friends have a hard time watching any type of military movie with me because I have a tendency to say that would never happen and let me tell you why. LOL it's quite frustrating for others LOL. Keep up the good work. As a former Machinist and served in two conflicts I find the ins and outs of firearm designs fascinating. When I see someone such as yourself break down an FG 42 it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside an operating piece of machinery like that. . Its history and mechanical history and sometimes it makes you scratch your head and say instead of the other way, why did they do it that way instead. Great job on just about everything I've seen that you have put out since I started subscribing years ago. I give you a big thumbs up Ian. Keep it up you're doing a great job
The myth probably started as something like "The Bren gun was found to be relatively accurate for its intended purpose; a joke would go around that you can use it as a sniper rifle if needed". And then over time the front drops more and more until you get "Use as a sniper"
The Bren was always described as 'if anything too accurate' BUT that is for it's application as a light machine gun NOT to describe it as accurate enough to use as a sniping weapon.
I fired the Bren and SLR (FN FAL), the Bren was not "too accurate" the SLR was more accurate than the Bren, so in reality, if the Irish there had no scoped .303 lee Enfield the shot would have been taken with the FN FAL on single shot, which was also a very accurate weapon.
@@scratchy996 I fired all three, my dad was trained on rifle, sub machine gun, Bren & Lewis 1939-45. Dad was trained amongst other things to use the lmg to knock down brick buildings by shooting the corners off. It was Dad's trainers whilst training in 'the bombed area' of Birmingham UK who remarked that the Bren was 'if anything too accurate' for an lmg, since there were amongst them veterans of WW1, they probably knew what they were talking about. Dad passed those observations on to me along with 'useful' information like the likely 'kill rate' of a mills bomb thrown into a room (it was urban warfare training after all!).
@@pcka12 f anything too accurate' for an lmg - yeah, I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Even the official tests showed that the Bren has 5 MOA. As Ian pointed out in another video, even a laser pointer would not be "too accurate" , when you shake it around due to recoil. Edit : The US Marine Corps replaced the SAW LMG with the M27 IAR, because the M27 is more accurate. They found out in Afghanistan that experienced Taliban were maneuvering under MG fire, because the SAW LMG wasn't accurate enough. With the M27's increased accuracy, less bullets were needed to pin down enemies, as they landed closer. Again there is no such thing as "too accurate".
@@scratchy996 the Bren is (you might even be unaware of this!) A British machine gun adopted in the 1930s. The British had at that time immense experience of warfare on a global scale (the US apparently had an army smaller than Romania & with quite limited international experience, the US military was described as arriving in France in World War 1 in time to shore up France which was in danger of collapse, but too late in too limited numbers & with too little experience to greatly influence the outcome which was: - the '100 days' campaign of 1918, finally bringing Germany to it's knees). British trainers with such a wealth of experience tended to the opinion that the new LMG (a weapon in calibre 303 with which I was trained extensively over a number of years (section in attack from the manual)) was 'in comparison with other LMGs if anything too accurate'. That was the considered opinion of very experienced infantry trainers!
I love that movie, it's one of my comfort films, but I did always think that particular scene was a little weird. Thank you for all the education you do, Ian!
One myth I like to smash is the regarded knuckleheads who claim scopes were not mounted on top of M2's and used as long distance "sniper" weapons. In semi auto mode NOT MG mode.
At least anecdotally, I witnessed our FN MAG gunner show off to the Marines that he could reach out and hit the man-sized gong at 500m with irons, He single loaded and hit 5-8 times in a row. This was after the marines laughed at us for not having "modern" M240B with optics etc.
@@Bojangles6 aren't those MG targets absolutely huge? a 12 moa MG is not mechanically accurate enough to make sustained man sized hits at 800. purely mechanically the weapon already limits you to a roughly 76 inch diameter circle. then you have the lock time discussed in the video. and if you expect to hit with bursts the recoil (although very small) is enough to throw you completely off of a man sized target at an insane distance like 800 yards.
I dunno about the actual battle, but I found single loading an M240 was quite accurate, just over a 7 inch shot group at 500M. I did this to confirm a 10M zero to prep my gunners to compete in competition and it paid off.
Imagine you're in a Ferrari and you need to chase someone...this scene is like jumping out of the Ferrari and into a Golf Buggy to give chase....why would you drop a sniper rifle and use an MG for a long range shot?
I want to see this myth pushed further. As you previously discussed with Bloke on the Range, expected mechanical accuracy for a service rifle of the period was around 5MOA. Of course the accurized Mk4 is going to beat that by a country mile, but considering the Bren could reach the same precision with burst fire, I'd be willing to bet that many soldiers of the time did consider it to be exceptionally accurate. Not too accurate for area suppression, but the mechanics of suppression were still not much discussed until the 60s, so I would let that part of the myth slide.
Okay I i thought it was just me that thought it was off for them to swap to the Bren instead of literally any of the other rifles they used. Lee-Enfield, FAL/L1A1, literally anything else. It felt weird they'd take the open bolt gun for that shot for various reasons. I didn't know that the myth was a thing, which I find pretty funny.
I have heard many people claiming BREN being "accurate" as in its supposedly very controllable in automatic fire. And you can see how it ended up into this Similar to how people keep saying the horrible UCP was designed to be hidden from drones. My theory how it happened is as follows, the grey color is due to it being less reflective in the near infrared range for night vision, people confuse night vision with thermal, drones have thermal imaging + pixel looking pattern = stupid myth
thanks Ian I've watched this move a couple of times and always wondered why you do that the Enfield would have been my pick for a shot like that, even the L1A1 would have been a better choice than the Bren, liked the bit where they used all the used brass as mines, it was sad how these men were treated after the war.
In my personal view, I think that this scene is really about showing that, despite the circumstances, Irish snipers can't resist the urge to show off when they know people are watching them. . I could be wrong.
More like Hollywood can't. Irish snipers at the time actually used a scoped Lee Enfield or their FN FAL both of which were more accurate than the Bren.
I've never heard of this Bren gun myth before, but when I saw the movie I didn't question that scene at all. In fact my mind went to the story of Carlos Hathcock using an M2 Browning on single shot to make a sniping shot in Vietnam.
I would have believed it if they upgraded to .50 BMG but only if they needed the range or hitting power like Hathcock did, but with both the Enfield and Bren in .303 it just makes no sense. hell the Enfield probably has a longer barrel too
They actually did that. The weight of a .50 on a tripod with that rather large sight would keep the gun very static when firing single shots, but the recoil would make it jump around a bit.
Very happy you commented on this movie. Even though the Bren scene was questionable, this was a great movie and depicted great leadership by the Irish commander and his troops.
Well put Ian, this was one of thefew things in the movie that bugged me too.Its an accurate enough recreation of the events that occured . As a young soldier in the 1980s in Ireland I had the great fortune to be trained and got to soldier with a few of the remaining serving Jadoville and Congo veterns as they neared the end of their careers. They were the most unassuming soldiers you could meet but so professional . They had a brilliant CO in Comdt Quinlan and the Irish Defence Forces never truly acknowledged their bravery and his leadership. Its a great reflection that many of the veterns had family who continue to serve Ireland and indeed Comdt Quinlans had two sons serve in the IDF and currently two of his gransons are IDF Officers in the rank of Comdt.
I was talking to Jadotville veteran Tommy Gunn, who was a Bren gunner there. Frol talking to him, what inspired this particular scene in the context of Jadotville was at the real battle, since they were an entrenched group firing on targets advancing mostly across open ground the gunners were encouraged to fire single shots and chpose their targets to conserve ammunition
My father was a Bren gunner in the British infantry during the Suez crisis and he always asserted that the .303 Bren gun was often used as a single shot "sniping" weapon out to 750 yards.
You ever tried to hit a man sized target at 750 yards with a decent mag scope? You ever try to see a person 750 yards away with no glass? The absolute best shooters in the world would struggle doing that in a single shot with irons out of a precision weapon. Your dad was telling "fishing stories".
@@holdintheaces7468 thats a bit under 700 meters, i remember range shooting with irons to six hundred meters and it was very much doable, if that is a tricky shot for the 'best shooters in the world' then they need to get their eyes checked.
Well delivered video, some spot on observations. Agree with all your opinions. Especially Lee Enfield suitability over the bren, and the piece where you gave recognition to the Cavalry detachment of Ford armoured cars which were left out of the movie. It was the eventual wear out of their Vickers MGs which factored in Comdt.Quinlan's decision to offer terms.
Couple of family anecdotes: my dad's National Service was very abbreviated (100 days, released on compassionate grounds), but he was insistent that he was much more accurate with the Bren than whichever rifle he was being trained on. Which might just represent the state of the weapons in the armoury at the training depot in the late 50s. OTOH, my great uncle, when he set out at Arnhem to stalk a German sniper, elected to take a Bren. I don't know what range he engaged at, but for a counter-sniper engagement, he preferred the Bren over whatever else was available. (His medal citation specifically mentions the Bren).
My service-gun was a MG3, basically the MG42. During a NATO manouver we also tried out the Bren. Tagents was full size person cardboard supported with a wooden cross. Unlike the MG3 who disperded bullets all over the target the Bren cut the wooden crosses and the targets folded in two. Compared with the MG3 they are very accurate.
In competition shoots before removal from service in the Irish Defence Force, the Bren was found to be just as accurate at 200 and 300m as a rifle of the same calibre, in the right hands. If you couldn't get all your rounds within a 12 inch circle consistently in single shot, you went home early.
You're missing the point. The Bren is indeed very accurate _for an open-bolt machine gun._ In its own category, it's near the top. But dedicated sniper rifles are in a whole damn other class.
They recon the mark 1brens where so well made and tight that you could place round on round, then they started making the mk2s with less tolerance to add with the beaten zone effect, what I think has happened hear is film makers going with the wrong end of the myth!!
