North Downs Home Guard re-enactment

This is an annual event set up by the national trust in conjunction with the PSG and well worth attending. The Home Guard re-enactors set up the pillboxes and their weapons as they would have been 70 years ago and then spend about 10 minutes blowing off a whole lot of blank ammunition at the imaginary Fritzes toiling up the hill.

Type 24 with camo netting (S0010655)



Inside the Bren is set up correctly along with period accoutrements.



Another T24 with netting (S0010654)


Gunpits



A better view of the Boyes AT rifle, it was LOUD!



Other PB's in the vicinity (S0010656) T24 with no front embrasure





S0015858 on the road up the hill.


S0012328 with staggered embrasures.



A cracking day out that even the Mrs enjoyed! She's a sucker for uniforms.

Think I have seen these photo's before or at least similar ones. Good to see what they would have looked like in use.

Never seen a pillbox 'occupied' before. The image will now be taken to each one I visit.

Thanks cptpies!

Fantastic! I'd love to see something like this. Hell, I'd love to be part of something like this.
Cheers for posting, Cpt.

night crawler said:

Think I have seen these photo's before or at least similar ones. Good to see what they would have looked like in use.

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They've been sitting on my flickr page since May, similar ones have been posted by others on the PSG forum too.

Foxylady said:

Fantastic! I'd love to see something like this. Hell, I'd love to be part of something like this.
Cheers for posting, Cpt.

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I'm part of something like that, just search for ww2 living history or reenactment groups.

Its fun and keeps me off street cornes

Is this the one they do every year up near Box Hill (or maybe Leith Hill)?

That's the one. The location is actually a mile or two west of Denbies vinyard and Box Hill.

Really good to see these relics being brought to life. I'm inspired now to go have a look at a few boxes that are just up the road from me.

The Bren Gun set up is very impressive.

How effective would the Boyes have been against a tank?

cptpies said:

That's the one. The location is actually a mile or two west of Denbies vinyard and Box Hill.

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Must get up to that next time its on. Perhaps if you know in advance you could give us a heads up cptpies

hydealfred said:

How effective would the Boyes have been against a tank?

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Lets just say you would not want to be the guy with the Boyes...

Effective against Soviet T26 tanks and light APCs, useless against any german tanks.

krela said:

Effective against Soviet T26 tanks and light APCs, useless against any german tanks.

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I thought as much. How was it considered that something that looks like a rifle could disable a tank.

It does look a bit like a Barrett 50 sniper rifle however.

godzilla73 said:

Must get up to that next time its on. Perhaps if you know in advance you could give us a heads up cptpies

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Will do godzilla

Effective against Soviet T26 tanks and light APCs, useless against any german tanks

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Actually it was effective against most of the axis armour it would have faced in an early invasion, like the Pzkfw I & II which still made up the bulk of the German panzer divisions. But it was considered obsolete by the end of 1941. However the soviets still used their AT rifles throughout the war for plinking APC's and armoured cars, by which time we'd switched to the PIAT.

cptpies said:

Will do godzilla



Actually it was effective against most of the axis armour it would have faced in an early invasion, like the Pzkfw I & II which still made up the bulk of the German panzer divisions. But it was considered obsolete by the end of 1941. However the soviets still used their AT rifles throughout the war for plinking APC's and armoured cars, by which time we'd switched to the PIAT.

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Not sure where you got that info from but it's wholly inaccurate

North downs pill box event

This is old news, Dozens of photographs and a very good article appeared on the first re enactment on the Pillbox Study Group website back last September. The second event took place in May and was featured on the Pillbox Study Group forum with additional pictures and information.
The Event along with the re enacters, The National Trust [who organised the event] and the Pillbox Study Group got further recognision in "Britain at War" magazine as well as the event appearing on the British Forces television.
See
http://www.pillbox-study-group.org.uk/denbiesreenactmentpage.htm
and
http://pillboxstudygroup.freeforums.org/another-great-north-downs-pillbox-day-t121.html

lots of info on the capabilities or not (whichever way you look at it ) of the Boyes Anti Tank Rifle on the net.........seems to me like it could be effective against the 'between the wars' light tanks and armoured cars but once up against serious armour by 1941/42 it was more or less useless.....like a few of the articles do say though...it did make one helluva a sniper rifle if you could handle it and was also effective against engine blocks as a means to stop trucks & cars etc.........mind you... its worth noting that due to its savage kick and also the incredible noise, Aussie troops that used it knew it as 'Charlie the bastard' and American Troops knew it as 'the elephant gun'......

krela said:

Not sure where you got that info from but it's wholly inaccurate

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I suppose it depends on your definition of effective. To be precise it could penetrate the armour of the Pzkfw I & II. It probably wouldn't do much more than cause this light armour to back off or at best immobilise it. With the heavier armour of the Pzkfw III's and IV's it might have made a dent.

cptpies said:

I suppose it depends on your definition of effective. To be precise it could penetrate the armour of the Pzkfw I & II. It probably wouldn't do much more than cause this light armour to back off or at best immobilise it. With the heavier armour of the Pzkfw III's and IV's it might have made a dent.

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Yeah you're right, it might have caused damage but it would mostly be down to the luck of where you hit.