Bren AA mount: help and more info needed

[James Gosling]

Hi Hanno,

I was quite surprised as well when I saw it, the picture was originally posted years ago by Cletrac in a long thread on the Motley mounts. It was published in the William Gregg Profiles book in the section other anti aircraft weapons on the LAAT page and the caption is as previously mentioned.
I'm not sure when this MK of mount dates from or what MK it is, unlike most of the other types it does not have the counterbalancing springs.
I have taken another shot of the picture so hopefully its better and also put on another picture of the same mount but mounted on an unknown truck.

James

Motley 2.jpg Bren%20MG%202.jpg

[James Gosling]

I have just checked the census number 4255028 and that falls under numbers allocated to the Canadian army overseas upto 11th July 1943. So it is a Canadian truck.

[Jordan Baker]

This looks be the same type of mount.

https://www.militaryimages.net/media...a-mount.13424/

http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/738-british-motley-bren-mount/

[maple_leaf_eh]

Would this be the origins of the slightly derisive term, a Motley crew?

Never the less, that is a neat piece of equipment to put as much .303 BR into the sky as possible. The drawback of course is the slow cyclic rate of the BREN.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Hi James,

As you can see from the info posted above, it is the later Mounting, Straddle, Bren, AA. I had the earlier "over the shoulder" mount in mind when I first replied.

Googling this term I came across the attached picture from a February 1944 War Office publication "Identification list for the mountings Straddle AA Bren and .303 Browning". Clicking on the link however, led me to an eBay listing for the Bren 1948 Light Machine Gun Training Manual (Canadian) (no connection to seller). I could not see the attached picture there and I doubt this contraption was kept in service after WW2. However, it may have just survived in service long enough to by put into use near Calais in the summer of 1944.

Also see the thread Bren LMG mount and scroll down to see the surviving example in the Netherlands Army historical collection.

Bren-1944-Browning-303-MGs-Mk-I.jpg

[James Gosling]

Hi Jordan, yes it is the same type as the one pictured at Duxford.

The schematics are interesting, the right hand one is clearly labelled as a MKV, however the left hand one, the one in question is labelled MK1. Does this refer to the mount or the Bren MK1, it is far more complex than the British MK1 version so could this be a Canadian MK1?

Hanno this might tally with your Canadian pamphlet then?

Another odd thing is that in a former post it was remarked that several of these mounts had come over from Portugal in recent years, a country who received mostly Canadian equipment after the war, Foxs, gun tractors, trucks, Grizzlies etc. so could this mount be Canadian in manufacture? it is certainly different from all the other MKs in not having any counter balance springs.

Any ideas on this? just thinking out loud!!!