My grandfather did his national service with the 27th Battalion Royal South Australian Rifles in the 50’s as a Bren Gunner he believed to his dying day it was too accurate for a machine gun and the Bren Gunners in his unit would go to great pains to obtain worn barrels from the armourers in order to cause more spread.
These videos might seem "nit-picky", but they are actually very important. So many laypeople see these misconceptions portrayed in film, then form genuine beliefs around these things which are complete myth which they spread to others. Great stuff Ian.
I think it would be more appropriate and no less "cinematically well looking" if they did the scene in reverse - first covering/supporting fire with the Bren, then, when convenient target appears, grab the sniper rifle and fire the one shot you need. (apart from the question why is the Bren gunner also a sniper at the same time?)
Third thing is that almost nobody is accurate with a first shot on a completely unknown weapon. An especially there is so much uncertainty. In most cases if you have only one important shot, you are better shooting it with a less accurate gun you are very familiar with than trying something new for the first time.
I personally have watched people put a whole magazine from a Bren gun into one roughly 2 MOA hole at 100 yards. It's like shooting an air gun, the trigger release doesn't matter too much but the follow through is what matters. The Bren gun's weight and very stiff barrel make it highly accurate. The aperture sights if your eyes are good will work out to extended ranges. Whether you'd use one rather than a No4 T seems doubtful though and the whole point of the machine gun is a ten round burst will get the job done at very extended ranges so a Bren or belt fed machine gun will have a longer effective range than a sniper rifle of the same calibre. The scene in the film was total nonsense that spoiled an otherwise enjoyable film for me, that I can agree with.
All the Irish defence forces personal over a certain age, that I've spoken too, are obsessed with the "Bren gun". Apparently it's the bee's knees...... we will have to have a range video 300 yards with Bren on single shot Vs lee Enfield sniper to see this in action, sorry Ian it's a must... nice Irish camo jacket by the way.👍 Also as a fun fact, the Swedish K in the Irish defence forces was known as just the "Carl Gustaf".
My friend was dumped by his mother in one of Irelands terrible Magdalen homes ,recently after more than 60 yeare=s he found his aunt and other family members,.he learned that His uncle was a Bren gunner in the Irish 24th infantry Battallion engineer company , and was killed by friendly fire ain a night action in Elizebethville 2 days prior to the Jadotville siege.
I remember loving this movie overall, but being confused as hell as to why you would ditch your scoped, accurized, purpose-built sniper rifle for a machine gun with iron sights to make a critical long-range shot. Thanks for the vindication, Ian.
The armoured cars were actually Irish made too, so another reason that it would of been nice to see them. We have original Irish issue versions of most of the small arms included in the film, in our collection if you're ever in the area and want to have a look. Nice DPM barrack jacket by the way!
My father's secondary role was base security (RAF). He was one of the "one person per squad" issued with a Bren. He said they were a bit more accurate than ideal and as accurate as a WWII era rifle he had been taught with, that had a barrel worn to near the end of it's life. Also he said that this "accuracy" had been greatly exagerated over the years as things do sometimes in the military. They were taught to fire in 2 to 3 round bursts.
When we lived in Rhodesia (1958 - 1963), my father found himself in a potentially serious fall-out from this Belgian political sh*tstorm when asked to deal with wood and other building shipments to and from the area. Many years later when my brother returned to North Rhodesia to start a tobacco farm, he was asked to play a part in a small film drama documenting Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo who was shot in early 1961. If anyone ever sees this film, my brother is the one ushering Lumumba out of his car with the words, "You may pray now, Mr Lumumba".
I work as an armourer, and I can tell you right now that not only is this myth STILL going, but it has evolved onto new platforms. I have been told that the GPMG has sniper precision, and that "X soldier did Y at such and such a distance, and it's the longest confirmed kill ever" and that the L86LSW was "removed from service because it was deemed to accurate a weapon, and just killed whatever you were suppressing". Thank you for highlighting where some of these myths may have came from.
I carried a bren for six years in the Rhodesian army re chambered to 7.62 I found it extremely accurate on single shot with a grouping of 5 covered by the length of a match stick at 100 m I would have felt comfortable hitting center mass at 300
i think thats more beside the point I think. From what i understood, he wasn't saying that it couldn't make the shot, rather saying that the Lee Enfield, a gun designed for longer range and/or precision shots, is by far the better choice
My Father used the Bren while in the Australian Army and he was adamant that it was an accurate weapon, to the point that he could take out a target stake on the range and drop a target. The MAG58 is also a machinegun and you can wind down the gas system to fire single shots accurately.
Did that in the R.A.F. on a training day the Armory had some surplus Ammunition that needed using normally we just got two mags to do the drills. This time we got to do burst fire and mag changes because we lost count. Then we got bord and picked off the legs of the targets then hit them in the head to knock them over. The Range warden was not happy. Side bar one of the line huts was between the V brace to the back wall of the buts when there was a Bren session you could hear the rounds hitting the back wall.
I served with 2 veterns of this battle in 1981, one of those veterns told me there was no Lee Enfields with the Irish in Jadotville, the FN FAL replaced the Lee Enfield about 6 months before. All the Irish marksmen were issued FN FAL's, another weapon that was used to great effect by the Irish (as well as the Vickers) was the 84mm Carl Gustav which took out bunkers including a house where a sniper was using it as a hide. They were great men who were treated terrible by the UN, Irish Government as well as the Army Top Brass. At least their CO was awarded the Distinguished Service Medel for his leadership but he nominated 8 soldiers for awards but they never received them. By the way Ian love the Irish Army DPM, soon to be replaced by MultiCam.
I was told this myth as "fact" by a staff member at a WW2 museum in Britain. I can't remember which museum it was but it was a Rifles museum in the South somewhere. I did think it odd being that it is an open bolt and mentioned this, but the staff member assured me there were recorded instances of the Bren gunner being told to take precision shots at MG-42 nests.... Which I again found odd being that the British were armed with rifles that would be far more effective for that use... Great video as always 😁
It's horse dung. I fired both the BREN and the SLR (FN FAL) regularly, including a lot of single shot on the Bren, and the SLR was more accurate, and the Lee Enfield .303 would have been more accurate than both them. Yes the Bren was a good(ish) section level fire support weapon in its day. Being magazine fed was a major drawback though.
The irish government denied this even happened for years. And the guys in this were called cowards because they surrendered.
Yeah, really unfair how the Irish soldiers were treated after they got home.
They did surrender, why try a build a hero myth around them? They lost and surrendered it was not one of the great heroic last stands. In any other countries military history it would be a side note.@@ForgottenWeapons
@@ganndeber1621they literally fought till they were out of ammo and the their command couldn’t and wouldn’t resupply. You must be trolling.
@@ganndeber1621 You're only a hero if you die? That's a bit extreme. Take all the medals back from the living soldiers in the world, so.
@@ganndeber1621 Tell us, what unit did you serve in, where, and what did you do. I know by the comment you have done nothing, and never will.
The Swedish Ks used in the movie were the ACTUAL Swedish Ks used in the conflict. Hire Arms in Johannesburg provided the firearms for the movie. Bruce Wentzel (friend) is the owner of Hire Arms and he traced the Swedish Ks by serial numbers using records in Ireland.
That's really cool.
@@eralehm It's not BS. Bruce went to considerable effort and confirmed it without doubt. But, if you don't believe it that's fine.
sounds like some marketing propoganda @@samopalusa5249 Like the kind an Irish patriot would want to believe... used car salesman style... the exploitation is real friend and every cultist needs their fantasy
@@eralehm "There is no reason why any of them would have found their way to South Africa, certainly not in any numbers" See, that's a BS statement. After the Congo conflict, southern Africa saw the Rhodie Bush War, the Border war, and multiple revolutions and guerilla conflicts between African militias. There are so many reasons and ways that those guns would make their way down to that neck of the woods.
Where did you get this information? I was talking to an Irish army armour. He said that they cut up all the Carl Gustav smgs in Connelly Barracks with gas axes🤔
The BREN scene bugs me, too. The absence of the armored cars bugs me, too, because it was key to how they managed to avoid having any of their troops killed. They used the armored cars as emplaced gun turrets which allowed them to suppress the attacking enemy with impunity because the enemy has no anti-armor weapons.
That was definitely left out of the movie!! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jadotville#:~:text=The%20aircraft%20attacked%20several%20times,a%20French%2075mm%20field%20gun.
And me too . Not the Vickers machine gun, after all Eireann was a neutral country, with a poor equipement ,but using a Bren like a sniper gun, I was very surprised and thought the shooter had a trick.
oh THAT seems like a rather big exclusion/error... much bigger than the Bren thing oO
Armoured cars are pussy weapons. Get a tank if you want armour. Or grow some balls and fight. Don't hide in a girly wagon.
Armored cars would have been awsone to see!
Everyone knows, the support weapon preferred by snipers is the M2 Browning
Real
Enough said.
They mounted scops on it; 37 mm anti-tank cannon works with scopes too.
Didnt the white feather use one?
"the support weapon preferred by snipers is the M2 Browning"
Hold on there, sparky. You might want to reel that joke back in. One of the longest confirmed kills on record for decades was made by Carlos Hathcock with an M2 in semi-auto mode.
Having fired the 7.62mm LMG (Bren) a lot during my time in the British Army I can say that as far as machine guns go, it was very accurate (for a machine gun) and a two man team can keep the enemys heads down very effectively with it using short bursts.
I too though, when I first saw this film some years back, threw some words at the TV screen regarding the use of the Bren with a single shot over distance. Apart from that though, it really is an excellent movie and well worth a watch as the Irish army does not get enough recognition for their (often very hairy) UN work over the decades since WWII.
They really don't, Ireland has contributed the most amount of soldiers per capita to UN peacekeeping forces, although recent neglect of the defence forces by the Irish government has resulted in a fall in the amount of soldiers being deployed on peacekeeping missions.
