Ross bayonet question.

[hadfield]

Hi all,

Is it correct that British soldiiers during WW1 altered the blade shape of some Ross bayonet to make them more effective?

Regs

B

[TonyE]

The Ross rifles were never issued for front line army use, only being used for training and some second line units, so I doubt if there were any unofficial alterations made. The principal user was the Royal Navy/Royal Marines.

Of the 100,000 Mark IIIB Ross rifles ordered by Britain about 65,000 were delivered with bayonets before the contract was cancelled and about 95,000 Canadian Mark III rifles were acquired in exchange for SMLEs. The Navy had about 45,000 issued in early 1917 to replace their Arisakas.

More details in this thread:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=141118&st=0&p=1346862&hl=+ross%20+bayonet&fromsearch=1entry1346862

There were alterations made to the point of the bayonets, but this was an official change I believe. S>S or one of the other bayonet boys can give you more information I am sure.

Regards

TonyE

[calibre792x57.y]

In connection with the re-profiling of the point; apparently there was correspondence from the British viewer who was stationed at the Ross factory to view bayonets produced for the British contract. In this he states that he had rejected several hundred bayonets for being short in the point, and that the factory were proposing to change the point shape to a sharper profile, in the belief of the viewer, to overcome these rejections. This change was approved by Enfield as it gave a better shape for thrusting. The change was made in October 1915. SW

[gew98]

British soldiers in the field never got the Ross rifle ( thank god ). Canadian troops did use the Mk III ross rifle and it acquitted itself badly....very badly indeed.The first Battle of Ypres showed how bad that rifle actually was in the "field". The bayonets on the MkII & III versions had a bad habit of leaving the rifle while being fired.

After WW1 many Ross bayonets were acquire dby an American company and had the blades 'reshaped' to be more or less a cheap hunting/camping knife. If you have one so different from an issue example that is likely what you have.

[Robert Dunlop]

Do you mean the Second Battle of Ypres? It was a complex and difficult battle, where the Canadians acquitted themselves about as well as anyone. How did the Ross rifle affect the outcome Second Ypres from the Canadian perspective? Or did you mean that individual soliders found it a real pain but this did not affect the tactical outcome?

Robert

[shippingsteel]

Yes it was the Second Battle of Ypres where the Canadian troops were confronted with a double-whammy of chlorine gas for the first time as well as a defective main weapon.

The rifle would reportedly lock-up and be unable to eject the fired round, leaving the Canadians with reduced firepower, and when the rifle did work the bayonet tended to fall off.!

Cheers, S>S

[calibre792x57.y]

The situation at Second Ypres was worse than you might suppose. The Maxim and Vickers machine guns also suffered repeated stoppages during the battle. Post battle experiments in extemporised gas chambers to replicate the battle conditions showed that this was due to the chlorine gas corroding the brass cartridge cases and leaving a thin layer on each case. Each time a case was fed, fired and extracted some of this corrosion was left in the chamber. In a short time this layer of corrosion built up to the point where it prevented the rounds from being pushed fully home by the action and caused stoppages. This was overcome shortly afterwards by introduction of an ammunition box (the Mark VIII I think) which was sealed by a felt lined lid and prevented the cartridges being exposed to the chlorine. S.W

[Robert Dunlop]

The rifle would reportedly lock-up and be unable to eject the fired round, leaving the Canadians with reduced firepower...

I understand the problems that individual rifles had. Do you have any evidence that this resulted in tactically significant reduced firepower?

Robert

[gew98]

I understand the problems that individual rifles had. Do you have any evidence that this resulted in tactically significant reduced firepower?

Robert

Two ooks come to min on this subject..."Private Peat" , and "GAS ! the battle for Ypres,1915". If memory serves me right these books detail the astounding rate of failure of the Ross rifles to function when hot and or fouled by the conditions in the field. It almost certainly lessened the volume of fire the troops would have been able to direct at the attackers. The use of E-tool handles and muddy boots to operate the rifles was no small factor in that battle.

I don't think anyone could have been labeled a coward that day... imagine being chlorine gassed with almost no practical defence against such.

In more than a couple references I had read how the chlorine gas caused even the tunic buttons to go fuzzy green , so exposed ammunition and bare metal surfaces no doubt would have been affected by the heavy gas cloud.