Was this gun better than the Bren? The Vickers-Berthier LMG with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson 

That’s what they came together for the Bren !

Thank you

My dad didn’t like the only time he use !??

It's literally the Original Been Gun.

Indian army is extremely interesting. They actually adopted white powder before mainland Britain. Ishapore actually was more automated compared to British factories, which resulted in better guns being produced than British made ones.

Basic rule in the British Empire following the 2nd Boer War, where Canadians were sufficiently irritated with the lack of British-made weapons to arm their loyal contingents to insist on arming themselves and damn Parliament on the matter, is that so long as an Imperial military unit uses a British-adopted ammunition, they really can make or use what they want. Australia and India, for example, declined to use the No.4 rifle as they had arsenals making plenty of SMLE rifles. Now, any time a Indian unit spent a lot of time far from home with mostly British troops, like in North Africa, then it was often easier to get British-made guns to replace lost equipment, so Indians would end up with a lot of Brens and No.4 rifles after a couple of years. But the opposite went for British troops fighting with Indians far from Britain, with many Brits ending up with Berthiers when their Brens broke or SMLEs when their No.4s were lost because Indian suppliers were closer.

I didn't matter who made or designed arms that the Indian arm used. What matted was is that the Indian army were the only army that could take the war to the Germans and the Italians and be successful. Without the Indian army the UK had no military force that could combat the Japanese, Germany, Italians alliance..

​@@michaelmayo3127 surprisingly GDP of British India was Bigger than Japan,Italy and France so Geographically, economically and militarily India was Very important

@@Kreatorisbackyt India was the cash cow tobe milked be the UK's elite until it could no more.

I wonder, are collegues now calling Jonathan 'The Last Action Hero' or something like that? :D

The Lewis was cool WW1

@@entertrashmans2519 hay the only time my father fired a Bren was at point 202 !! Monti Casino! Ten K rounds through Lewis

@@entertrashmans2519 after that only had a No 4 T for a while

@@entertrashmans2519 one of he got to inspect only two land rifling !?, it #4T for reason!

Well, to some extent the MAC 24/29 is more or less an unlicensed copy of the bits of the Vickers-Berthier they liked... :)

No offense but they needed to replace your favorite LMG...

My father preferred the Lewis to the Bren ! Then again he fired ten thousand rounds from a Lewis ! Non in anger! Only time he used Bren was to finish off escaping German on the side of the mountain at Monty Casino March 1944 ! Had to take command of Bren as Bren gunner did not want to see said German! My farther had put down at 300yrds with Thompson ! Needed to stop guy getting back with intel of situation further down the hill / mountain ! Monty Casino hell hole !!only three ?

@@JohnDoe-pv2iu Yeah, it's my favourite, by no means the best.

@@peteroneill5426 I admit it looks cool. The GBI Crime Lab in Augusta, Georgia used to have one on display. I'm not sure of the entire backstory but I think it was brought home by a Veteran many years ago, and never registered.

Charles Upham made it work.

Bren Gun OP, pliz nurf!

I sometimes feel like this comment is made by a bot. I mean, can you at least change it a bit if you post someone elses comment for likes?:(

I carried one during my service in Malaya. Lovely gun.

Hi Lindy

Ist up CZ 24

Czad

The British have rarely been concerned about a gun's origin. Just its performance. The one time politicians insisted the Army bought British they got the SA80. So that went well.

DerekP, i agree with you, i went in October 2019. Good place to have a look round. My mind sticks to the heavy armour plate, full of different ap shell damage.

@@blueband8114 I also liked that exhibit.

Not been in a good few years but well worth a visit if you like big guns that go BOOM.

Fifty Point Range? I was there decades ago with the 48th. Miserable heavy grey overcast day, morphing into fog. Couldn't see the butts about half way through the day. Senior NCO's and Officers have a conflab. Everyone back to the 700m firing mound. One of the Sergeants starts firing, high so the rounds will clear the butts and go out into the lake. He was firing tracers as a demonstration for us.

Something like the Tank Museum does?

deep impact had better vfx, but the movie was soooo boring..armageddon was too, but it had likeable characters, in DI you wanted everyone to die already lol

Before that the man who brings the bren gun fires it and everyone shouts at him he says, “ its me bren gun!” 😂

Sweet movie!

