why choose a bren ?

[reenactorcorp]

what reasons have people chosen to buy / have a bren ?

[woodsy]

There are three basic reasons; technology, history, and nostalgia. Technology covers the excellent design, the quality of materials and manufacture, and the ergonomics, all of which contribute to its position as the World's best light machine gun. History covers virtually every war, large and small, for the past 65 years, and the gun is still in service in various places. Nostalgia, particularly for those of us within the British Commonwealth, is because it was usually the first MG we had anything to do with, and the memories are all good.

No other single gun embodies all the features that make the Bren the excellent gun it is, and most never come close. It really boils down to a "study of excellence"!

[reenactorcorp]

excellent Rod , but considering what the German werhmacht had with MG42,s etc and automatic rifles as MP44,s surely the bren was limited , especially the size of it , with just 29 rounds per mag change etc ?
wasnt the bren good as it was still a bit of a dinasour in combat ?
why did the british army go with the sa80 lsw in replacement , apart from the smaller nato round if the bren is so good ?

[tom]

To stick my two pen'ath in.

For most of the war Germany was on the defensive so a belt fed MG with a high rate of fire was ideal for their perposes. Even then If I remember right they had major problems with icing of the belts in winter.

The Commonwealth, after the retreats at the start of ever campaign, where obliged to be on the offensive with all the problems of supply that causes so a magazine fed section LMG that didn't eat ammunition was a advantage.

One of the major selling points for mag fed LMGs is their versatility, they will perform well in conditions where belt feds would have had trouble such as in te snow, desert and most importantly in jungle. It wasn't that they wouldn't fail, its just that they would fail a lot less just from the fact that they didn't have a belt to rust, freeze or fill with mud and dust. I've always wondered how well the MG42 et al would have done in Burma or On the Kakorda trail. Well looking at how the M60 did in Vietnam (and allow for the fact that ammunition supply wasn't the problem and dodgy ammunition/rusty belts were discarded rather than used), enough said.

Post war Britains commitments (and stretched resources) ment the Bren soldiered on, It was no longer the best thing for our new commitment in Europe (we needed the sort of gun that would do to the Russians what the MG42 had done, and ammunition supply wasn't a problem with the use of APCs etc) so its demise was enevitable. However for the numerous small wars it was just the job. In most cases these where wars of patrolling and brief contacts with units smaller than ourselves so massive volumes of fire where not required (with notable exceptions such as tha various SAS operations where small units had to punch above their weight).

Even after the GPMG took over the Bren was prefared for some operations, the Marines hung onto theirs for a long time, especially for Artic warfare. But it's day was over really when the man (or mule) stopped being the main way of moving ammunition forward.

Also we had the Vickers for the sort of defensive work that the MG42 excelled at and thats demise /showing of age would have encouraged the adoption of a more general perpose MG.


ATB

Tom

shouldhavehadtheVickers-Berthieranywaymumblemumble

[woodsy]

The fact that the MG42 is still in service (as the MG3) proves that it is a good gun, however its prodigious appetite for ammunition was its biggest downfall. In action the MG42 required at least three men to keep it running; one to run the gun and two to keep the ammunition up to it. The Bren ammunition expenditure was lower, and the loaded magazines were carried by every man in their chest pouches. The MP44 was a good weapon that arrived too late to save the Reich, and was mainly used on the Russian front where supply lines were badly stretched and hampered by winter conditions. This proves that technology is no substitute for good planning! Despite some good gear, the Germans lost! The Germans were impressed with the Bren and went so far as to issue an instructional booklet to better utilise their captured examples, and, of course, the ZB26 (the Bren's father) was already in service with the Waffen SS. They knew a good thing when they saw it! Tom's comments on the problems associated with belt fed guns are totally valid today. Such guns in servce in bad environments use 'magazines' that contain short lengths of belt to give then more first-shot reliability.