A lot of smaller countries sent their troops into Congo, too, so many of them were newly independent nations. And many did see action like the Malayan Special Force of the Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) who didn't face a dire of a situation like the Irish did face some combat
My dad had a great laugh at that scene about the Bren. In the National Service he actually earned a marksmans badge with the Bren. His comment was the Bren was to make the other side keep their heads down, and the sniper’s job was to take their head off.
Indeed. Many people just don't get that a _gunners'_ job is to lay _suppressive fire,_ not be accurate. If you can piss 100 rounds in a couple of seconds and paint several feet across in lead in that period, you and your hardware are doing _a fine job,_ which is to force the other bastards to cower in cover so your squad can get into a better position. You off a guy or two, _that's already an overachievement._
It breaks my heart when I see people roast gunners and their LMGs as "hurr, they couldn't get tight groupings". They just don't get how valuable gunners are in preserving the lives of their brothers in arms, much vidya.
Oh my dad yelled out Bullshit as well. He didn't carry the Bren but the BAR and of course they are the most inappropriate weapons to be used in that context
@@TamLe-ig2ey And here is the thing that always baffled me a bit when it comes to the Bar. I get that this type of gun is meant to deliver suppressive fire, but what I don't get is how that 20 round standard magazine of the Bar was enough to do the job. 20 rounds does sound awfully sparse with suppressive fire in mind.
@@Furzkampfbomber I know this is a bit late in answering, but the whole mag thing comes down to two different methodologies of the interwar-wartime period for ammo storage. The one that won out in the end was for the machine gunner to feed their lmg from a belt with assistance gunner carrying extra belts and helping with the loading.
LMGs like the bren gun however, being mag fed, had the ammo a bit less exposed to the elements and in the British army each rifleman in the squad carried a few bren magazines in their basic pouches of their webbing. This meant that, while lower in capacity, the bren gun’s magazines were distributed through the members of a unit and readily available to resupply unless they all run out of ammunition.
@@manofconstantgold That makes sense, thanks a lot for the explanation!
I still wonder about the usufulness of a weapon meant to suppress the enemy with only 20 rounds in the magazine though. My thought is, you fire 20 rounds, then you have to reload, which also means you have to suspend your suppressive fire.
I guess it was a weighing up of all advantages and disadvantages and in the end, they would not have used it on such a large scale in case the disadvantages predominated, but still, I wonder how practical/useful the BAR was in combat due to this.
Not giving the Elbonian Army Bren Guns for Sniper Rifles was a missed opportunity!
and bicycle mounted Villar Perosas as GPMG 😆
Converted specifically for single loading.
Sorry, but all ammo will run out FAST very soon. If you can't remake your own propellants w/ geo-resources (dig, baby!) you will wear out rifling & steel parts not easily replaceable.
SOLUTION : the cardinal Three Self-Made Weapons : Atlatl / Blowgun / Sling (in all permutations of the 3 groups). Easy to master techniques (especially by feral children in treetops) & an unlimited number of variants possible with (previously) modern materials. "We'll vacuum the ocean bottom for precious plastic particles, Captain Crabs!"
@@danielvahnke3369 Is this a numbers-station broadcast?
Probably because its still a very accurate weapon
The irony of substituting a magnified optic marksman/sniper rifle with a iron sight light support machine gun... I mean, at around 500 yards your front sight post on your Bren is going to be larger than the human target you're firing at. It's almost like... magnified optics are useful for shooting at range. Whoddathunkit.
Funniest to me is the thing Ian mentioned last and his "there is no front sight". ..... I think something got crossed between the FX department and directing. The reason there is no front sight visible is..... that is supposed to be a sight view from magnified optic with hairline cross hair. One can see the big round silhuette. So FX people thought "well this is sniper shot, obviously we make up fake scope silhuette and hairline cross hair and stylize it with little out of focus and so on. It also gives the best view of the target aka action". Where as action director was "no this sniper is so bad as he makes that shot with bad ass Bren gun with iron sights".
Since one must remember *they wouldn't have shot that shot in filming through any kind of sights* . You don't do that, way too much focus problems and so on. You shoot the aiming view through cinema camera on cinema quality with perfect lenses ..... and then ask the FX department to mess is up to make it look being silhuetted with iron sights or optical sight. If you want zoom, you don't use the telescope zoom. Trying to get the experience of all of both rear sight, front sight and target being in focus is not possible easily with limited focus lenses. So you fake it. Film the supposed shot (and input blood spatter) on cinema camera and then post process silhuette in the scope reticle and housing (and possibly distortions) or the iron sights.
So it's... oopsie post processing thought this shot was supposed to be sniper shot with a scope, but ooopsie that is not what is actually in the script. They faked the wrong kind of sight in the shot. I think most likely also since, well the front sight would obstruct the view of the actor in the sights.
@aritakalo8011 Doesn't look like they were going for a scope, that's just how the rear sight would look up close. If you look at the rear sight a little earlier in the video, you can see its round like it's shown in the close up. They still messed up not having the front sight though, so vfx could have been the problem there.
At 500 yards i've known plenty of people (including myself before my eye injury) who can hit better with irons than magnified optics i've only recently started using optics after losing partial sight in my dominant eye and i am having a lot of trouble hitting out to the same distances
@@HunterGargoyle And how exactly are these people getting better hits with an inherently less precise aiming device?
Meh, the Bren gun would be fine for that target, just needs a burst on target to do the job
As an Australian sniper who specialised in the Lee-Enfield, but also trained with the Bren, I can assure you that you are 101% correct, from actual experience.
Ya I have no idea why in that great film he said give me the bren gun, when the damn enfield was far more accurate and same caliber.
Simply because he could!🇨🇦🇺🇸🏴🇬🇧
There is also a myth about the Lee Enfield was inaccurate which is laughable. I constantly get flak about my hunting rifle being a LE and how inaccurate it is... I'm a terrible shot, but the bullet always hits exactly where its aimed, every time.@@edwarddailey21
@@edwarddailey21 The Chieftain just released a video addressing this point. On the range in Ireland, the Bren were heavily perceived to be a precision weapon by the soldiers, born from the Inter-Unit shooting contests. If the soldiers are absolutely convinced that the Bren can be used as a sniper rifle, they are going to use it as such, even if the actual ballistics don't back that up. The Irish Inter-Unit shooting contests even had the rule you couldn't single fire the Bren in competition to try to get them to use it more as a LMG, but this only made the Irish soldiers shoot 2 round bursts instead.
@@edwarddailey21to add to the comments about Chieftain’s video, that reputation could well have been aided by the superior practical accuracy of the bipod-equipped Bren gun compared to the free-resting Enfield
That particular Bren was the legendary Irish magical one, blessed by St Patrick himself, it will not miss, even if you shoot it blindfolded, with no front sight and looking sideways at it...
Using it the wind will always be at your back, and the road will rise to meet you....
Ah more paddywhackery, blessed by St patrick nonsense. Everyone knows St Barbara is the patron saint of Gunners, not the welsh shepherd.... :)
@@goldiefish72 Forgive my ignorance, i'm not Irish you see, i don't know those particulars... St Barbara it is then! 🤣🤣
It was hammer forged with shilleaghs and stored in nitrogen flushed Guinness to reduce oxidisation and wear. Hand loaded rounds with propellant made from dehydrated whiskey and bullets made of post colonial spite. The exit wound was the size of a football. 😅 And cursed the family line of the target for all eternity 😂
This comment, and all of the replies therein, are pure gold. LMAO Thank you, all.
The "Bren is too accurate" myth was so pervasive that actual British service personnel were taught that it was true during training, and continued to be taught this through the 1950s and 1960s.
Yep. My dad did his National Service from 1948 to 1950 and was taught that at the time.
This Hollywood scene lets the film down a bit. The FN FAL (SLR in Britian), the rifle the Irish also had, was far more accurate than the Bren. I fired both, I know. And unit snipers at the time (if they had any) used the .303 Lee Enfield with scope, if they were equipped with it.
@@Andy_Ross1962Well, my father-in-law was trained on the Bren in that time period, and he was taught that it was highly accurate. Whether they said “too accurate” I don’t know.
I think it is part of the good old WW2 propaganda, "E have the more accurate weapon, you have nothing to fear", similar to the American propaganda that "the bark of the MG42 is worse than its bite" or "our Thompson machine guns are way better than those mp 40s".
The Brits were always proud of their high accuracy, so of course they needed the "most accurate machine gun". This is also the reason why Britain didn't have an SMG at the beginning of WW2, because they thought 10 rounds are enough if you can kill a guy with one shot, while an SMG would work great if you could kill the same guy multiple times over. But all of that Ideology didn't survive the first contact with the enemy...
Somewhat anecdotal, but my grandfather was a Bren gunner from 1939-46 in the AIF. He was widely regarded and self confessed rotten shot with a rifle, so he got given a Bren gun- of which he qualified on and spent the next 7 years dragging it around through all manner of godforsaken, tropical hell holes. It wasn't so much he was a good shot or the Bren was any +/- better than any dodgy SMLE rifles they also got issued, but you just had plenty more rounds to get some effect on target!
I remember this scene!
It looked so stupid that started screaming in my screen - like WTF is that guy doing?!?
At least now i understand what this was all about...
I remember it sending me down a wikipedia hole cause I wasn't super versed on british guns... "Well maybe it's got a more appropriate round?.... same round. Maybe it's got a longer barrel? Same barrel length..... Maybe the sniper had parkinsons and needed the bipod to hold it steady...."
@@Gallagher068 i just thought the producers were re-tarded 🤣
@@PolenarTactical To be fair, this was one (very) stupid scene in a movie that otherwise is quite correct when it comes to the guns used. There are tons of movies that have send me into a 90+ minutes screaming fit, because of how historically inaccurate, stupid and silly they are and this movie was actually a refreshing exception in this regard. So calling the producers retarted because of that one scene seems a bit harsh if you ask me.
I thought it was pretty dumb also. Dude had an enfield (same bullet as bren) with a telescopic sight on it, why would you use the bren?
