Fazakerly information

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Mk VII
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Fazakerly information

Post by Mk VII » Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:05 pm

From R.O.F.: The story of the Royal Ordnance Factories 1939-48 (Ian Hay)

FAZAKERLEY

Fazakerley lies on the outskirts of Liverpool, not far from Aintree Racecourse. In fact one might describe it as the Grand National Factory.

Unlike Dalmuir and Patricroft, the .Royal Ordnance Factory, Fazakerley, entered the war as it brand-new establishment, with an up-to-date lay-out and modern buildings. The first sod was turned in May 1940, that fateful month, and production started in June 1941.

Fazakerley is essentially a small-arms factory, and consequently acknowledges Enfield as its parent, for it was from Enfield that the prototype weapons came, and Enfield Instructors gave Fazakerley its first lesson in their manufacture. Maltby, in Yorkshire, can be described as Fazakerley's elder brother, for Maltby boasts the same parentage, and was a year ahead of Fazakerley in the production of small arms.

The number of small arms of all types produced by the Royal Ordnance Factories during the Second World War-Bren guns, Sten guns, Hispano guns, rifles and pistols-adds up to a sum total of five million, a truly staggering figure. Of these, roughly one-half were produced by Fazakerley. In other words, Fazakerley was a stronghold not so much of skilled individual operators as of semi-skilled teams co-operating in mass-production. At the peak of its activity it employed 12,000 people, 70 per cent of whom were women.

The first of its products was the new No.4 Rifle, designed to replace the Lee-Enfield, the trusty friend of thousands of soldiers of the First World War. No.4 differs from its predecessor in two important respects-it has a much smaller bayonet, which makes it easier to balance and fire with its bayonet fixed, and the backsight is set farther back, thus improving the aim of the marksman. Three quarters of a million of these rifles were turned out at Fazakerley. They are still [1949] being turned out, or repaired, there.

Next came the No.5 Rifle, a particularly interesting weapon, because it had to be specially adapted to the conditions under which the Fourteenth Army and other troops fought, perforce, in the Burma War. What were those conditions?

In the first place our troops were compelled by the nature of the terrain to operate in small scattered groups, or even as single individuals, amid the jungle and undergrowth of a tropical country. They seldom saw their opponents, and it was important that their opponents should not see them. They were an army, one might say, of expert snipers, firing from close cover and at close range. For this reason the No.5 rifle was made shorter than the No.4, and furthermore was usefully equipped with a flash-eliminator, to prevent the enemy from locating the position of the marksman. It was fitted with an extremely efficient sword-bayonet, of which the British soldier as usual made most effective use, and which the Japs came to dislike intensely, and with reason. Lastly, since in a tropical jungle a man fights in a minimum of clothing, often naked to the waist-a circumstance which renders him unusually sensitive to the recoil of his rifle-a rubber shoulder-pad was added to the butt. With the defeat of the Japs, No.5 fell out of use, and No.4 remained, and remains, the standard weapon.....

A word may be said here, appropriately, regarding the steady maintenance and progress of research in the Engineering Factories, Fazakerley included, in the important matter of hardening steel.

Certain parts of a rifle have to be of steel harder than the surrounding metal; cams¹, for example, owing to the constant extra strain which they are called upon to undergo. In the past the hardening process had been effected by the application of a jet of flame.

The trouble here was that the flame could not easily be applied at exactly the right spot. It was a case of hit or miss. Presently, however, a new method was substituted, that of 'high frequency' hardening, by which the part to be treated was subjected to a high-frequency induced electric current, which could be applied at the exact spot and in the right strength, and for the right length of time, with complete accuracy. This method had been first applied (at that time, commercially) by an employee of the Factory.

Again, research and experiment made it possible to simplify the process of manufacturing the Sten gun. Originally the Sten gun barrel required four separate operations in its production. It was first forged as a solid steel rod, then drilled, then reamed,² and finally rifled; but ultimately a new method was introduced, whereby the barrel could be manufactured in only two operations, with a valuable saving of time and labour. At the same time the steel breech-block was replaced by one of aluminium bronze, made from die castings. This eliminated 75 per cent of the machinery hitherto required.

Returning to the actual process of the manufacture of small arms, it should be noted that since all the workers at Fazakerley, except those at the highest level, were at the best semi-skilled, recourse was had to the system, already mentioned, of breaking down an operation into a number of simple movements. Elsewhere this system was expanded to a much greater degree: there were factories which devoted themselves almost entirely to the manufacture of a single component, which upon completion was dispatched elsewhere, there to be assembled with other components into a complete weapon.

As was almost inevitable in the case of a great factory with a staff largely inexperienced, preliminary difficulties were considerable. Unemployment in the district had been rife for years, with the result that most of the men were almost unemployable from long and enforced idleness. The younger women, too, previously employed in textile work, had married and contracted domestic responsibilities. These, however, now returned to industrial life, and, once grounded in their new duties, did gallant work. So did the men, as soon as the forced inertia of years had been overcome.

Another difficulty was the shortage of tools. Ultimately many skilled workers contrived to make their own, thanks to the valuable aid and instruction of their Enfield preceptors.

After assembly, needless to say, all weapons had meticulously to be scrutinised and tested. The process used for testing rifle-barrels for absolute straightness was interesting, for it relied to an unusual degree upon the human factor-or rather, upon the human eye.