That empty .303 brass hitting the carpet in slow motion...

Yes to both.

No. There is an Armourers Bench video on a Belt Fed Bren which explains the issues that came around when they tried.

It rather depends on your definition of 'better'. As an example, you need 10,000 light machine guns. You prefer model A because it's lighter and more accurate. However you can only afford 6,000. Model B, which you can afford 10,000 of, is heavier, and a little less accurate. I would argue that in that case model B could be better, because it actually fulfills your requirement.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 Yup, spot on example. 👍

@@charlesoppland7778 Thanks :-)

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 Which goes with the old infantry saying of :Your gun was made by the lowest bidder".

The British Indian Army was veey keen to replace the Lewis Gun. Many of its trouble spots, ie. the North-West Frontier, were arid and dusty and the Lewis Gun had reliability issues.

It was one of the trials weapons, so after the trial it probably spent a fair while gathering dust in the corner of some armoury somewhere.

glad I wasn't the only one to have a snort-laugh at that

I, too, suffer from a sick, childish humour.

Yes it would have been if it sprayed about when fired

I had a discussion with someone else about accuracy of an automatic gun: why not just slightly move the gun around then you can cover a bigger area?

@@michaelwong4303 we did!

@@dafyddmanton2981 so being "accurate" is not a problem then.....

@@michaelwong4303 obviously, as any machine-gunner will tell you, it depends entirely upon what your require, but twitching about all over the place isn't overly accurately, it gives your position away, and with the recoil of a Bren, not particularly efficient. You really must try it for yourself.

That's not an accident. The Vickers-Berthier was competing in the French LMG trials. The French then declared none of submitted designs would be adopted and made their own LMG taking bits and pieces they liked from the other designs. That's the origin story of the FM 24/29.

It's not a Bren gun. I think it's another Vickers-Berthier.

My understanding is the Bren was more time consuming and expensive to produce than then later makes of Vickers-Berthier.

@@StrangelyBrownNo1 That isn't saying much. Later models of the Bren were also less time consuming and expensive than the Mk.I.

That one pound may suck on the march. But it is a small price to pay compared to having your machinegun break when there are Nazis about. The LMG versions of the FAL were simply bad ideas. They kind of ran into the same problems as the M1918A2 BAR did. They are too close to a rifle to be a good LMG, but too bulky to be a good rifle. Canada and Australia would have been much better served with 7.62mm Brens instead. Occasionally the Brits do get something right.

The Vickers Collection and Machine Gun association just uploaded an in-depth video on a the K and the twin mount.

@@StrangelyBrownNo1 Sweet! I'll go give that a look

As far as I am aware Monsieur Berthier had nothing to do with the Vickers company. He designed a series of LMGs from 1910 culminating in the Modele 1922. After the French rejected it, Vickers bought the rights to the Modele 1922 and developed it into the Vickers-Berthier.

Actually if you analyse what he says in detail, what he says is it's foolish to compare the two as they were made for radically different tactics and purposes.

@@gordonlawrence1448 I know it was just a joke

For your information it looks that way only on your screen (or anyones whos screen is low contrast or at least the contrast setting too low)

Not aware of the Royal Marines adopting the VB or it being used in Europe. Are you thinking of the Vickers G.O. No.2 used by some Commando units?

@@jonprince3237 I am not sure. I read about something described as a Land-Pattern Vickers G.O, as opposed to an Air Pattern Vickers G.O, being used in efforts to secure (seawards) access to Antwerp. Both of those weapons were developments of the VB, but as Jonathan indicates, Vickers went through more than one model in a fairly short time. The article I read ( a few years ago) did not have any pictures, which are often the only way you can tell the difference between two different things and two different names for the same thing. One thing I did see pictures of, looked like a VB in something the size of .5" Vickers being demonstrated by a man in a business suit! I have no idea if that was anything more than a marketing mockup: I have never, ever seen any written reference to anything that could have been the gun in that photograph. Having once worked for Lucas Industries, it strikes me as possible that a company the size of Vickers might have built things that even people in the company didn't know existed.