T.B.H though, the Bren did have a bipod on it, which would help, and if you're a true marksman you should be able to shoot 300 yards at a human sized target no problem with those adjustable sights.
Still really redundant and stupid, but there's at least a minimal amount of reason behind it, bipod n all.
@theblondesiouxsiesioux i thought the dude just did it for fun... good for story time later😂
I was in the Congo in the late 80s/early 90s, the situation then was far simpler and we still could have used a spreadsheet to keep all the factions in order in our minds. Nothing is simple in that crazy place.
While I'm sure it would be possible to pull that shot off with a Bren if you know that particular weapon well enough, if you have a #4 sniper why the hell would you use a Bren? This kind of stuff is one of the reasons I don't generally watch movies about places I contracted.
amazing what one crazed corrupt monarch with rubber on his mind can do to a group of individual tribes and kingdoms even 100 years later isnt it?
I think an applicable observation for African politics is a quote one of my professors lifted from the movie Congo.
"When these little African countries get into a dispute, they tend to just murder everybody. They live for the opportunity to settle scores... and they have a lot of scores to settle." (We were discussing Rwanda at the time.)
i'd heard the Bren accuracy 'myth'. I agree, an accurate weapon, relatively low ROF, but not up to par with No.4 MLE! It is a bit annoying in the film...unless it actually happened of course, maybe the Bren was close to hand in moment?( or most like, tall story from a squaddie!)
I kick myself everyone I hear of a Bren for not buying a kit when they were 200$
...and if you had to take the shot with the Bren, why not fire a burst? The first shot is going to go to exactly the same point of impact either way, the only difference is you're also putting out additional fire to ensure a hit. If you REALLY want to hit something, fire more bullets at it.
Well, so here's the catch. I'm old enough to have been trained on the Bren by the Irish Army before even the reserves moved to the FN-MAG, and it had a serious reputation for accuracy. Whether the reputation is valid or not mechanically, it was there. You are correct that loading the single round instead of firing from the mag is silly. You are also correct that it was deliberately written, but the writer wouldn't have come up with it for no reason at all and I am very willing to believe it came up after interviews with the veterans. It's worth noting that on Irish fora, nobody complains too much about that scene apart from the magazine bit. One of the problems with the Bren in Irish service was convincing the troops to operate it in the manner it was intended, as a sustained fire weapon. The Army had (and presumably still has) annual inter-unit shooting contests. Personally I was on the Falling Plates team but there were other contests like pistol and, yes, Bren. The rules had to be written to specifically prohibit the use of single shot in competition and, indeed, as the ROF was so low that deliberately firing 2-round-bursts was very easy, the issued magazines in competition came with 15 rounds to ensure at least one three-round-burst would be fired. That way if the umpires heard seven double-taps, they knew they didn't even need to wait for the final round to be fired before penalising the team. Scoring took a while as the double-taps often ended up in 'single' elongated holes, requiring assessment from the guys in the butts and not infrequently arguments over whether two rounds had gone through the one hole. Were I the shooter in the movie, I'd have fired a two-round burst to be sure, but hey, ammo was limited in the siege.
So, you have a very heavy gun, with a sturdy bipod you can really lean into, thus a very steady sight picture. Whether the gun is as accurate mechanically as the Lee Enfield is a bit academic if both are mechanically good enough to do the job, and the telescopic sight is kindof irrelevant if the target is bright white. Yes, the movie takes liberties for the sake of the story, but that the Bren could be taken in preference to the sniper rifle for specific shots (even if not necessarily that specific shot in the movie) is nowhere near improbable and would be doubtless relatable to the troops of the era.
I personally believe this scene is a legend that was created and has become embellished throughout the years of the retelling of the tale of Jadotville. Those in the know of the Irish army will recognise the saying " A story of a mouse in Collins barracks in Cork at breakfast, is an Elephant by the time it reaches the Currach in Kildare at lunchtime!" I assume that at some point in the conflict, in the firefight one of the snipers was either seen near a Bren gun and/or had been complaining of some sort of problem with his rifle, and soon after a target of value was dropped with a single shot from the same position...Assumption the kill was made by the sniper using the Bren...Instant legend... I mean, there is the other legend of the aircraft attack of the Fouga jet fighter on the Irish troops. There was a legend going around the Irish army for years that that exact Fouga fighter had been inducted into the Irish airforce when Ireland actually had Fouga fighters as their main combat aircraft, and that it is on display in the Irish army museum .
@@jamesjanson6129 I admit, I had never heard the Fouga legend before.
Agreed. While training on the Bren, I even heard instructors say it. Maybe more than a bit of myth and legend driving this :)
I remember being told the Mk1 bren was the more accurate model than the Mk3, as the Mk3 was designed to be used by paratroopers and had a larger "beating zone".
However I think @GarandThumb should put this to the test
Thank you. I agree, even if my experience is from using the FN MAG for many years and seeing soldiers use it.
There is one added aspect to the accuracy of the Bren and that is the replaceable barrel. No matter how good the fit might be when it locks in place, there will be movement and that will change trajectory. A sniper rifle has everything fixed that can be fixed in place. No unnecessary movement.
The bren was also heavier, and had a bipod. Which can help with accuracy.
I'd still rather a use a scope for long range shooting doe.
Good point, also the Lee Enfield has a free floating barrel for accuracy, which of course the Bren didn't have.
I've used the L4 both in basic in JLR in 77 and on a refresher course with reserves in the 80s. I found with my limited experience with it that it was pretty accurate.MT Troop also had L4s to go with our SMGs and supposedly a Charlie G.
The obvious solution is simply for Ian to work as a firearms consultant on every Hollywood movie made from now on
The key problem is that a consultant is always an advisor. The consultant ultimately doesn't get to decide something that is a director-level decision; if the director wants cool factor, the director gets cool factor.
With proper pay rates.
Or at least free flights to wherever, whenever!
(Gotta keep the masses happy with more new footage!)
SARKY SARKY
As someone who was briefly a consultant, you're basically just there so they can claim they had a consultant. And all the production people have no frame of reference for your knowledge base. We had them film a stunt that from a K9 handlers perspective was an amazing showcase of dog and handler skill. The NSWDG guy and LEO SWAT handlers that were also brought in for consulting and stunt work thought it was the coolest thing in the world. But we were the only ones. The director and the rest of the production team were confused by it and didn't see what was so impressive about it. We only did one take and moved on and to the best of my knowledge none of that footage ever made it into the final project.
@@NiccoMinutoliouch
I think the Bren myth started because it was slightly more accurate than other light machine guns like the MG 42, and then people took that nugget of truth and blew it way out of proportion.
Exactly. By open bolt machine gun standards, it is very accurate. And of course most of the "sniper" rifles of the time it was introduced were not very accurate so by comparison, it was kind of a big deal. It didn't take very long for sniper rifles and even some machine guns to surpass it but the myth continued to this day, just ask Lindybeige, LOL
I had a late Uncle who was a Korean War vet and later on the Army marksmanship team. He used to complain about how inaccurate the 1918 and 1919 machine guns were.
It was a pervasive myth amongst ANZAC troops in WW2 that the Bren was too accurate for use against light aircraft, even amongst several Vickers crewmen I met.
STG 4tw
@@AgoutiIronically, since according to the training pamphlets the Vickers is significantly more accurate than the BREN in automatic fire...
One thing to remember, though, is that just because something is a myth doesn't mean soldiers won't *believe* the myth. The Bren's seriously inflated reputation for accuracy was something widely believed by soldiers.
I can attest to that. I've been told it by more than one TA guys, who in turn heard it from regular army soldiers.
There's (still!) people in the comments here saying they were soldiers and the bren was more accurate.
its like how people think the PIAT sucks, and in the hands of a novice its absolutely horrendous. but someone that knows its limitations and its benefits can do a lot of damage with one
No armourer believed the Bren myths. A Bren at its most accurate would have failed the acceptance tests for the Lee-Enfield.
Bren was not typically fired in ten round bursts. Was more 2-4 this changes throughout ww2 as manuals show.
The point well made why would you swap an already accurate scoped rifle for iron sights is purely cinematic for the myth.
However (depending on the range) a single shot from the Bren (in the right hands) can be extremely accurate.
I spent the entire film wondering about the mercenary logistics with all the different calibres. I have issues.
Sounds like there weren't that many to me?
I imagine you pick up ammunition and arms as they become available on the battlefield. 🤕
The secret ingredient is crime
Africa has always had a ridiculous hodgepodge of small arms in a wide variety of calibers, so I am unsurpised about this situation. Certainly it would make logistic sense for everything to use the same caliber, but in this case I think they brought what they had rather than what they wanted. This was a transition period after all. That said, there are only really 2 different cartridges we're talking here: 7.62x51 for the FALs and .303 for both the SMLE and the Bren Guns, and these would be impossible to confuse.
Mercenaries.... ie French foreign Legion and Congonese free forces. Not just some random Mercs. Again we shouldn't have been there thanks alot De Gaulle
My former student, Declan Powers, wrote the book the movie was based on. Quite proud of him. Lovely guy.
oh that's so nice
Thanks for this, I just bought the book on audible.
That's awesome! Does the book mention this scene at all? Maybe for some reason he DID swap his sniper for the bren for some reason? (Possibly because it has a bipod and was more stable?)
Oh yeah, I had him as a lecturer in Ballyfermot! He definitely knew his stuff, although he did have a tendency to use artillery related metaphors a lot
I carried and used both the GPMG and the bren or LMG whilst serving in the British Royal Marines Commandos ,the former was a very good spread pattern weapon whilst the Bren was slightly more accurate, the bren was lighter easier to use and i loved it, so much so i carried it on operational tours of Northern Ireland where the SLR was the normal weapon used. The only fault with the bren was the clip that held the barrel on when jumping over a drystone wall after an IED went off the barrel detached itself and i had to go back for it.
