The irish government denied this even happened for years. And the guys in this were called cowards because they surrendered.

Everyone knows, the support weapon preferred by snipers is the M2 Browning

The BREN scene bugs me, too. The absence of the armored cars bugs me, too, because it was key to how they managed to avoid having any of their troops killed. They used the armored cars as emplaced gun turrets which allowed them to suppress the attacking enemy with impunity because the enemy has no anti-armor weapons.

My dad had a great laugh at that scene about the Bren. In the National Service he actually earned a marksmans badge with the Bren. His comment was the Bren was to make the other side keep their heads down, and the sniper’s job was to take their head off.

The Swedish Ks used in the movie were the ACTUAL Swedish Ks used in the conflict. Hire Arms in Johannesburg provided the firearms for the movie. Bruce Wentzel (friend) is the owner of Hire Arms and he traced the Swedish Ks by serial numbers using records in Ireland.

Not giving the Elbonian Army Bren Guns for Sniper Rifles was a missed opportunity!

As an Australian sniper who specialised in the Lee-Enfield, but also trained with the Bren, I can assure you that you are 101% correct, from actual experience.

One thing to remember, though, is that just because something is a myth doesn't mean soldiers won't *believe* the myth. The Bren's seriously inflated reputation for accuracy was something widely believed by soldiers.

Having fired the 7.62mm LMG (Bren) a lot during my time in the British Army I can say that as far as machine guns go, it was very accurate (for a machine gun) and a two man team can keep the enemys heads down very effectively with it using short bursts. I too though, when I first saw this film some years back, threw some words at the TV screen regarding the use of the Bren with a single shot over distance. Apart from that though, it really is an excellent movie and well worth a watch as the Irish army does not get enough recognition for their (often very hairy) UN work over the decades since WWII.

The "Bren is too accurate" myth was so pervasive that actual British service personnel were taught that it was true during training, and continued to be taught this through the 1950s and 1960s.

There is one added aspect to the accuracy of the Bren and that is the replaceable barrel. No matter how good the fit might be when it locks in place, there will be movement and that will change trajectory. A sniper rifle has everything fixed that can be fixed in place. No unnecessary movement.

I remember this scene! It looked so stupid that started screaming in my screen - like WTF is that guy doing?!? At least now i understand what this was all about...

The irony of substituting a magnified optic marksman/sniper rifle with a iron sight light support machine gun... I mean, at around 500 yards your front sight post on your Bren is going to be larger than the human target you're firing at. It's almost like... magnified optics are useful for shooting at range. Whoddathunkit.

The obvious solution is simply for Ian to work as a firearms consultant on every Hollywood movie made from now on

I carried and used both the GPMG and the bren or LMG whilst serving in the British Royal Marines Commandos ,the former was a very good spread pattern weapon whilst the Bren was slightly more accurate, the bren was lighter easier to use and i loved it, so much so i carried it on operational tours of Northern Ireland where the SLR was the normal weapon used. The only fault with the bren was the clip that held the barrel on when jumping over a drystone wall after an IED went off the barrel detached itself and i had to go back for it.

Hi Ian. I love the "Gun Jesus" lectures. For me, the story of Jadotville is an example of the bravery, courage and sacrifice of Irish soldiers on the battlefield. It is proof that the unexpected could be expected. I have great respect for these brave people, even though Ireland did not welcome them upon their return as the heroes they are. I am not Irish but as a former active soldier I can appreciate courage.

That particular Bren was the legendary Irish magical one, blessed by St Patrick himself, it will not miss, even if you shoot it blindfolded, with no front sight and looking sideways at it...

I think the Bren myth started because it was slightly more accurate than other light machine guns like the MG 42, and then people took that nugget of truth and blew it way out of proportion.

The Armourer's Bench tested this, running a No 4 Mk 1 (T) against four different marks of Bren at the range. The Lee Enfield sniper rifle came out in front, but only just.

