User:Harlsbottom/EM2
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| Enfield EM-2 | |
|---|---|
 Enfield EM-2 |
|
| Type | Assault Rifle |
| Place of origin | UK |
| Service history | |
| Used by | UK |
| Wars | n/a |
| Production history | |
| Designed | 1950 |
| Number built | 50 |
| Variants | 5 |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 3.4 kg |
| Length | 889 mm |
| Barrel length | 623 mm |
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| Cartridge | .280 Mk1Z (7 x 43 mm) |
| Caliber | .280 in (7.11 mm) |
| Action | Gas operated |
| Rate of fire | 600 to 650 round/min |
| Muzzle velocity | 745 metres/sec ( 2444 feet/sec ) |
| Effective range | n/a |
| Feed system | 20 |
The EM-2 Rifle, also known as the Janson Rifle or in the British Army as the Rifle No. 9 to use its official nomenclature, was an early British automatic rifle designed after World War Two to replace the Lee-Enfield family of hand-operated single-shot rifles in the British Army. It was notable for being an early weapon to use the bullpup configuration, and had a novel non-telescopic optical sight, as well as being chambered for an intermediate range cartridge, the .280 (7 x 43 mm). In addition to the infantry variant, a sniper version, a short-barrelled paratroop variant and a short-barrelled jungle variant were produced. The rifle was designed to a specification by the Ideal Cartridge Panel for an intermediate range cartridge and the corresponding need for a new rifle to use it. The rifle was produced at the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield and was based upon the German FG 42.
In 1950 the weapon was tested at the Light Rifle Trials held at the Aberdeen Proving Ground along with the U.S. T25 rifle and the Fabrique National .280" rifle which had been adapted from the German 7.92 mm cartridge as a back-up in the event the EM-2 was not available for joint tests. In this test the EM-2 was judged to be the better rifle, although all the entries were in need of substantial further development. However, with talks on NATO standardisation stalled due to American insistence on their T65 .30 calibre round being the standard, and the British devotion to their smaller .280" cartridge, the development team was compelled first to adopt the EM-2 to fire the larger and more powerful T65 round, and then a 7mm compromise round which the Canadian military hoped would break the deadlock. The T65 round affected the reliability of the EM-2 adversely, whilst the Canadian round proved unacceptable to both sides.
To force the matter, on April 25, 1951 the Labour Government announced the adoption of the EM-2 as the Rifle No. 9. The fall of the Labour government in late 1951 coupled with new Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s desire to please the Americans sounded the death knell for the rifle and the cartridge. After months of debate in the House of Commons, where Churchill was forced to concede that the EM-2 was superior to either the American or Belgian rifles on offer, the FN example chambered for the T65 7.62 mm cartridge was officially adopted by the British Army on February 1, 1953 as the L1A1 SLR.
Contents |
[edit] Background history
[edit] Need for a new rifle
After the 2nd Boer War the British Army had experimented with a new cartridge to replace the already venerable rimmed .303 cartridge. It had been planned to introduce the rimless .276 round into service in the Pattern 13 Rifle, but these plans were shelved with the outbreak of the First World War. The army continued to use the service Short Magazine Lee Enfield,its successors and .303 cartridge for another forty years, whilst the Pattern 13 Rifle was adapted for use with .303 as the Pattern 14 Rifle, and for .30-06 Springfield as the Pattern 17 Rifle in [[United States Army|US service. Neither rifle saw widespread British service, whilst the .276 round was temporarily abandoned.
Recognising that the .303 cartridge as well as the Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles were becoming obsolescent, during World War II the British Government set up the Ideal Cartridge Panel to decide on a new cartridge for the British Army, taking account of past experience and information coming in from the battlefield. The panel was headed by Richard Beeching, Deputy Chief Engineer of the Armament Design Establishment of the Ministry of Supply, the body concerned with the design and production of weapons and ammunition. The panel was composed of engineers, designers and soldiers, many of whom would play a role in the design and thinking behind the EM-2.
[edit] Early development
In 1944 a bullpup sniper rifle had been designed at Enfield that resembled a Lee-Enfield No.4 (T). Three designs were prepared and one prototype produced under the name of the Enfield Sniper Rifle which was swiftly retired to museum status. At the same time an Australian Army officer, Major J.E.M. Hall, AIF, had designed a straight-pull sniper rifle as a bullpup. This rifle was unusual in that spent cases were ejected over the shoulder of the shooter. The design of the rifle was so advanced that on February 5, 1945 Hall was granted a patent at the British Patent Office. In light of subsequent developments, on January 6, 1948 the Hall rifle was designated the Enfield Model 3 (EM-3).
With the end of World War II the weapons designers, awaiting the verdict of the Ideal Cartridge Panel and setting aside the .303 cartridge designed potential weapons for the German 7.92 x 57 mm cartridge. Utilising ideas embodied in the Hall rifle, a bullpup light machine gun was designed by a team under a Polish refugee, Korsac, for whom the weapon was designed. The Korsac weapon (later named the EM-1 LMG) used the locking system of the FG42, had a 18 round box magazine and a cyclic rate of 450-500 rounds per minute (rpm). Two prototypes were made for testing and analysis, and were relegated to museum status on September 25, 1947.
[edit] Infantry Personal Weapon
[edit] Small Arms Group
Both the Enfield Sniper Rifle and the EM-1 LMG had been produced a team called the Small Arms Group headed by Lieutenant-Colonel E.N. Kent-Lemon, MBE, TD who reported to the Armament Design Establishment. The group was composed of British engineers as well as Polish, Belgian and Czech designers. During the development of the EM-1 LMG, the team leader was replaced by Capt Kazimierz Januszewski, who later anglicised his name to Stefan Kenneth Janson and became a British subject. Janson, along with engineer Stanley Thorpe, would play prominent roles in the Enfield Model programme.
[edit] W.O.P.S. No. 9
On May 27, 1947 Kent-Lemon attended a meeting with other members of the Armament Design Establishment to discuss the projected new rifle. In light of British and German experience in the last war, it was suggested that a weapons system composed of three items was needed;
- Automatic rifle
- Light automatic rifle
- Medium machine gun
This mirrored the German plans at the end of World War II to equip the army with MP44 assault rifles based around MG42 squad machine guns. For item 1 it was decided that two teams, under Stefan Janson and Stanley Thorpe respectively, would work in parallel to design an automatic rifle provisionally chambered for the 7.92 x 33 mm short round. Item 3 would be based on the EM-1 LMG and be chambered for the 7.92 x 77 mm cartridge.