🫡That must have been quite an ass puckering experience my friend. Glad you made it back in one peace. 🥃🥃
Yes the LMG 7.62 version of the Bren? I have seen the 7.62 30 round mags fitted to an SLR ! although I reckon that would be prone to jamming? as it was gravity fed in its normal configuration on the LMG?
A damn shame the provos didn't get you
@@0p.4 They were usually too stupid to know which way to point their weapons, luckily..
Over a century spent resisting the British, only to surrender the country to Africans without a shot 😂🤦♂️
Makes absolutely no sense, even if his rifle was broken for some reason it'd make more sense to use an FAL to take the shot or just saturate the area with the Bren
It’s what was to hand in his elevated position, plus the dude probably thought like Carlos Hathcock whom duct taped his armalite scope to a Browning M1 .50 in Vietnam…
Why was that mine owner even out in the open like that what an idiot. It's not the 11th century anymore bro you don't actually have to be on the battlefield to command the battle do you want to wind up like Harold Godwinson?
@@VHS_Broadcasting except the M2 is very accurate up to long ranges, a scope was used, and .50 BMG is an anti-materiel round that will most likely kill you if you ever get hit by it
@@staringgasmask the .303 round hits with 50,000 psi of force, that’s 3,214.2 Tons of force, it took limbs off, the Bren weighs quite a bit and a fairly robust man on lean-in prone the muzzle climb - inaccuracy for a single round at that short a distance isn’t really going to be that much of a factor…
Bro what? 3214 tons of force???
Even if you got the units wrong that’s still roughly 50% more muzzle energy than it actually has
Also what in gods green earth are you talking about? He literally says is a 4-5moa gun that’s not a rifle I want to lean on to try to make a single shot on a man sized target at 500+
I would love to see you try this on the range to completley dispell the myth
might be hard to find a volunteer mine owner though
@@fernandough2117it all depends on whether or not the miner believes in the myth
He links to a video at the end of someone else who already did that.
In fairness, you'd really need the very stoned girl from 'Lock, stock & two smoking barrels', a full mag-dump from ten feet away & not a scratch - impressive control : )
It has already been done ua-cam.com/video/wS4C9NMV0cE/v-deo.html
Hi Ian. I love the "Gun Jesus" lectures. For me, the story of Jadotville is an example of the bravery, courage and sacrifice of Irish soldiers on the battlefield. It is proof that the unexpected could be expected. I have great respect for these brave people, even though Ireland did not welcome them upon their return as the heroes they are. I am not Irish but as a former active soldier I can appreciate courage.
I have a Jadotville veteran as a neighbour, he was my sergeant in the old FCA, now the Reserve Defense Force. I never knew he was there until the film was made
I'm reminded of the time the IRA used a Boys anti-tank rifle against the Royal Navy in 1965. They had no magazine and only a few loose rounds that had to be extracted with a screwdriver. They shot a couple of holes into HMS Brave Borderer.
my username and profile picture already tell you that i am not at all biased when it comes to this conflict lol.
@@Slava_Ukraini1991
😄
@@Slava_Ukraini1991 No Surrender. FGAU. I.R.A. stands for I Ran Away
Come out Ye Black and Tans… 😂
@@r0bw1l73 in the instance discussed here the british vessel literally went full speed ahead without returning fire after getting nailed with the boyes AT rifle. talk about "I Ran Away"
The Armourer's Bench tested this, running a No 4 Mk 1 (T) against four different marks of Bren at the range. The Lee Enfield sniper rifle came out in front, but only just.
So would the Bren being mounted and the Lee not, make up the differences?
Looking at the segment of scene you showed, I can think of one big reason for the swap: The shot of Bren's bolt sliding forward to trigger the round is more cinematically impressive than anything that the Lee-Enfield could show.
Big gun go brrrrr
it was legit done that way as it was more cinematically impressive to make him shoot a bren gun, than him just taking his Lee Enfield sniper rifle and take the guy down within a second.
Yep and remember, current Hollywood writers firmly believe a person hit with a 55gr round shot out of an AR-15 will explode.
I am fairly certain this plot point is lifted from the famous Carlos Hathcock M2 'sniper' story. As for the myth of the "too accurate" Bren this first appears in print in the novel 'They die with their boots clean’ written by a Coldstream Guards chap in 1940-41, published 1942. Later the same year Oct 1942, the unofficial manual 'Know Your Weapons' No.5, Sten and Bren guns, by Nicholson & Watson (author anonymous) says the same thing. Every chance both of these originate in actual training but I've yet to find hard evidence of that.
I thought the same thing but they shoot the same caliber so I'm like c Mon.
Yeah it was definitely a ripoff of Carlos Hathcocks shot, but they failed to reconsider why Carlos used a.50 for that particular shot in the first place.
Is the silenced sten 2 actually that accurate?
In theory, very slightly more accurate than the unsuppressed Mk.II. In reality, the same, basically. However, being integrally suppressed, you will get more bullet drop at range and thus be less accurate as a shooter@@plazzy9911
@@davidjob4909 If he had a scope on it, of course he had to test it. A scope is obviously pretty much useless if you don't zero it.
Would love to see this channel break down different sniper scenes in movies. A specific one would be the shootout in The Hurt Locker
8:03 id imagine they originally shot the scene using the Enfield to make the shot then someone came up with the awesome idea of using the bren because of the myth, they then spiced in a scene where the sniper was taking aim down the Enfield scope and edited out the cross hairs
Shit, hadn't thought of that. Makes sense.
I thought the scope didn't have crosshairs?
@@WALTERBROADDUS The bren should have a front sight post
Nah, just watched it 4 times. They filmed it through the brens iron sight. He adjusts it and everything. You can see the whole ring and what side it's attached to.
These Soldiers did a remarkable feat of overcoming a huge attack. Their government basically shamed them for decades. I believe the recognition did come about and the movie did help by showing their valour .
It would be interesting to dissect conflicts ,skirmishes etc with era firearms matched.
Irish governments from then to now the only reason they acknowledge it now is they were shamed into it even at that they only acknowledge a few of the troops also the UN "shower of useless ba$%£"!s", would not stand up and support those Irish heroes ..
The government recognised them in like 2005
Thanks Ian, I watch these videos with an 81 year old work colleague who has collected a number of fire arms and it's so interesting when he says something a few seconds before you do. It's also interesting when you debunk myths that I had never heard until this friend of mine brought them up (typically in the antique firearms department)
The fact that they showed the bolt dropping forward makes me think that it might not have been the armorer but the director who had heard that myth and wanted to lean into it for interesting visuals. Showing the view through the rear sight without the front sight also fits with that decision.
"What's that blob covering the mine owner?"
"That's the front sight."
"Well get rid of it! You can't see the action with that in the way!"
The problem with knowing a little bit about weapons, is that every single movie you watch gets things wrong in a weird way, like them thinking it would be cooler to discard a pretty good sniper rifle for a Bren or attacking a broken down Sherman by running at it with Mausers rather than hiding behind a bush and Panzerfaust-ing it.
This is true of basically any type of specialized knowledge. You're constantly noticing how movies/TV shows get it wrong. "that's not how that works. That's not how any of that works!" is constantly playing in my head; I have to bite my tongue to keep it from getting out my mouth.
Hi Ian. To probably muddy the waters about the Bren gun and its accuracy . My father went in at D Day with his regiment and fought through to the Rhine before the surrender . My uncle was a marine commando in the war. Both of them told me, as a lad, how the Bren could be used as a sniper weapon. It seems that the rank and file of the British army did really believe this and both of them were at the sharp end. Thank you for your great videos , always interesting , with great content. Dave Cutting
I was a better shot with a bren than a no 4, but I'm no sniper. Maybe that's it, it's easier to shoot if you can't shoot.
My grandad told me the exact same thing he was a paratrooper who served with the Gurkhas in Italy. He used to joke and call it a squad automatic marksman's rifle.
IMHO, the Bren would have been ideal as a Designated Marksman’s Rifle as it was the only weapon in the Platoon with semi automatic capabilities with rifle ammunition. When bolt action rifles were replaced by ‘assault rifles’ for the riflemen then the LMG with a magazine became less relevant and the move to the GPMG happened. The Bren was crucial for the British in WW2 because it filled a gaping hole in section firepower. A 1 man weapon that could be used for sustained fire with a second man, decent enough on single shot and it used a decent cartridge.
4-5 MOA is accurate enough that you could reliably hit a man sized target out to several hundred meters away (1 MOA is 1/60th of a degree). 5 MOA is still only 0.36 meters wide at 250 meters, and I believe a typical person is about 0.4 meters from shoulder to shoulder. 250 meters is at the far end for typical combat ranges. So if Bren gunners were generally good enough marksmen that they could regularly hit German soldiers with single shots at 250 meters or less (which covers most of the ranges that combat actually takes place at) then it wouldn't be all that hard for the Bren to gain a reputation for accuracy. But 4-5 MOA isn't more accurate than a typical rifle of the time. I've seen videos of people achieving ~2 MOA with both the SMLE and Kar98k.
Rubbish@@thecuttingsark5094
Saving Private Ryan protrayed the 1903A4 as a much more effective sniper rifle than it probably was. Siege of Jadotville portrayed the Mk1T as less effective at range than an open-bolt gun with no magazine and no optic.
Atleast he didn't drop it and pick up a BAR loading a single round
Plus the scopes were wrong for SPR, and anything after the beach scene is pure Hollywood bollocks.
Also reminds me when I watched Fury, and every tank was doing these outrageous skill shots (and general completely insane tactics like rushing Tiger tanks head on through an open field?!) that were taking off people's heads and legs with tank shells. Such a cool film ruined by the experts being ignored for the purpose of some throwaway gore in a film that already portrayed very well the dangers of tanking and infantry warfare without a gratuitous shot.