Thanks Ian, I watch these videos with an 81 year old work colleague who has collected a number of fire arms and it's so interesting when he says something a few seconds before you do. It's also interesting when you debunk myths that I had never heard until this friend of mine brought them up (typically in the antique firearms department)

My former student, Declan Powers, wrote the book the movie was based on. Quite proud of him. Lovely guy.

I spent the entire film wondering about the mercenary logistics with all the different calibres. I have issues.

Private William Ready has the dubious distinction of being the first Irish soldier to be injured in combat on foreign soil. He passed away in 2016. RIP (n.b. official reports don't credit him as sniper or bren gunner, but he certainly did his duty in real life)

Thank you. You and your brother always give delightful and more importantly firearms/weapons information. Please keep cranking out the videos.

I was in the Congo in the late 80s/early 90s, the situation then was far simpler and we still could have used a spreadsheet to keep all the factions in order in our minds. Nothing is simple in that crazy place. While I'm sure it would be possible to pull that shot off with a Bren if you know that particular weapon well enough, if you have a #4 sniper why the hell would you use a Bren? This kind of stuff is one of the reasons I don't generally watch movies about places I contracted.

Makes absolutely no sense, even if his rifle was broken for some reason it'd make more sense to use an FAL to take the shot or just saturate the area with the Bren

Hi Ian. To probably muddy the waters about the Bren gun and its accuracy . My father went in at D Day with his regiment and fought through to the Rhine before the surrender . My uncle was a marine commando in the war. Both of them told me, as a lad, how the Bren could be used as a sniper weapon. It seems that the rank and file of the British army did really believe this and both of them were at the sharp end. Thank you for your great videos , always interesting , with great content. Dave Cutting

Thank you for this commentary and analysis. Excellent as usual. Cheers!

I would love to see you try this on the range to completley dispell the myth

The fact that they showed the bolt dropping forward makes me think that it might not have been the armorer but the director who had heard that myth and wanted to lean into it for interesting visuals. Showing the view through the rear sight without the front sight also fits with that decision.

Would love to see this channel break down different sniper scenes in movies. A specific one would be the shootout in The Hurt Locker

I have a Jadotville veteran as a neighbour, he was my sergeant in the old FCA, now the Reserve Defense Force. I never knew he was there until the film was made

Well, so here's the catch. I'm old enough to have been trained on the Bren by the Irish Army before even the reserves moved to the FN-MAG, and it had a serious reputation for accuracy. Whether the reputation is valid or not mechanically, it was there. You are correct that loading the single round instead of firing from the mag is silly. You are also correct that it was deliberately written, but the writer wouldn't have come up with it for no reason at all and I am very willing to believe it came up after interviews with the veterans. It's worth noting that on Irish fora, nobody complains too much about that scene apart from the magazine bit. One of the problems with the Bren in Irish service was convincing the troops to operate it in the manner it was intended, as a sustained fire weapon. The Army had (and presumably still has) annual inter-unit shooting contests. Personally I was on the Falling Plates team but there were other contests like pistol and, yes, Bren. The rules had to be written to specifically prohibit the use of single shot in competition and, indeed, as the ROF was so low that deliberately firing 2-round-bursts was very easy, the issued magazines in competition came with 15 rounds to ensure at least one three-round-burst would be fired. That way if the umpires heard seven double-taps, they knew they didn't even need to wait for the final round to be fired before penalising the team. Scoring took a while as the double-taps often ended up in 'single' elongated holes, requiring assessment from the guys in the butts and not infrequently arguments over whether two rounds had gone through the one hole. Were I the shooter in the movie, I'd have fired a two-round burst to be sure, but hey, ammo was limited in the siege. So, you have a very heavy gun, with a sturdy bipod you can really lean into, thus a very steady sight picture. Whether the gun is as accurate mechanically as the Lee Enfield is a bit academic if both are mechanically good enough to do the job, and the telescopic sight is kindof irrelevant if the target is bright white. Yes, the movie takes liberties for the sake of the story, but that the Bren could be taken in preference to the sniper rifle for specific shots (even if not necessarily that specific shot in the movie) is nowhere near improbable and would be doubtless relatable to the troops of the era.

