Word: bren
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Bren was adopted for Britain's infantry battalions some two years ago. to replace the U. S.-invented Lewis machine gun. The name is a British War Office simplification of Brno, site of the Czechoslovakian Arms Manufacturing Co. plant where the gun was perfected. * A trim, compact gun, it can be operated by one man and fired from the shoulder, on a bipod or tripod. It is ten pounds lighter and five inches shorter than the old army pattern Lewis gun, is gas-operated and air-cooled. There are two interchangeable barrels, so that if one overheats after...
...Britain, no ally of the Czechs is, however, a customer of the Brno factory which manufactures the type of machine guns in question, the "Bren," light as an automatic rifle with unequaled freedom from jamming. The British Army recently adopted the Bren gun, planning to import the patterns and tools for their production in England. But Britain's haste in armament was such that she felt obliged to place large interim orders with the small Brno factory. As a big customer she might well have demanded that small customer Portugal should not be allowed to place an order that...
...Bren is a dumb Irish cop named O'Malley, noted for his hard-headed tactics in handing out tickets for minor traffic violations and for his strict enforcement of the out-of-date Book of Ordinances. When he refuses to case up on the minor offenders, he is transferred to a safety beat which consists of playing nursemaid to a group of schoolchildren crossing streets...
...among hard young men who count on doing as well out of the next war as their fathers did out of the last optimism was rife. Small-talk and chit-chat were of the Army's new "tank-piercing rifle" and the scandal that Czechoslovakia's "Bren" machine gun is so good that British armorers are going to have to pay huge royalties in order to lease the patents...
...bolt upright in surprise when War Office Secretary Douglas Hacking announced that His Majesty's Government are abandoning the U. S.-invented Lewis automatic rifle in favor of the "superior" Czechoslovak-invented Bren submachine gun. This will be made in Britain under a patent agreement as with the Lewis gun. For heavier work the Army will continue to use standard British machine guns turned out by Vickers...