They also made me hate all the main characters so I wasn't sure who to root for lol
Except it was a good idea to close the distance and try to flank the Tiger? Trying to take it head on from an extreme distance is the worst possible idea because that's where a Tiger would excel. The 76mm was a solid gun but you'd still want to try and go for a side shot not a frontal one. Maybe they could've pulled back, but once you're engaged it's very hard to disengage.
You know it was based on an actual event in ww2
@@killianlile173The 76 could have definitely killed a Tiger I within that range
@killianlile173 The 76mm will penetrate a Tiger 1 from any angle, out to beyond the accuracy limits of tank guns. And that's without HVAP. Except, Fury was set in the very late war period (it kind of had to be, the featured tank was an HVSS late variant!), and would have had HVAP available. Charging was stupid, it was totally unneccesary ballistically and merely delayed their ability to line up an accurate shot.
The better (and doctrinally taught) solution to this kind of ambush would have been for the 75mm-armed Sherman to immediately put smoke shell on the Tiger to blind it, then maneuver into a favorable position to engage. Which, in that scene, would have been to actually OPEN the distance and use the forest and embankments on the opposite side of the road as cover.
Private William Ready has the dubious distinction of being the first Irish soldier to be injured in combat on foreign soil. He passed away in 2016. RIP (n.b. official reports don't credit him as sniper or bren gunner, but he certainly did his duty in real life)
It's great to see Ian dispel myths we argued about as kids in the schoolyard in Ireland. I am going on FB to send some links to some old buachaillí of mine.
Hi Ian, interesting video as always, thanks. I was in UK forces from the 80's to the nineties and trained and qualified on various small arms including the SLR and LMG (which as you know was the Bren with minor improvements). We were trained to fire single well aimed shots with the rifle and short bursts with the LMG. When we were on the ranges re-qualifying over the years if there were some rounds left over we'd have a go at firing the LMG from the hip and the shoulder. It was remarkably accurate in my experience, not a sniper for sure, but if I were firing at a man standing still (and wearing a white suit!) at the distance depicted, while prone and using the bipod I'd have hit him first round. But you're right, if I also had the SLR available it's a silly choice.
Interesting that you were not trained to double tap on the SLR?
That scene has always bugged me, even with no knowledge of the Bren's reputation. Thanks so much for clearing this up!!
This summer I attended a literary convention and attended a panel where a bunch of authors were discussing writing and one of the writers made a remark that made me roll my eyes. "I'll blow off a major plot point for a good one liner in a heartbeat". Movies are so exciting now because of the same attitude toward visuals. Screw reality, it looks cool!
As a writer myself that sounds like top tier lazy writing. If you want to add a one liner then you have to put in the work to make that scene happen *realistically* . It might take an entire chapter to shift pieces around to make it possible but it can be done in most cases, that said sometimes like or it not even when you go through the effort trying to make it happen you the writer have to be able to sit back and admit that this idea just isn't going to work and you will have to come up with another idea.
It does make sense from a writing perspective to do the scene like this. It makes it seem as though he's not just the only person with the skill but with the specific knowledge of what weapon and technique to use to make this shot, which adds interest and makes it feel more earned since the kill has such a large and immediate effect on the battle. It's like the equally unrealistic scene from Saving Private Ryan where he has to swap out his normal scope for a special one and carefully dial it in, it makes the scene more interesting and dramatic at the cost of realism in a way that most people won't be able to detect. Now, could you write both of those in different ways to be dramatic and also realistic? Yeah probably, and if they were going to such effort in every other scene it's weird they didn't, but still.
@@Hybris51129 theres a big difference between writing a book and writing a screenplay. a screenplay is intrinsically going to be made into a visual story, and the bottom lines of a visual story is that it should /look good/ otherwise theres no point in watching.
The one liners make actors. The major plot points win Oscars. Good writers do both.
Hey! That's how The Rings of Power was made! Did you happen to catch any of the productions by the guy?
Fantastic movie, thanks for the analysis of that scene Ian. When I saw Siege of Jadotville, I wasn't focused on the shot, I was mostly shocked that the mine foreman would stand there in a white suit as an easy target. I did think the group salute at the end was very powerful.
I love hearing rants and nit picks like this about movies. Would sincerely enjoy more videos such as this!
For what it’s worth this is The Chieftain’s thoughts on that scene “You may underestimate the reputation that the Bren had for accuracy in the Irish military, to the point that the shooting competitions with it had to have rules to penalise single-shot fire. The weight, and solid bipod lean to accuracy at the cost of flexibility of the Lee-En”
Under-rated comment. The issue isn't really
"Is this technically probable?"
it is
"Is this something a soldier of the time would have tried?"
and a lot of people asses these myths from the perspective of a modern hindsight that is directly contrary to what was "conventional wisdom" at the time.
I don't know about the Irish Army, but the doctrine of the British Army was to give the Bren to the designated marksmen, and the myth of the insane accuracy was well established there.
Forgive me if I take a tankers perspective on rifle accuracy with a big grain of salt lol.
@@92HazelMocha Well the chieftain doesn't refute the points Ian makes, just points out its a bit more nuanced than looking purely at the mechanics of the guns. Plus he did serve in the Irish Army (albeit well after Jadotville) and was trained on the Bren, so he probably has some first hand experience of the perception of the weapon among the soldiers.
@@92HazelMochathe tanker isn’t refuting any of Ian’s arguments.
The tanker Leads the viewers perception on psychology because not-worth-it-but-soldiers-felt-better-so-it-was-probably-worth-it is a very real thing in the tanker world because “upgrades” of tanks that were sometimes even counter productive are a real thing.
It happens quite now actually with the so called “cope-cages” on Russia tanks. They never helped against top attack ATGMs and yet I bet the crews felt better with it (initially).
So if you’re a tanker or a handgun expert is totally irrelevant here: it’s about the common soldiers psychology.
@@Grimshak81 I mean you kind of just contradicted yourself; thinking something is more capable than it is, is just plain dangerous in warfare. The cope cages are a perfect example. They don't actually add protection, but they do add weight and make it harder to get in and out of the vehicle. Additionally thinking you're protected from something your not protected from is a lethal mistake on the battlefield, and Russia's armored losses just reinforce that. "Feeling invincible" inevitably leads to dying and soldiers dying leads to losing strategically.
This bounced off my eyes too. Thanks for the clarification! Because I am overly enthusiastic to contribute, I can only add; in the film “ a bridge too far,”during the first attack on the bridge, a British paratrooper makes a headshot, through a viewing slot in an SDKF.Z armored vehicle,causing a collision which halts the attack. It’s in the film, and depicted in the scene. It’s also in the book. Cornelius Ryan, the author, used impeccable research. It’s true! Thanks, I am recovering from a stroke, I live to try and contribute!
Thank you. You and your brother always give delightful and more importantly firearms/weapons information. Please keep cranking out the videos.
Wow! Just this week I talked about this with my British History professor. Thank you Ian.
Hope you weren’t calling the Irish British 😊.
@@Oligodendrocyte139 ???? So on edge. That’s the name of the subject my professor teaches. I wasn’t saying this IS British history.
I was certainly told the Bren gun accuracy story as an army cadet back in the mid 70s. The source of the information was a former para who was dropped into Nijmegen during WWII. So it’s an old saw for sure.
Paratroopers in all armies are known for exaggeration and sarcasm.
Source: Me, 82nd, Second to None.
We were told the story when I was in the ACF as we had Brens with long and short barrels and were told the short barrel ones were an attempt to make it less accurate - in reality it was a jungle version to go with the No 5's we had - most of our instructors had served in Malaya
As a cadet in Canada in the 60's we got the same stories from the vets of WW2 and Korea. We fired the Bren a fair bit because there was a ton of .303 ammo left over from Korea even though we had the FAL. When firing bursts we often spiked the bipod down to keep it from jumping around so ya, it had a short barrel as well and I doubt it would make a good sniper at any kind of distance.
@@Kneon_Knight Source; Me. None.
In Call of Duty: World at War, there's a mission where you play a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad. You infiltrate the German rear area and assassinate a general with your rifle at a hundred yards or so. But there's an achievement you can unlock if you can kill him with your pistol instead. It's really hard. It took me so many tries, but I did it. Obviously, the writer for Siege of Jadotville played the same mission and took inspiration from it.
Despite pistols being close range weapons, It's not impossible to achieve a hit at that distance. One of the competitions in the annual Bisley meeting (in the 1980s) was Long Range Service Pistol, which at the time involved using my Browning Hi-Power 9mm with the standard open sights- no optical sights allowed. The ammunition was military issue.
If I remember correctly, the target was a figure 11 at 200 yards. Hitting something at only half that range, is certainly possible, so if it will improve your score on Call of Duty, go for it!
"In Call of Duty: World at War, there's a mission where you play a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad. You infiltrate the German rear area and assassinate a general with your rifle at a hundred yards or so." Yeah, we all have seen Enemy At The Gates... as if COD did something original there.
Actually there's an easy way to achieve that trophy: you simply have to glitch yourself on a certain wall and well... you can shoot the general literally from the backseat of his car
@@tommasop.3174 I didn't know about that. I had to do it by aiming carefully and shooting quickly. Lol (and a little bit of luck)
I highly doubt he took inspiration from a call of duty game. It's not the kinda film where a sniper would make his job harder just for the sakes of showing off. It's trying to reinforce that old urban legend of the "Super duper accurate bren" (which even my own grandad beleives after a 48 year army career!)
The French mercenary is the really interesting character in that movie. I believe it's the only time he lost and pulled off a bunch of other coups across Africa.
He’s supposed to be Bob Denard, right? That guy was incredibly hardcore
rene faulques? that dude was a horrific piece of shit. interesting guy though.
@@jamesr792 Roger Louis 'Rene' Faulques. He was Denard's buddy and an absolute legend in his own right, having fought in every dirty war the French found themselves in between Dunkirk & the Biafra crisis.
