Good Afternoon Soldiers, Welcome.
I've been wandering the south of Wales for a very pleasant few days, and I visited the excellent treasure trove that is CAREW CHERITON CONTROL TOWER.
http://www.carewcheritoncontroltower.co.uk/
From this in the 1980's....
to this
This little place is PACKED with WW2 memorabilia, and I've been lucky enough to visit several times, as a good friend of mine knows the guys who are striving for historic perfection there.
With a little coaxing John Brock allowed me to have a good inspection of the Lee Enfield Rifle. Being a Left Hooker, I immediately pulled it into the wrong shoulder....
and then discovered I couldn't reload it as the lever was to the right....
How hard was THAT to do? Not a very heavy gun, but the bolt needed pushing home quite firmly and it was tricky... I have NO IDEA what that was like in the heat and stress of battle. But I DID know how to do it... CoD5 gave me a damn good idea, scarily.
Right shoulder, this is me looking seriously awkward tring to push the bolt home
and then aiming, though the stock is far too short for moi
(yes Tumble... that's a 200lb'er tail fin on the floor next to me )
The thing is... I'm not a big lad... but I can hold a rifle for a while.. and this one was immaculate, so I was more than keen to have a play for a while.. and the old shoulders ached after only a few minutes... wimp!
I told John Brock, the old boy who runs it.. that the gun must have been hard work to carry for weeks on end with all the extra equipment and ammo..... and he pulled out the BREN GUN
"Heft THAT" he says..and begins to tell me about soldiers running with this monster and firing from the hip....
In a vain attemt to look macho, I managed a few shoulder shots....
but let me tell you.. I was WOBBLING. The thing weighs more than my 2 year old son, and had just as many awkward sticky out bendy bits
SO next time you're holding your HEAVY MACHINE GUN dead still on a target spot, stood or crouched.. camping your little heart out.. for 5 minutes... well... it just wouldn't happen.
AND BUNNY HOPPING.. HAH.. DONT MAKE ME LAUGH!
So .. prone.... get on the floor and make like a hidden killing machine (in this case, Zak Camps out behind the wooden chairs, next to some nice artwork )
And dont forget the old Grenade's either....
I tried a feint effort of swinging that bren Gun around for a multiple target sweep of the horizon... and nearly dropped it from effort
So....you boys know what this means... don't you? NO BUNNY HOPPING