US M1917 Enfield Suggestion (US Rifle Caliber 30 Model 1917)

Battlefield 1 General Discussion
1

US M1917 Enfield

Many people believe the standard issue rifle for US forces in WWI was the 1903 Springfield and this is PARTIALLY true, however when the USA entered the war they only had around 600,000 of those rifles available, and they were not being mass produced. Why? Remington, Eddystone, and Winchester were all producing British Pattern 14 Rifles (later reclassified as No3 Rifles as for 1924) for their troops, and in 1917 their orders had been largely fulfilled. The USA did not have the tooling to mass produce Springfield 1903’s to complement the draft numbers required for WWI deployments. But what they did have was the tooling to manufacture an American Enfield based on the P14 which was officially adopted and name US Rifle Caliber 30 Model of 1917, also known as the Enfield M1917, American Enfield, and or the P17. It also seems to be the very rifle used by Alvin York when he killed 28 German infantry in emplaced machine gun bunkers/trenches, and captured 138 German infantry in all. At the end of WWI around 1 million 1903 Springfield rifles were distributed and over 2.5 million M1917 Enfield rifles were distributed, making the Enfield M1917 truly the American Service Rifle of WWI.

M1917 Enfield

M1917_US.jpg
M1917_US.jpg1600×750 126 KB

M1917 Enfield Rear Peep Sight

Model1917S-1.jpg
Model1917S-1.jpg576×768 30.8 KB

M1917 Enfield Front Post Sight
enfield10.jpg

M1917 Enfield “Marksman” Variant

p14sniper-1.jpg
p14sniper-1.jpg640×276 21.2 KB

model1918-1.jpg
model1918-1.jpg800×217 32.6 KB

M1917 Enfield “Sniper” Variant

M1917pic.jpg
M1917pic.jpg761×1080 160 KB

Its interesting to note that this rifle also has a 6 round internal magazine, and yes I do mean 6 not 5, this is not +1 in the chamber. It featured a modified Mauser action with an Enfield SMLE charge on close system similar to the SMLE No1 Mk 3. This made for a very robust, reliable, and fast action, coupled with the high power of the .30-06 cartridge, so for my suggestion here are the following parameters for this rifle.

Class Designation: Scout

Damage: 100
Accuracy: 100
Hip Fire: 20
Control: 60
Rate of Fire: 52 (edited)
Fire Mode: Bolt Action
Ammunition: 6/30

Ammunition Type: .30-06 Springfield

Damage Falloff:

0 - 49m = 80 Damage

50m - 70m = gradual increase in damage from 81 Damage @ 50m to 100 Damage@ 70m

70m - 120m = 100 Damage

121m - 160m = gradual decrease in damage from 99 Damage @ 121m to 80 Damage @ 160m

160m + = 80 Damage

Bullet Drop = 12 m/s Squared

Bullet Velocity = 850 m/s (The M1917 has a barrel length of 28 inches compared to the M1903 Springfield’s barrel of 24 inches)

Any questions, comments, thoughts, let me know.

2

No thoughts?

3

Largest sweet spot, most sniper rifle ammo total, second highest fire rate? It need a little revision but this gun is hype.

4

The gun itself would be awesome. I would prefer it to have similar ammo total capacity to the rest of the rifles. Let them figure out the rest of the stats.

5

I’d like to see it added eventually, it’d be sweet to have.

6

According to the charts at symthic the M1903 has the best sweet spot with 50m of distance starting at 100 meters and extending out to 150m for 100 damage. This is followed up closely by the Gewehr 98 with 100 damage at 80m and extending out to 123 meters for a total sweet spot of 43 meters. What I did was make the range different from the Springfield 1903 by making it better 20m closer with the same falloff and sweet spot distance. Why? The M1917 was not common to see as a sniper platform, it was mainly an infantry rifle, however as previously posted there are sniper variants and they were well known for their accuracy.

Most sniper ammo total? Nope, that goes to the Enfield SMLE No1 Mk 3 with 10.

Second highest rate of fire, no its not, the Springfield 1903 has a ROF of 53, the Gewehr 95 has a ROF of 66 and the Russian 1895 with a ROF of 64. However I will revise it to match the Enfield SMLE No 1 Mk 3, it should be identical to that as it uses a very similar type of action just modified.

There is another point to this rifle I failed to mention, it reloads using a 5 round stripper clip then a final 6th bullet is manually added into the internal magazine, this would make its empty reload slightly longer, thus balancing itself out in that sense while keeping it realistic.

Here is Hickok45 with a real M1917 Enfield explaining why it was capable of holding 6 rounds in the magazine instead of 5 even though the stripper clips still only held 5 rounds.

Video: Remington Model 1917 Enfield
7

I would like to see the M1917 added. I also hope they add the Mosin-Nagant, I fully expect that though when they add the Russians in a future DLC.

8

Yeah, we definitely need the 1971

9

M1917 infantry. Pleez dice!

10

The US manufacturers were NOT producing the no1mk3. They were producing the eddystone enfield in .303 british (a design that was hoped to replace the smle, but did not. It was later classified as the no3. The British later developed the no4 used in ww2). US manufacturing decided it was easier to change the eddystone to 30-06 chambering than to switch over to the m1903.

The US did produce no4 mk1s for the British during WW2 for the lend lease program. I actually own one of these from savage. It has “US Property” stamped into the receiver.

11

My mistake on the No 1 Mk 3, they were building the P14 which had no interchangeability due to the different tooling between the companies making them, the British still bought and serviced them however, and in 1924 they were renamed to the No3 Enfield, this is where I got confused.

The P17 is the M1917 (they are literally the same exact firearm, just a different name), this is what the US was making due to the demand for rapid production rifles, and it was chambered in .30-06 which was the US standard round for the time. Interestingly most if not almost all of the tooling issues were non-existent in the early mid to late P17 models from what RIA (Rock Island Auctions) was able to discern, and they are an excellent authority on antiquated firearms.

Will update original post to reflect changes.

12

My interest is what the British thought they were improving upon with the p17? I forget but if irc, they were a variant on the mauser design which was apparently so good even the British doubted their own design in the smle, which I guess they figured out later was in error. I have to do more reading.

Having used both actions, I don’t know why anyone would take a mauser action over a lee enfield. I am biased though, as I believe the no4mk1 was the best military bolt rifle ever produced.

13

Many military history experts agree the P17 (M1917 American Enfield) was the best bolt action of WW1. The only 2 major drawbacks to the P17 were its weight and length, however this also gave it 3 positive attributes at certain points.

  1. Longer barrel for .30-06 meant higher velocity making ranged fire more accurate due to less drop and windage compensation
  2. Longer length overall meant when using a US Bayonet it provided more reach over other carbine rifles
  3. Heavier weight mitigated the massive recoil of the .30-06 cartridge which is more stout that the 8mm Lebel and the British .303, about on par with 7.92x57 Mauser.

The Enfield rifles were and still are superb rifles, I have shot 3 different variants including the rare jungle carbine variant, and especially the No 4 Mk 1 which has one of the quickest rotating manual bolts I have ever shot. However the sights on that P17 are exactly what is needed and in fact those ring/peep sights are what are used by modern military forces around the world.

This is something that could be well represented in Battlefield 1, the M1917 with its sights with radium inlay’s would be phenomenal to use.

14

I wish it had made the cut. Really disappointed it didn’t.

15

So would I have a 6 bullet clip reload of you emptied the mag? Id hate to empty the mag and then have to load that last bullet in manually every time