I love hearing rants and nit picks like this about movies. Would sincerely enjoy more videos such as this!

I was talking to Jadotville veteran Tommy Gunn, who was a Bren gunner there. Frol talking to him, what inspired this particular scene in the context of Jadotville was at the real battle, since they were an entrenched group firing on targets advancing mostly across open ground the gunners were encouraged to fire single shots and chpose their targets to conserve ammunition

8:03 id imagine they originally shot the scene using the Enfield to make the shot then someone came up with the awesome idea of using the bren because of the myth, they then spiced in a scene where the sniper was taking aim down the Enfield scope and edited out the cross hairs

I'm reminded of the time the IRA used a Boys anti-tank rifle against the Royal Navy in 1965. They had no magazine and only a few loose rounds that had to be extracted with a screwdriver. They shot a couple of holes into HMS Brave Borderer.

My father was a Bren gunner in the British infantry during the Suez crisis and he always asserted that the .303 Bren gun was often used as a single shot "sniping" weapon out to 750 yards.

Well delivered video, some spot on observations. Agree with all your opinions. Especially Lee Enfield suitability over the bren, and the piece where you gave recognition to the Cavalry detachment of Ford armoured cars which were left out of the movie. It was the eventual wear out of their Vickers MGs which factored in Comdt.Quinlan's decision to offer terms.

The problem with knowing a little bit about weapons, is that every single movie you watch gets things wrong in a weird way, like them thinking it would be cooler to discard a pretty good sniper rifle for a Bren or attacking a broken down Sherman by running at it with Mausers rather than hiding behind a bush and Panzerfaust-ing it.

These Soldiers did a remarkable feat of overcoming a huge attack. Their government basically shamed them for decades. I believe the recognition did come about and the movie did help by showing their valour . It would be interesting to dissect conflicts ,skirmishes etc with era firearms matched.

My father had a Bren in the Congo and a Swedish K. He was an Irish peacekeeper. All he said to that scene was why would you swap out a sniper rifle for a cover weapon

That scene has always bugged me, even with no knowledge of the Bren's reputation. Thanks so much for clearing this up!!

Looking at the segment of scene you showed, I can think of one big reason for the swap: The shot of Bren's bolt sliding forward to trigger the round is more cinematically impressive than anything that the Lee-Enfield could show.

Saving Private Ryan protrayed the 1903A4 as a much more effective sniper rifle than it probably was. Siege of Jadotville portrayed the Mk1T as less effective at range than an open-bolt gun with no magazine and no optic.

I dunno about the actual battle, but I found single loading an M240 was quite accurate, just over a 7 inch shot group at 500M. I did this to confirm a 10M zero to prep my gunners to compete in competition and it paid off.

I love that movie, it's one of my comfort films, but I did always think that particular scene was a little weird. Thank you for all the education you do, Ian!

I am fairly certain this plot point is lifted from the famous Carlos Hathcock M2 'sniper' story. As for the myth of the "too accurate" Bren this first appears in print in the novel 'They die with their boots clean’ written by a Coldstream Guards chap in 1940-41, published 1942. Later the same year Oct 1942, the unofficial manual 'Know Your Weapons' No.5, Sten and Bren guns, by Nicholson & Watson (author anonymous) says the same thing. Every chance both of these originate in actual training but I've yet to find hard evidence of that.

This summer I attended a literary convention and attended a panel where a bunch of authors were discussing writing and one of the writers made a remark that made me roll my eyes. "I'll blow off a major plot point for a good one liner in a heartbeat". Movies are so exciting now because of the same attitude toward visuals. Screw reality, it looks cool!

In Call of Duty: World at War, there's a mission where you play a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad. You infiltrate the German rear area and assassinate a general with your rifle at a hundred yards or so. But there's an achievement you can unlock if you can kill him with your pistol instead. It's really hard. It took me so many tries, but I did it. Obviously, the writer for Siege of Jadotville played the same mission and took inspiration from it.

