Area Commands, Regiments, Patt. '07 Bayonets

[JMB1943]

In an effort to understand the chain of supply for equipping the troops with the Patt. '07 bayonet, and in the absence of any documentation, I have wondered about a possible correlation of manufacturer's location with issuance to certain regiments.

The rationale for this is that pre-war, during the war and immediately post-war, the British Army was divided into 6 area commands (AC's), and each command had its HQ.

I make the following assumptions,

(1) stores for each AC were located at the HQ,

(2) all things being equal, bayonets for any given HQ would be provided by the geographically closest manufacture,

(3) all things being equal, regiments in a given AC would receive bayonets ONLY from their HQ stores.

(4) all things being equal = in peacetime, average monthly output similar; = in wartime, not possible.

The AC's, their HQ town and the location of UK-based makers are shown below, 

Area Command    HQ Town             Manufacturer     Location              Total Output*

Northern              York                         Chapman           Sheffield                    300,000

Southern               Aldershot                EFD                    London                     500,000

Eastern                 London                    Mole                  Birmingham                60,000

Western                Chester                   Sanderson          Sheffield                 1,600,000

Scottish                Edinburgh               Vickers               London                        10,000

Irish                      Dublin                     Wilkinson           London                    2,360,000

*Numbers from Skennerton & Richardson, BCB; VICK production only during war; Mole production largely pre-war.

A comparison of these two lists would suggest that the Northern/Scottish/Irish Commands should PRIMARILY be serviced by CHAP & SAND, while the Southern/Eastern/London Commands should be PRIMARILY serviced by EFD, MOLE & WILK. 

Given that unit-markings on bayonets were (supposedly) discontinued entirely during the war, is there any way to confirm/refute my assumptions (short of discovering relevant documents at TNA) without starting yet another Patt. '07 survey?

Also as a BTW, does anyone know if battalions were routinely issued with a 5-10% surplus of equipment over that allowed for by establishment? 

I have not yet even considered the possibility of say a Scottish (Command) battalion doing a 2-3 year tour at Aldershot when the change-over to SMLE & Patt. 07 occurred.....

Regards,

JMB

 

[Mattr82]

I would say that the assumptions regarding geographical location of a manufacturer and the nearest ordnance depot for an AC would be a valid point and something I did think of when recent discussions about the N stamp on bayonets. 

 Ive seen a few EFD bayonets marked to Northern units and I believe that these bayonets may have been sent further away as larger orders may not have been able to be fulfilled by closer factories so the respective AC would have put an order through to the War Department who would have organised subsequent transportation of required items from other factories.
During WW1 and post-war, I think the geography aspect went out the window.

 

 

[navydoc16]

My only real input would be that I would have thought the majority of weapons would have been ordered by the military and stored in the Depots such as Weedon. From there the military would have allocated weapons to the various AC’s requesting weapons regardless of original origin (demand outweighing supply) 
 

I suppose it would be possible for the Army to directly allocate weapons from a particular factory- however the counter is that the SMLE and 1907 when adopted had various, supplies, accessories, tools and accoutrements that would have been needed to be sent as well. It makes more sense that it would be all be received centrally and dispersed in a single “load out” for a unit.

there should be evidence of large stores orders or buildings at the ACs if they existed? Presumably if they were ordering 07s there were holding stores of various other equipment? 
 

kind regards

g

[navydoc16]

Is there a particular bayonet maker and AC that you think may prove your theory? 
 

kind regards

g

[Mattr82]

I was having a look into this today further as I have delved into the Australian use of the ordnance system in Britain during WW1.

From wiki, this paragraph sums up the best information in the smallest paragraph.

"In the 1880s an effort was made to decentralise the reserves of equipment; as many as sixty-two small regional centres were set up, in an effort to bring stores closer to the units that would use them. Later, with the establishment of larger camps and garrisons in the early 20th century, these were consolidated into eighteen larger Ordnance stations".

I would suppose that rifles would have been received the same way. - Factory - depot - to unit. And so bayonet manufacturers closer to the ordnance depots would have possibly been the most efficient way to fulfil a contract in some cases even though we do see Northern units with EFD/Wilkinson bayonets but I would imagine that was a supply issue rather than efficiency.

Speaking of going by bayonets, me thinks that maybe the larger sourcing of Wilkinson bayonets of 1908/1909 manufacture by the RN (Which caused much angst and heartache recently on here) was in possibly part due to;

•  Navy sourcing many ConD IV rifles from 1908 - 1911 and requiring new P'07 bayonets from a manufacturer on an Admiralty contract. Even though converted at RSAF, a significant portion of these ConD IV rifles were purchased by the RN for Royal Marine use (which had RN ordnance depots for small arms located at Woolwich and Chatham Dockyards respectively).
• -EFD rifles and bayonets newly manufactured in same factory and able to be sent to ordnance depots together.