@@matthewspencer5086in that case, yes, the "land pattern" was the Vickers G.O. No.2 which was an adaption of the No.1 air service version by adding a bipod, pistol grip and shoulder stock for use as a ground based LMG, but retaining the same drum magazine and absurd rate of fire as the No.1 gun. It was used by some Commando units of D-Day and Walcheren to replace the Vickers MMGs of Support Troops. Apparently there's only 1 complete original example of the No.2 gun in existence, which I think is in the Liberation museum Zeeland. Having seen the VB and GO guns disassembled together, they are indeed clearly and strikingly similar, though I don't know to what extent parts were actually interchangeable

@@jonprince3237 Thank you. It's nice to know what people were talking about! I had in my mind the idea that it was some sort of "answer" to the MG42. I have found the photograph of the "big VB" and there is now a caption speculating that it's chambered in 13.2mm Hotchkiss, which is even heftier than 0.5" Vickers: www.quarryhs.co.uk/Vickers.html You have to scroll down past the 0.5" and 1" Vickers stuff and it's on the right. I might speculate that (on that mounting) it was intended to poke holes in surfaced U-boats. I can't see it being a useful AA gun with that mount and that magazine. Anyway, it would be nice to see Jonathan develop the muscles necessary to hold _that_ out to the camera!

And that claim has been debunked time and time again, but it keeps coming back. I'd suggest the video "Four Annoying Gun Myths" from Forgotten Weapons and Bloke on the Range on that topic.

It's not like it's wildly throwing bullets feet away after every shot so no, it's not a disadvantage.

No.

I think at that point sharpshooter and sniper were still different things in the British army so it might have been a case of machinegunners that scored as sharpshooters in their training rifle qualifications

The BREN is only accurate compared to other LMG's not compared to a rifle. No one would choose a BREN over a rifle if they wanted accuracy.

Or you are politician. Or is that from the lip?

@@foamer443 Sadly in that instance it encourages them.

@Yulis Even a bad suppressor is better than no suppressor, killing muzzle flash is a big plus.

No the Bren replaced the Lewis gun. Vickers Maxims were never a section weapon.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 no, there was a vickers section weapon introduce sometime between the interwar years. and it was a light design than the lewis gun. I think in was covered by Firepower Magazine during the 1990's

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 i think this was it, but for some reason I was under the impression it was a vickers www.historicalfirearms.info/post/111317574457/beardmore-farquhar-light-machine-gun

@@paulbatterbury1886 The article you linked to does state 'none of the British service arms adopted the weapon later adopting the Bren instead' so sorry, no coconut.

@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 Yes i know, but for a short while it was considered and trailed. The book I read was more than 20 years ago. and I think I somehow mix this with the Vickers K series. Personally I loved using the Bren, one of my favourite weapons.

That has no handguard though, and the bayonet is kind of a silly Japanese thing of requiring a blade on everything

Not realy. Its called being bankrupt. happened to everyone in Europe after WW1 but I guess if you're American you wouldn't know that because Americans are propably the only ones profiting from WW1.

@@comradecosmonaut7746 they could have switched to rimless before the war, the Enfield had been around since toughly 1890 and they knew the rim was causing issues from the start! more than one evaluation report said as much and suggested going to rimless to fix the issues! so say 1900 til 1914 they had the time! and you can blame the frogs for that whole mess anyway if they hadn't mobilized their much vaunted army thinking it would scare everybody into settling down that entire war and the next one wouldn't have happened!! all they had to do was say the Balkans mess was a regional conflict and didn't trigger treaty obligations but no they just had to prove they were still the big dick at the orgy!!!

Rimmed ammo is not the big problem it's made out to be.

@@snowflakemelter1172 you haven't met my Mosin!!

@@keithmoore5306 Probably just a traditional mindset, reeling under the extravagance of so many musketry upgrades since the napoleonic era. You know, the panels who insisted on rifles being fitted with magazine cut offs so that troops didn't waste ammunition when sent into the field against automatic weapons... Those minds!

I belive it was impatience. The Indian army felt they needed it now before the home army had finished the tests and picked one of the two front runners.