Thank you. A very informative video. You present information very well.

I was certainly told the Bren gun accuracy story as an army cadet back in the mid 70s. The source of the information was a former para who was dropped into Nijmegen during WWII. So it’s an old saw for sure.

The myth probably started as something like "The Bren gun was found to be relatively accurate for its intended purpose; a joke would go around that you can use it as a sniper rifle if needed". And then over time the front drops more and more until you get "Use as a sniper"

I love that someone says they made some content about this movie at all :-) awesome job

I just injected my own headcanon that the sniper just wanted to show off

The French mercenary is the really interesting character in that movie. I believe it's the only time he lost and pulled off a bunch of other coups across Africa.

That Bren gun snipe scene would've worked if he had sent a burst of fire down range and one of the bullets struck its target.

I'm going to try to make this as short and sweet as possible. I've subscribed to forgotten weapons for years now. And in when you say you're nitpicking a little bit I feel your pain. As a former military veteran self subscribed firearms expert, my girlfriend and Friends have a hard time watching any type of military movie with me because I have a tendency to say that would never happen and let me tell you why. LOL it's quite frustrating for others LOL. Keep up the good work. As a former Machinist and served in two conflicts I find the ins and outs of firearm designs fascinating. When I see someone such as yourself break down an FG 42 it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside an operating piece of machinery like that. . Its history and mechanical history and sometimes it makes you scratch your head and say instead of the other way, why did they do it that way instead. Great job on just about everything I've seen that you have put out since I started subscribing years ago. I give you a big thumbs up Ian. Keep it up you're doing a great job

I saw that discrepancy immediately and just shook my head and left it to drama.

Hi Ian, interesting video as always, thanks. I was in UK forces from the 80's to the nineties and trained and qualified on various small arms including the SLR and LMG (which as you know was the Bren with minor improvements). We were trained to fire single well aimed shots with the rifle and short bursts with the LMG. When we were on the ranges re-qualifying over the years if there were some rounds left over we'd have a go at firing the LMG from the hip and the shoulder. It was remarkably accurate in my experience, not a sniper for sure, but if I were firing at a man standing still (and wearing a white suit!) at the distance depicted, while prone and using the bipod I'd have hit him first round. But you're right, if I also had the SLR available it's a silly choice.

It's great to see Ian dispel myths we argued about as kids in the schoolyard in Ireland. I am going on FB to send some links to some old buachaillí of mine.

Muy buenos videos comentando el uso de las armas en las películas. Felicidades !!!!

Very nice. Good to see you again. Keep up the great work you are doing. 😎

If a precision rifle hadn’t been available the BREN wouldn’t be a bad choice as long as one used all 30 rounds in short bursts.

For what it’s worth this is The Chieftain’s thoughts on that scene “You may underestimate the reputation that the Bren had for accuracy in the Irish military, to the point that the shooting competitions with it had to have rules to penalise single-shot fire. The weight, and solid bipod lean to accuracy at the cost of flexibility of the Lee-En”

I certainly used the Bren for more accurate aimed single shot fire than rifles could produce in Rhodesia. My unit were from a second line force with African troops armed with German H&K G3 rifles. We got South African .303 Brens as our first section support weapons early in 1979. In encounter actions they had not prepared themselves (i.e. vehicle ambushes, or revving farms), the Terrs often tended to open inaccurate fire at extreme ranges at which our return rifle fire was also not very accurate. Assuming that we could identify well where the fire came from, I therefore used the Bren, which was more steady on its bipod, initially to keep the Terrs' heads down with single aimed shots at specific targets while we skirmished up. Only being issued four mags per Bren and having to recharge them also led us not to be too liberal with our fire. However, as the Terrs invariably gapped it before we reached their positions I can't swear to the effectiveness of the Bren in this role. This wasn't exactly sniping and was only due to the limitations of our training and the rifles themselves as we had no scoped rifles. Such bloodless actions tended to favour us, as the Terrs had to walk their ammunition in from Moczambique and it could take weeks for them to get resupply, leaving them passive for a similar period. They also tended to leave bits of kit, particularly AK magazines, behind as they gapped it. The best haul included a Tokarev pistol.