So not saying that it is the truth and nothing but the truth but I imagine that requiring new P'07s in a large number and possibly going to a singular RN Ordnance Depot would lead to similar stampings on a similar manufactured bayonet for a short time frame (Eg. sans serif marked bayonets) as opposed to the ability to receive newer P'07s in smaller numbers later which may have been sent to the smaller RM depots and marked differently.

Anyways, the brain is friend from screen time and pulling up old PDFs from my hard drive.

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:20 by Mattr82

[JMB1943]

I have tried to put together some calculations to determine if it would be possible to confirm the HQ vs Bayo Maker correlation.

In the following discussion I'll focus only on the Line Infantry regiments and bayonet requirements for Artillery/Engineers etc are ignored.

Requirements for the Territorial Army etc are also ignored.

(A)

The problem of course is the paucity of information regarding,

(1) which regiments were stationed where and when

(2) how many Patt. 07's were being turned out by each maker.

(3) how many supplied to Aus & NZ?---any hard numbers or best guesses ??

(4) what is the survival rate of Patt. 07 bayonets?---from the RAF-bayos about 186/70,000 = 0.27%; for Siamese-marked, about  370/10,000 = 3.7%; avge is ca. 2%

(B)

Here are some details that we do know,

(1) Number of Line Infantry Regts. =74; at 2 Bns per regiment, this gives 148 battalions to be armed; I assume that each Bn fields 900 bayonets at War Establishment = 133,200 bayonets. [If 1000 bayonets are issued /fielded per Bn. then 133,200 becomes 148,000.]

(2) Some bayonet production numbers are available in Skennerton & Richardson, BCB, p. 186-7.

                                EFD                                            By end of 1911 (Total of Contractors = 75,000)     

                              1908-09     49,000                       WILK    26,000              % = 26,000*100/175,000+75,000 = 10.4% of Total EFD + contractors

                              1909-10     47,000                       MOLE   13,000              % = 5.2

                              1910-11     58,000                       SAND    22,000             % = 8.8

                              1911-12     33,000                       CHAP    14,000             % = 5.6

"By comparison, EFD figures at this time were more than 175,000." = 70% of total ALL makers.

(3) 15,000 were supplied to the Royal Naval Divn. (after rifles on RN ships were replaced by Arisakas).

(4) there were 9 Scottish regiments (presumably in the Scottish Command), i.e., 18 Bns = 18,000 bayos required.  SAND @ 22,000 could theoretically  have provided all of the Scottish requirement, but not in a short time.

From A(4), 2% survival of ~20,000 marked to Scottish units = 400, which are distributed over 9 different regts = 44 per regt.

From the production numbers given above from Skennerton, we should expect, for a random supply pattern:

EFD ~31; WILK ~5; MOLE ~2; SAND ~ 4; ; CHAP ~2  = ~44.

You can see that we are getting into the statistics of very small sample sizes, which is not a good place to be!!!

If we were to see SAND ~8 & CHAP ~4, it might be an indicator of directed supply.

Regards,

JMB

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mattr82]

@JMB1943 I think the figures for supplied equipment to Australia as at April 1914 was around 85,000 to 95,000 British manufactured SMLEs and bayonets. Tentative figures that include military districts, police forces and the RAN. I’ll have to have a look back through the figures first that.

Edited Wednesday at 03:34 by Mattr82

[navydoc16]

On 15/10/2024 at 22:06, Mattr82 said:

So not saying that it is the truth and nothing but the truth but I imagine that requiring new P'07s in a large number and possibly going to a singular RN Ordnance Depot would lead to similar stampings on a similar manufactured bayonet for a short time frame (Eg. sans serif marked bayonets) as opposed to the ability to receive newer P'07s in smaller numbers later which may have been sent to the smaller RM depots and marked differently.

Yes of course, it is definitely possible, but for that to be correct then you also have to prove all the above correlations 

(1) stores for each AC were located at the HQ,

(2) all things being equal, bayonets for any given HQ would be provided by the geographically closest manufacture,

(3) all things being equal, regiments in a given AC would receive bayonets ONLY from their HQ stores.

(4) Navy only supplied N no serif to a a particular set of armours markings kits at a particular depot, and that depot only received Wilkinson products. 

If all is correct then then it would certainly explain the N marking being sans serif on the Wilkinsons from 08-09, but I am still left with the question of why it seems from the photographic evidence these bayonets only have 2 of the 3 inspectors markings. 
 

kind regards

g

 

[navydoc16]

@JMB1943 can we go forth including the 88’s and 03’s using your same theory? 

they tend to have more regimental markings to look at, and the same makers 

do you know if the HQ system was the same at this time? 

kind regards

g