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Here is a Ross rifle presented to
"Colonel J. T. Thompson, Ordnance Corps USA, with the
complements of Colonel the Hon. Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia
and Defense for Canada, 17th April 1914." The rifle is
still in the possession of the heirs of Mrs. John Thompson.
According to Ronald Bayeock, Professor of
Military History at the Royal Military College of Canada, the
history is as follows.
Thank you very much for your e-mail . I am always amazed to
discover the various famous people to whom our energetic defense
minister gave Ross Rifles.
He did this for several reasons, but the the most important was
his attempt--along with Col. the Baronet, Sir Charles Ross- to
break into the very lucrative Imperial small arms market before
the First German War. As you might know the British Empire was a
monopoly for the Royal Arsenals system and the private trade arms
companies such as BSA and London Small Arms Co. The No. 1, Mk 111,
(SMLE , pattern 1907) left much to be desired as a battle rifle
compared to advances that were then taking place in the heady
world of small arms development. The War Office had been
working on a replacement for some years for the SMLE and its
obsolete .303 in ammunition. They had substantial difficulty in
comming to grips with a design that was appropriate . This latter
problem was in part due to a chronic Inability of British science
and technology to be competitive with what the Germans or the
Americans were able to do . For instance, as early as 1902 the WO
tried to have Royal Laboratories develop a self-loading rifle.
After nearly a decade they gave up . The rifle they finally
designed to replace the SMLE was known as the Pattern-1913 in .276
inch calibre. Both the rifle and the ammunition were
"strongly" influenced by looking at Mauser's design of
the 1898 German rifle and at Sir Chas. Ross' state of the art .280
in. cartridge that he had originally intended (and had designed)
for his rifles in Canada. Ultimately the P-13 rifle was not
put into production by the British due to the outbreak of the war
. However, the same conflict saw the British sorely unprepared for
the fight in terms of stocks of SMLE's. So they
subcontracted the P-13 design out in the U.S.A. to Remington Arms,
Remington at Eddystone and to Winchester. All three US firms
made this rifle in .303 in. ( now called the P-14) for the British
an a second line reserve. It never became the main British
battle rifle. But it had a substantial history. Indeed, in
1917 when the U.S.A declared war , there was a similar shortage of
rifles in the Republic to outfit 'Black Jack' Pershings boys;
consequently Washington ordered the three firms to modify the
design of the P-14 for which they were still tooled . That was
simply a matter of changing the calibre and sights to match the
calibre of the model 1903 Springfield in 30-06 . This modification
then became the P-17 used by US troops in the Great War along with
the venerable Springfield .
The connexion of this laborious explanation is to help
appreciate why Hughes was so anxious to get copies of the Canadian
Ross in the hands of as many influential people as he could ---
that is to break into a rapidly changing market in which there was
money to be made and prestige to be had if successful. The
Minister also knew the usual eternal truth of weopons procurement
at any time : that the Canadian market was too small to make the
Ross pay f or itself and to keep production up . Moreover the cost
of the weopon had to be reduced to where the Canadian Government
could afford it , and to be competetive with the foreign rifles
then on the maket . |