So happy you brought this up. Amazing.

thanks Ian I've watched this move a couple of times and always wondered why you do that the Enfield would have been my pick for a shot like that, even the L1A1 would have been a better choice than the Bren, liked the bit where they used all the used brass as mines, it was sad how these men were treated after the war.

Also reminds me when I watched Fury, and every tank was doing these outrageous skill shots (and general completely insane tactics like rushing Tiger tanks head on through an open field?!) that were taking off people's heads and legs with tank shells. Such a cool film ruined by the experts being ignored for the purpose of some throwaway gore in a film that already portrayed very well the dangers of tanking and infantry warfare without a gratuitous shot.

This bounced off my eyes too. Thanks for the clarification! Because I am overly enthusiastic to contribute, I can only add; in the film “ a bridge too far,”during the first attack on the bridge, a British paratrooper makes a headshot, through a viewing slot in an SDKF.Z armored vehicle,causing a collision which halts the attack. It’s in the film, and depicted in the scene. It’s also in the book. Cornelius Ryan, the author, used impeccable research. It’s true! Thanks, I am recovering from a stroke, I live to try and contribute!

I regularly fired an L4 (7.62 x 51 mm converted BREN) in competitions at school and the pull forward when the working parts go forward is substantial.

Thank you for the information, learning more.

The Bren was always described as 'if anything too accurate' BUT that is for it's application as a light machine gun NOT to describe it as accurate enough to use as a sniping weapon.

I didn’t know anything about the Bren gun myth but I remember seeing that part of the movie and being absolutely confused as to why he dropped his scoped rifle to use a machine gun with irons to make a long distance shot. Now I know, thanks.

Regarding your statement in the video about the accuracy of the Bren gun. My Father was mentioned in dispatches during WW2 and used the Bren gun. He surprised me one day by saying that the Bren was too accurate and that he preferred the Vickers 303 machine gun. The reason he gave was that the enemy (German army) could locate the Bren gun from its fall of shot whereas the Vickers sprayed the bullets and made detection more difficult.

Thank you for the detailed explanation

Fantastic movie, thanks for the analysis of that scene Ian. When I saw Siege of Jadotville, I wasn't focused on the shot, I was mostly shocked that the mine foreman would stand there in a white suit as an easy target. I did think the group salute at the end was very powerful.

Back in '82, I trained on the FNC2A1 in the Canadian Army. I won't claim to be an expert, but I got the strong impression that it was a very accurate LMG when in semi auto. Mind you, it fired from a closed bolt.

Awsome review and also - details - loved the movie - your the true expert 👌👌👌

Wow! Just this week I talked about this with my British History professor. Thank you Ian.

Thank you so much for covering this! I've been waiting years for someone to explain this scene!

i've seen mention of the Bren's phenomenal accuracy in a video about the MG42 and how the Bren was a better support mg because you can keep shooting at the door while your soldiers are getting closer to it than you can with the MG42 without worrying about hitting your own soldiers

The movie was filmed here in South Africa, mostly in Hartebeespoort ,I drive past the Cafe where they were collecting supplies quite often that's in krugersdorp .

You're my favorite gun nerd! Thanks for all the great content and the effort and research that goes into it!

I think they did it just to annoy Ian.

My father's secondary role was base security (RAF). He was one of the "one person per squad" issued with a Bren. He said they were a bit more accurate than ideal and as accurate as a WWII era rifle he had been taught with, that had a barrel worn to near the end of it's life. Also he said that this "accuracy" had been greatly exagerated over the years as things do sometimes in the military. They were taught to fire in 2 to 3 round bursts.

I would love to see content in which you tried to pull off some of these ridiculous stunts! Forgotten weapons myth busters addition!