At least it’s a movie depicting the French as the bad guys for a change. Got something right. 😉😁😁😁
@@samb2052As a Canadian of English descent, I aprove of this comment. 😉
Kidding, I like my Francaphone bretheren too.
Back in '82, I trained on the FNC2A1 in the Canadian Army. I won't claim to be an expert, but I got the strong impression that it was a very accurate LMG when in semi auto. Mind you, it fired from a closed bolt.
Probably at least as accurate as the C1. Possibly slightly moreso because of the heavier barrel.
I'm going to try to make this as short and sweet as possible. I've subscribed to forgotten weapons for years now. And in when you say you're nitpicking a little bit I feel your pain. As a former military veteran self subscribed firearms expert, my girlfriend and Friends have a hard time watching any type of military movie with me because I have a tendency to say that would never happen and let me tell you why. LOL it's quite frustrating for others LOL. Keep up the good work. As a former Machinist and served in two conflicts I find the ins and outs of firearm designs fascinating. When I see someone such as yourself break down an FG 42 it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside an operating piece of machinery like that. . Its history and mechanical history and sometimes it makes you scratch your head and say instead of the other way, why did they do it that way instead. Great job on just about everything I've seen that you have put out since I started subscribing years ago. I give you a big thumbs up Ian. Keep it up you're doing a great job
The myth probably started as something like "The Bren gun was found to be relatively accurate for its intended purpose; a joke would go around that you can use it as a sniper rifle if needed". And then over time the front drops more and more until you get "Use as a sniper"
The Bren was always described as 'if anything too accurate' BUT that is for it's application as a light machine gun NOT to describe it as accurate enough to use as a sniping weapon.
That's exactly the myth. There is no such thing as "too accurate". Even a laser gun would not be "too accurate", once you add recoil in the mix.
I fired the Bren and SLR (FN FAL), the Bren was not "too accurate" the SLR was more accurate than the Bren, so in reality, if the Irish there had no scoped .303 lee Enfield the shot would have been taken with the FN FAL on single shot, which was also a very accurate weapon.
@@scratchy996 I fired all three, my dad was trained on rifle, sub machine gun, Bren & Lewis 1939-45.
Dad was trained amongst other things to use the lmg to knock down brick buildings by shooting the corners off.
It was Dad's trainers whilst training in 'the bombed area' of Birmingham UK who remarked that the Bren was 'if anything too accurate' for an lmg, since there were amongst them veterans of WW1, they probably knew what they were talking about.
Dad passed those observations on to me along with 'useful' information like the likely 'kill rate' of a mills bomb thrown into a room (it was urban warfare training after all!).
@@pcka12 f anything too accurate' for an lmg - yeah, I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.
Even the official tests showed that the Bren has 5 MOA.
As Ian pointed out in another video, even a laser pointer would not be "too accurate" , when you shake it around due to recoil.
Edit : The US Marine Corps replaced the SAW LMG with the M27 IAR, because the M27 is more accurate.
They found out in Afghanistan that experienced Taliban were maneuvering under MG fire, because the SAW LMG wasn't accurate enough.
With the M27's increased accuracy, less bullets were needed to pin down enemies, as they landed closer.
Again there is no such thing as "too accurate".
@@scratchy996 the Bren is (you might even be unaware of this!) A British machine gun adopted in the 1930s.
The British had at that time immense experience of warfare on a global scale (the US apparently had an army smaller than Romania & with quite limited international experience, the US military was described as arriving in France in World War 1 in time to shore up France which was in danger of collapse, but too late in too limited numbers & with too little experience to greatly influence the outcome which was: - the '100 days' campaign of 1918, finally bringing Germany to it's knees).
British trainers with such a wealth of experience tended to the opinion that the new LMG (a weapon in calibre 303 with which I was trained extensively over a number of years (section in attack from the manual)) was 'in comparison with other LMGs if anything too accurate'.
That was the considered opinion of very experienced infantry trainers!
I love that movie, it's one of my comfort films, but I did always think that particular scene was a little weird. Thank you for all the education you do, Ian!
If a precision rifle hadn’t been available the BREN wouldn’t be a bad choice as long as one used all 30 rounds in short bursts.
Exactly, makes no sense to shoot one bullet when you might as well spray
I love _Forgotten Weapons_ and debunking sniper fallacies. Imagine my joy when _Forgotten Weapons_ debunks a sniper myth. Top marks, Ian!
One myth I like to smash is the regarded knuckleheads who claim scopes were not mounted on top of M2's and used as long distance "sniper" weapons. In semi auto mode NOT MG mode.
I love that someone says they made some content about this movie at all :-) awesome job
At least anecdotally, I witnessed our FN MAG gunner show off to the Marines that he could reach out and hit the man-sized gong at 500m with irons, He single loaded and hit 5-8 times in a row. This was after the marines laughed at us for not having "modern" M240B with optics etc.
I qualified at 800 yards with an open sighted m249.
Sometimes a skilled shooter can Overcome inferior equipment
"anecdotally"... "I witnessed"
I'd still take an M240 with an optic
@@Bojangles6 aren't those MG targets absolutely huge? a 12 moa MG is not mechanically accurate enough to make sustained man sized hits at 800. purely mechanically the weapon already limits you to a roughly 76 inch diameter circle. then you have the lock time discussed in the video. and if you expect to hit with bursts the recoil (although very small) is enough to throw you completely off of a man sized target at an insane distance like 800 yards.
This screams "muh iron sites"
I dunno about the actual battle, but I found single loading an M240 was quite accurate, just over a 7 inch shot group at 500M. I did this to confirm a 10M zero to prep my gunners to compete in competition and it paid off.
Imagine you're in a Ferrari and you need to chase someone...this scene is like jumping out of the Ferrari and into a Golf Buggy to give chase....why would you drop a sniper rifle and use an MG for a long range shot?
I want to see this myth pushed further. As you previously discussed with Bloke on the Range, expected mechanical accuracy for a service rifle of the period was around 5MOA. Of course the accurized Mk4 is going to beat that by a country mile, but considering the Bren could reach the same precision with burst fire, I'd be willing to bet that many soldiers of the time did consider it to be exceptionally accurate. Not too accurate for area suppression, but the mechanics of suppression were still not much discussed until the 60s, so I would let that part of the myth slide.
Okay I i thought it was just me that thought it was off for them to swap to the Bren instead of literally any of the other rifles they used. Lee-Enfield, FAL/L1A1, literally anything else. It felt weird they'd take the open bolt gun for that shot for various reasons.
I didn't know that the myth was a thing, which I find pretty funny.
Bren is bigger, and bigger better, is my guess.
I have heard many people claiming BREN being "accurate" as in its supposedly very controllable in automatic fire. And you can see how it ended up into this
Similar to how people keep saying the horrible UCP was designed to be hidden from drones. My theory how it happened is as follows, the grey color is due to it being less reflective in the near infrared range for night vision, people confuse night vision with thermal, drones have thermal imaging + pixel looking pattern = stupid myth
thanks Ian I've watched this move a couple of times and always wondered why you do that the Enfield would have been my pick for a shot like that, even the L1A1 would have been a better choice than the Bren, liked the bit where they used all the used brass as mines, it was sad how these men were treated after the war.
In my personal view, I think that this scene is really about showing that, despite the circumstances, Irish snipers can't resist the urge to show off when they know people are watching them.
.
I could be wrong.
More like Hollywood can't. Irish snipers at the time actually used a scoped Lee Enfield or their FN FAL both of which were more accurate than the Bren.
Yes... you are 100% wrong. tf is this logic
@@GAMER123GAMINGI think it’s called sarcasm.
Just wait until I pull out a Mauser C96, set the sights to 800m, and load a single round
I've never heard of this Bren gun myth before, but when I saw the movie I didn't question that scene at all. In fact my mind went to the story of Carlos Hathcock using an M2 Browning on single shot to make a sniping shot in Vietnam.
I would have believed it if they upgraded to .50 BMG but only if they needed the range or hitting power like Hathcock did, but with both the Enfield and Bren in .303 it just makes no sense. hell the Enfield probably has a longer barrel too
They actually did that. The weight of a .50 on a tripod with that rather large sight would keep the gun very static when firing single shots, but the recoil would make it jump around a bit.
The bren is open bolt not the M2 that makes a big difference
yes because it was OUTSIDE the range of his M70..
not because it was cool
@@etiennelamarche7796 uh the M2 is open bolt
USMC 87-89
0331 ( heavy weapons)
I just injected my own headcanon that the sniper just wanted to show off
Very happy you commented on this movie. Even though the Bren scene was questionable, this was a great movie and depicted great leadership by the Irish commander and his troops.
Not happy he's wearing issued gear though.
I liked the part where the sergeant reminds a private to stop slapping the trigger
@@foxybazwhat do you mean by that? Are you referring to his jacket?
Well put Ian, this was one of thefew things in the movie that bugged me too.Its an accurate enough recreation of the events that occured . As a young soldier in the 1980s in Ireland I had the great fortune to be trained and got to soldier with a few of the remaining serving Jadoville and Congo veterns as they neared the end of their careers. They were the most unassuming soldiers you could meet but so professional . They had a brilliant CO in Comdt Quinlan and the Irish Defence Forces never truly acknowledged their bravery and his leadership. Its a great reflection that many of the veterns had family who continue to serve Ireland and indeed Comdt Quinlans had two sons serve in the IDF and currently two of his gransons are IDF Officers in the rank of Comdt.
I was talking to Jadotville veteran Tommy Gunn, who was a Bren gunner there. Frol talking to him, what inspired this particular scene in the context of Jadotville was at the real battle, since they were an entrenched group firing on targets advancing mostly across open ground the gunners were encouraged to fire single shots and chpose their targets to conserve ammunition
'Tommy Gunn' ? LOL
My father was a Bren gunner in the British infantry during the Suez crisis and he always asserted that the .303 Bren gun was often used as a single shot "sniping" weapon out to 750 yards.
