Rifles of the Major Combatants, Winner's bracket.

I admit it. I'm an anglophile. So I count the Brits in the winners circle and the french as runner's up. It's probably not fair - but the Brits are more fun to hang around with. And I lived in Paris for 18 months, so I do have a baseline of comparison! Off to His Majesty's masterpiece - the Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield. SMLE. Or smelly. This is a No1 Mk1. The original. I'm letting this one stand in for those MkIII's, as well.

Hard to see, but this one also has the Pattern 03 spear bayonet, rather than the more common long bladed pigsticker. This baby has the magazine cut-off, used to control ammo expenditure, and the long range dial sights. And the Old Contemptibles of the British Expeditionary Force could use 'em to advantage. Brit marksmanship and fire discipline early in the war led the Germans several times to think they were under massed machinegun fire, not understanding that the 'gravelbellies' of the BEF were simply using long range sights and rapid fire, 20 aimed shots a minute. This pic shows the long range sights.

The variations and different marks of the Lee-Enfield rifle are a whole 'nother post. I should note that James Paris Lee, the inventor of the locking mechanism, was born in Canada, raised in the states, and like Maxim, Berdan, Hotchkiss and Lewis had to go to Europe to sell their stuff. Depending on your politics, that's a good or a bad thing. The evolution of the SMLE during the war was one of simplification of manufacture, and a recognition that the soldiers who ended the war were not of the same kind (same quality in most respects, just different pressures) as those who started the war.

The Brits having rifle production problems, they turned to the US for help. Rather than building lots of SMLEs (as Savage did No4Mk1s in WWII), Remington and Winchester built the Pattern 14 rifle for the Brits. They later built the same rifle for the US, as the M1917, the differences being in caliber (Brit .303, US 30.06) and the use of long range sights in the Pattern 14. This rifle has such a strong action that many were converted after they were surplused out into a whole host of powerful cartridge hunting and varmint rifles.

Aside from looking at markings, a quick way to tell a Pattern 14 from a M1917 is stock disk (the brass thing on the right side of the butt) and provision for the dial sights, which the US rifle never had. They are many times removed from Brit rifles, mine has the sights intact.