At least anecdotally, I witnessed our FN MAG gunner show off to the Marines that he could reach out and hit the man-sized gong at 500m with irons, He single loaded and hit 5-8 times in a row. This was after the marines laughed at us for not having "modern" M240B with optics etc.

I love _Forgotten Weapons_ and debunking sniper fallacies. Imagine my joy when _Forgotten Weapons_ debunks a sniper myth. Top marks, Ian!

The .303 Bren was a very accurate single shot weapon. In fact a scope was developed for it prior to WW2 that morphed into the No.32 scope for the No.4 (T). Mk1 Brens had the mount for it on the receiver. The accuracy of the .303 Bren was removed in the 7.62 version because we needed a beaten zone/cone of fire that the .303 Bren couldn't match so I for one, having trained on both versions, am quite comfortable with the possibility of a long range single shot hit as in the film using the .303 version.

I really enjoyed that movie! Its fun to get a praise for what they did well and clarification on what they didn't. I would love to see more of these military movie reviews!

I've never heard of this Bren gun myth before, but when I saw the movie I didn't question that scene at all. In fact my mind went to the story of Carlos Hathcock using an M2 Browning on single shot to make a sniping shot in Vietnam.

Third thing is that almost nobody is accurate with a first shot on a completely unknown weapon. An especially there is so much uncertainty. In most cases if you have only one important shot, you are better shooting it with a less accurate gun you are very familiar with than trying something new for the first time.

I remember watching the movie and wondered why they used the bren in that scene. Thank you Ian for cleaning that up.

Very true, I noticed the same thing when I watched the movie. Regarding firing open bolt weapons I found that the UZI was practically useless in semi-auto mode for the same reason- great in full but semi provided no benefit in terms of accuracy due to the open bolt lag time.

Very happy you commented on this movie. Even though the Bren scene was questionable, this was a great movie and depicted great leadership by the Irish commander and his troops.

I want to see this myth pushed further. As you previously discussed with Bloke on the Range, expected mechanical accuracy for a service rifle of the period was around 5MOA. Of course the accurized Mk4 is going to beat that by a country mile, but considering the Bren could reach the same precision with burst fire, I'd be willing to bet that many soldiers of the time did consider it to be exceptionally accurate. Not too accurate for area suppression, but the mechanics of suppression were still not much discussed until the 60s, so I would let that part of the myth slide.

Love a good rant! Can't wait!

We were issued with two different types of ammunition. .303 Mk VII and.303 Mk VIIz. One was for the rifle and one was for the BREN. It's been over 30 years since I worked with a BREN and it was 1977 when I first handled it, so the memory is a wee bit vague. But I remember that we weren't allowed to fire more than four rounds in a burst. Zeroing was done with single shots (both barrels) and those shots would land in a very tight group. BREN ammunition, we were told, was stronger. You can fire rifle ammunition in the BREN, but don't fire BREN ammunition in a rifle. You mentioned our use of the Gustaf (Swedish K) in the Congo. Years later in my service, while competition shooting with the Gustaf (that fired from an open bolt) for zeroing we would put a round in the breech as we considered that the effect of stripping the round from the magazine had an effect on the shot. Same thing with the BREN. It may be minuscule, but the bolt does stop before the pressure of the spring starts to move the round, which then has to be seated in the breech. I never looked through a Number 4 scope, but the scope I had for the FN, had a post reticule about 2mm thick and feck all magnification. The thought was, if you can see the puff of red, it'll put you off shooting. I've rambled on long enough. Though I'd like to mention that we recently laid to rest one of our comrades, Cpl retired. Bobby Bradley, a veteran of this action. Funny thing is, in all the years I knew him, in all the tales he told about the Congo. He never mentioned Jadotville.

My service-gun was a MG3, basically the MG42. During a NATO manouver we also tried out the Bren. Tagents was full size person cardboard supported with a wooden cross. Unlike the MG3 who disperded bullets all over the target the Bren cut the wooden crosses and the targets folded in two. Compared with the MG3 they are very accurate.