That was only when the QD gyroscopic stabilized lazer sight was installed
You ever tried to hit a man sized target at 750 yards with a decent mag scope? You ever try to see a person 750 yards away with no glass?
The absolute best shooters in the world would struggle doing that in a single shot with irons out of a precision weapon.
Your dad was telling "fishing stories".
@@holdintheaces7468 and the guy he shot was even running away zig zag pattern. Downhill!
@@holdintheaces7468 thats a bit under 700 meters, i remember range shooting with irons to six hundred meters and it was very much doable, if that is a tricky shot for the 'best shooters in the world' then they need to get their eyes checked.
I bet ur dad also received that gun from the queen herself
I was certainly more accurate with a Bren than a no4 SMLE, but I think that says more about my (lack of) marksmanship abilities than the weapons’!
Well delivered video, some spot on observations. Agree with all your opinions. Especially Lee Enfield suitability over the bren, and the piece where you gave recognition to the Cavalry detachment of Ford armoured cars which were left out of the movie. It was the eventual wear out of their Vickers MGs which factored in Comdt.Quinlan's decision to offer terms.
Couple of family anecdotes: my dad's National Service was very abbreviated (100 days, released on compassionate grounds), but he was insistent that he was much more accurate with the Bren than whichever rifle he was being trained on. Which might just represent the state of the weapons in the armoury at the training depot in the late 50s. OTOH, my great uncle, when he set out at Arnhem to stalk a German sniper, elected to take a Bren. I don't know what range he engaged at, but for a counter-sniper engagement, he preferred the Bren over whatever else was available. (His medal citation specifically mentions the Bren).
I wonder if the "accuracy" is more an effect of the mag acting like a horse blinder and keeping your eye down range.
@WhiteCollarCrimeDNB The bipod and lack of recoil helped soldiers shoot accurately with the Bren (to within the limits of the gun).
My service-gun was a MG3, basically the MG42. During a NATO manouver we also tried out the Bren. Tagents was full size person cardboard supported with a wooden cross. Unlike the MG3 who disperded bullets all over the target the Bren cut the wooden crosses and the targets folded in two. Compared with the MG3 they are very accurate.
You compare a gas operated gun with a short recoil gun of course Bren is more accurate than MG3
In competition shoots before removal from service in the Irish Defence Force, the Bren was found to be just as accurate at 200 and 300m as a rifle of the same calibre, in the right hands. If you couldn't get all your rounds within a 12 inch circle consistently in single shot, you went home early.
Bundeswehr?
You're missing the point. The Bren is indeed very accurate _for an open-bolt machine gun._ In its own category, it's near the top. But dedicated sniper rifles are in a whole damn other class.
@@KageNoTora74 no, the peace corps 🤦
They recon the mark 1brens where so well made and tight that you could place round on round, then they started making the mk2s with less tolerance to add with the beaten zone effect, what I think has happened hear is film makers going with the wrong end of the myth!!
My grandfather did his national service with the 27th Battalion Royal South Australian Rifles in the 50’s as a Bren Gunner he believed to his dying day it was too accurate for a machine gun and the Bren Gunners in his unit would go to great pains to obtain worn barrels from the armourers in order to cause more spread.
These videos might seem "nit-picky", but they are actually very important. So many laypeople see these misconceptions portrayed in film, then form genuine beliefs around these things which are complete myth which they spread to others. Great stuff Ian.
It’s amazing Ireland actually found the Congo- I would have thought they would have invaded Leeds
I think it would be more appropriate and no less "cinematically well looking" if they did the scene in reverse - first covering/supporting fire with the Bren, then, when convenient target appears, grab the sniper rifle and fire the one shot you need.
(apart from the question why is the Bren gunner also a sniper at the same time?)
Third thing is that almost nobody is accurate with a first shot on a completely unknown weapon. An especially there is so much uncertainty. In most cases if you have only one important shot, you are better shooting it with a less accurate gun you are very familiar with than trying something new for the first time.
LOL Ian you are awesome. Love how you laughed at that bit, not an attack, just a "nope".
I personally have watched people put a whole magazine from a Bren gun into one roughly 2 MOA hole at 100 yards. It's like shooting an air gun, the trigger release doesn't matter too much but the follow through is what matters. The Bren gun's weight and very stiff barrel make it highly accurate. The aperture sights if your eyes are good will work out to extended ranges. Whether you'd use one rather than a No4 T seems doubtful though and the whole point of the machine gun is a ten round burst will get the job done at very extended ranges so a Bren or belt fed machine gun will have a longer effective range than a sniper rifle of the same calibre. The scene in the film was total nonsense that spoiled an otherwise enjoyable film for me, that I can agree with.
All the Irish defence forces personal over a certain age, that I've spoken too, are obsessed with the "Bren gun". Apparently it's the bee's knees...... we will have to have a range video 300 yards with Bren on single shot Vs lee Enfield sniper to see this in action, sorry Ian it's a must... nice Irish camo jacket by the way.👍
Also as a fun fact, the Swedish K in the Irish defence forces was known as just the "Carl Gustaf".
Well, guess who made the Swedish k?
Thank you for this commentary and analysis. Excellent as usual. Cheers!
My friend was dumped by his mother in one of Irelands terrible Magdalen homes ,recently after more than 60 yeare=s he found his aunt and other family members,.he learned that His uncle was a Bren gunner in the Irish 24th infantry Battallion engineer company , and was killed by friendly fire ain a night action in Elizebethville 2 days prior to the Jadotville siege.
Magdalen was for women and girls only. He would have been in a state school.
I remember loving this movie overall, but being confused as hell as to why you would ditch your scoped, accurized, purpose-built sniper rifle for a machine gun with iron sights to make a critical long-range shot. Thanks for the vindication, Ian.
That scene has lived rent free in my head for years
The armoured cars were actually Irish made too, so another reason that it would of been nice to see them.
We have original Irish issue versions of most of the small arms included in the film, in our collection if you're ever in the area and want to have a look.
Nice DPM barrack jacket by the way!
My father's secondary role was base security (RAF). He was one of the "one person per squad" issued with a Bren. He said they were a bit more accurate than ideal and as accurate as a WWII era rifle he had been taught with, that had a barrel worn to near the end of it's life. Also he said that this "accuracy" had been greatly exagerated over the years as things do sometimes in the military. They were taught to fire in 2 to 3 round bursts.
When we lived in Rhodesia (1958 - 1963), my father found himself in a potentially serious fall-out from this Belgian political sh*tstorm when asked to deal with wood and other building shipments to and from the area.
Many years later when my brother returned to North Rhodesia to start a tobacco farm, he was asked to play a part in a small film drama documenting Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo who was shot in early 1961.
If anyone ever sees this film, my brother is the one ushering Lumumba out of his car with the words, "You may pray now, Mr Lumumba".
I AM SO GLAD YOU MENTIONED THIS!! My girlfriend always gets mad when I comment on gun mistakes, and this one I flip out over
I work as an armourer, and I can tell you right now that not only is this myth STILL going, but it has evolved onto new platforms.
I have been told that the GPMG has sniper precision, and that "X soldier did Y at such and such a distance, and it's the longest confirmed kill ever" and that the L86LSW was "removed from service because it was deemed to accurate a weapon, and just killed whatever you were suppressing".
Thank you for highlighting where some of these myths may have came from.
I remember watching the movie and thinking it was unrealistic that not one Irish guy died, and then looked it up and found that to be true.
I carried a bren for six years in the Rhodesian army re chambered to 7.62 I found it extremely accurate on single shot with a grouping of 5 covered by the length of a match stick at 100 m
I would have felt comfortable hitting center mass at 300
i think thats more beside the point I think. From what i understood, he wasn't saying that it couldn't make the shot, rather saying that the Lee Enfield, a gun designed for longer range and/or precision shots, is by far the better choice
Rhodesian brushstroke Camouflage is so effective that after the army put it on their country became impossible to see on a map.
*Zimbabwe
My Father used the Bren while in the Australian Army and he was adamant that it was an accurate weapon, to the point that he could take out a target stake on the range and drop a target.
The MAG58 is also a machinegun and you can wind down the gas system to fire single shots accurately.
Did that in the R.A.F. on a training day the Armory had some surplus Ammunition that needed using normally we just got two mags to do the drills. This time we got to do burst fire and mag changes because we lost count. Then we got bord and picked off the legs of the targets then hit them in the head to knock them over. The Range warden was not happy.
Side bar one of the line huts was between the V brace to the back wall of the buts when there was a Bren session you could hear the rounds hitting the back wall.
I served with 2 veterns of this battle in 1981, one of those veterns told me there was no Lee Enfields with the Irish in Jadotville, the FN FAL replaced the Lee Enfield about 6 months before. All the Irish marksmen were issued FN FAL's, another weapon that was used to great effect by the Irish (as well as the Vickers) was the 84mm Carl Gustav which took out bunkers including a house where a sniper was using it as a hide. They were great men who were treated terrible by the UN, Irish Government as well as the Army Top Brass. At least their CO was awarded the Distinguished Service Medel for his leadership but he nominated 8 soldiers for awards but they never received them. By the way Ian love the Irish Army DPM, soon to be replaced by MultiCam.
I was told this myth as "fact" by a staff member at a WW2 museum in Britain. I can't remember which museum it was but it was a Rifles museum in the South somewhere.
I did think it odd being that it is an open bolt and mentioned this, but the staff member assured me there were recorded instances of the Bren gunner being told to take precision shots at MG-42 nests.... Which I again found odd being that the British were armed with rifles that would be far more effective for that use...
Great video as always 😁
And the British data sheet Ian showed contradicted the myth as well.
It's horse dung. I fired both the BREN and the SLR (FN FAL) regularly, including a lot of single shot on the Bren, and the SLR was more accurate, and the Lee Enfield .303 would have been more accurate than both them. Yes the Bren was a good(ish) section level fire support weapon in its day. Being magazine fed was a major drawback though.