In this process the barrel is placed on a rest and pointed towards a small luminous screen. The light from this screen is reflected in the interior of the barrel, and if the barrel is not absolutely straight certain small shadows are created within it. A skilled tester peering through the barrel from the rear-end can locate the fault by observing the position and nature of the shadow. This he corrects by administering gentle taps with a hammer over the spot affected, until the shadow disappears and the barrel can be passed as perfectly straight.

The final test must, of course, take place upon the firing-range, under the supervision of the Inspector of Small Arms, an officer of the Royal Artillery permanently attached to the Factory. Here the sights, particularly the blade foresight, must be adjusted until, by an exhaustive process of trial and error, the necessary accuracy is achieved and maintained. The rifle itself is fired from a position of rest, held steady by a clamp.

At Fazakerley the range is situated within the Factory, and is 100 feet long. As there are a number of targets, set side by side, several rifles can be tested at once. The entire work is entrusted to specially trained girls, who perform it with obvious keenness and the highest efficiency.

Though Fazakerley still turns out small arms and their components -indeed, the main function and purpose of the Royal Ordnance Factories to-day [1949] is the continued maintenance of supply to the Services, so that our country may never again be caught short in the face of emergency, as in 1939-the plant now has accommodation and labour to spare for the manufacture of what may be called industrial munitions. This is of vital importance at the present time, when the very life of our honourably impoverished country depends upon intensive production and increased exports, whether the source is a Government factory or a commercial firm.

In some Royal Ordnance Factories machinery has had to be replaced or adapted to civil needs, but in many others the conversion from war to peace requirements has entailed no alterations at all. Where fuses were once produced water-taps and gas-cocks are now being turned out. Railway wagons, as we have seen at Woolwich, are being manufactured by the same methods as those previously employed to produce gun-mountings and tanks. Machinery which once made' clock-fuses' is now devoted to the output of much needed domestic alarm-clocks.

However, it should be noted that to-day none of the Royal Ordnance Factories is engaged exclusively in civil production. Each is turning out its appointed quota of military potential.

Fazakerley's civil production has been confined chiefly to the manufacture of petrol-engines, of the general utility type long made familiar by the firm of Petters, of Yeovil.

Work suffered comparatively little from enemy action during the war. The local cemetery was bombed once or twice by the Luftwaffe, with what can only be described as misdirected enthusiasm, but the Factory itself got off with some incendiaries, which were promptly and efficiently dealt with by the AR.P. staff.
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Fazakerley

Post by brewstop » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:08 am

Fascinating article, with some interesting contemporary nuggets of information - eg about the No5.

Is this from a book, or is it an article? Are there any photographs?

When I read an account of Enfield production, and it gets onto the subject of test-firing, I always wonder which poor bugger had to clean each rifle after proof/test - 750,000 of them at Fazakerley! ("Right son. New here? O.k. I've got an easy cleaning job for you....")
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bradtx
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Post by bradtx » Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:43 am

Mark VII, An enjoyable read. Thanks for the time and effort to present it.

Regards, Brad
Mk VII
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Post by Mk VII » Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:05 pm

it was a small booklet published by HMSO, one of a series produced to meet the interim demand for official accounts of aspects of the war pending the official histories, some of which didn't appear until the '50s and '60s.

Bareel straightening:-

http://www.fototime.com/B5AA49D96AC79A4/standard.jpg[/pic]

Sten components awaiting assembly:-

http://www.fototime.com/C4E52932BE60CC8/standard.jpg[/pic]
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Faz information

Post by Rambler » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:03 am

Hey! That looks just like the wall of my shed! I wish.

A lot of these pic of the old ordnance works have been popping up on the various fora lately, and seeing all those wonderful old rifles in their native habitat makes me go all misty when I think of what's going to happen to them (if it hasn't already) when the socialist governments currently ruling their homelands get around to destroying the last of them. That NRA video from a few years back really made a deep impression on me, and I can't ever look at a chop-saw the same.
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stripperclip
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Post by stripperclip » Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:59 pm

very good info and I like the ordnance pic's.
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dromia
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Post by dromia » Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:26 pm

Thank you for that post MKV11, I love these nuggets of info and source they just help fill out the picture a bit more. :D
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rico567
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Re: Fazakerly information

Post by rico567 » Fri Aug 29, 2014 4:12 pm

My SMLE No. 5 is marked "No 5 MK1 ROF (F)," which, I understand, signifies that it was manufactured at Fazakerly.
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Niner
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Re: Fazakerly information

Post by Niner » Fri Aug 29, 2014 4:29 pm

Welcome to the site , rico567. I'd say you have a Fazakerly made jungle carbine with those markings.
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blackpennant
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Re: Fazakerly information

Post by blackpennant » Sat Nov 29, 2014 3:33 pm

Excellent, V11,
Many thanks for that.
I love my No 4. I particularly wanted a No.4 Fazakerly, as I was born & grew up near there, but the best rifle I found was a 1944 Maltby, but was FTR'd at Fazakerly and the action cosmo'd & boxed up. I had it built up with a new Walther barrel & previously unissued walnut stock, shoots excellent at 600yds
Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean no one is watching
The Sniper. Out of sight, Out of Mind
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