Editing British WWII Equipment

{{stub}}{{British}}
The [[British Empire]], being the first of the Allied Powers to enter WWII, had their work cut out for them. Having lost a good chunk of their equipment at the battle of Dunkirk, the Brits and its colonial possessions/Commonwealth members had to make do with whatever they had or whatever they could make, with a substantial amount of support from the American lend-lease program. That said, they still possessed the best Navy in the conflict, and many fine vehicles that aided in offensive and defensive operations. British equipment could be categorized as follows:

* Top-tier ships, planes and tanks designed before the war
* Old but reliable equipment from the previous war
* Simple and cheap, but effective equipment to get by on and for arming partisans
* Lots of weird esoteric designs made for the intelligence services or domestically by commonwealth troops

==Small Arms==
===Rifles and SMGs===
* '''Lee-Enfield''': The Lee-Enfield was the distant second best rifle of the war, carrying more bullets than the Kar98 but beaten out flat by the M1 Garand and about equal to the SVT. The Enfield was primarily influenced by the aforementioned British Pre-war colonial policy of having a rifle that could work well against dissenting colonials with a good number of shots if needed, after the Boer War taught some painful lessons when one-bullet-at-a-time loaded magazine rifles got matched up against Mausers. The biggest downside of the World War 2 era No 4 Mk1 was being unable to mount a sword bayonet as the World War 1 era SMLE MkIII/MKIII* could, which ended up not being that big of a deal because the spike bayonet did the job just fine.
* '''P14 Enfield''': Old WW1 rifle that was mainly relegated to sniper use; despite having half the ammo capacity of the Lee-Enfield, it had superior accuracy to make up for it.
* '''Ross Mk.III''': The Canadian's preferred rifle, it was a straight-pull design that theoretically could fire faster, but less smoothly than a turn-bolt. During WWI it infamously held up poorly in trench conditions, but also had superior accuracy as well, making it best suited as a sniper rifle.
* '''DeLisle Commando Carbine''': An adaptation of the Lee-Enfield for Commandos on clandestine missions; it was fitted with an integrally suppressed barrel and fired .45 ACP cartridges from an M1911 magazine. One of the quietest weapons used by the Brits, second only to the Welrod.
* '''Sten''': The Sten was a fucking cheap weapon that many British troops hated with a passion due to being of shoddy reliability without being "broken in". Early war Stens (mostly Mk 2) were built to be as cheap as possible so that enough could be issued for the front lines, but later in the war, the British could afford to make better quality versions like the Mk 5. The Sten was also incredibly silent when suppressed, so much so that the Germans took notice and tried making copies of it for their own clandestine use. The Sten had reliability problems due to the magazine feed, infamously one jammed during Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich's assassination, forcing a grenade toss to indirectly kill Heydrich via an injury and infection.
* '''Lanchester''': used mainly by the Royal Navy, the Lanchester is a direct copy of the German MP28, itself an improvement on the MP18, the world's first SMG. The Lanchester had a bayonet lug, but most likely didn't see much use in bayonet charges.
* '''Sterling''': similar to the Sten but better designed, both in terms of ergonomics and reliability. It saw action very late in the war and was used for a long time during the cold war. Later used as the base for the Imperial E-11 blaster from [[Star Wars]].
* '''Owen''': Local Boy Saves Straya with Home-Built SMG! Seriously, this gun is bizarre-looking as the magazine sticks out from the top like a Bren Gun; that being said, it was very well balanced and performed well enough that the Australians kept it around for the next several decades.
===Pistols===
* '''Webley Revolver''': Old reliable, having been in service since the 19th century, though by WWII was a bit too underpowered as .455 Webley doesn't hit quite as hard as more modern cartridges. Still, it was kept around because the Brits were short on everything.
* '''Webley Self-Loading Pistol''': One of Britain's early attempts at an automatic pistol; it was never widely adopted because the British military still had collective PTSD from the awfulness that was the Mars Automatic, but still saw use in the Navy and later in the Royal Air Force, where pilots preferred to have an automatic if they were ever downed.
* '''Enfield No.2''': The official replacement of the Webley, chambered in .38 S&W. Otherwise very similar externally, though some opted to remove the hammer spur to make it double-action only.
* '''Browning Hi-Power''': Made under license in Canada, especially after Belgium fell to the Nazis, the Hi-Power was innovative in that it had twice the ammo capacity of contemporary pistols. It was mainly used by Commandos and Pilots, as the extra capacity was particularly important when operating behind enemy lines.
* '''Welrod''': One of the most unique pistols ever made, the Welrod is optimized to make a pistol as quiet as possible. First, it was bolt-action, so that the only moving part on firing would be the pin. Secondly, it had an integral suppressor made with several rubber "wipes"; On the first shot the wipes would completely capture escaping gas to make the gun near-silent; by the tenth shot the wipes would have degraded enough that it was as loud as a standard suppressor. Lastly, it didn't look anything like a pistol when disassembled; if questioned by German authorities, the user would just say that it was a bicycle pump.
===Machineguns===
* '''Lewis Gun''': a holdover from WWI that was brought back into service to make up for shortfalls in the supply of Bren guns. Despite being bulkier, it was still a very reliable machinegun, and remained in service until the war ended. That said, the large pan magazine is not the best kind of magazine for machineguns, especially since the bottom is open and can be exposed to dirt quite easily.
* '''Vickers''': Britain's version of the Maxim gun, mainly used as a static emplacement. Ultimately, the Brits gradually stopped using the Vickers and started leaning more on using Mortars as their main infantry support weapon, especially since they already had Brens that could be relied on more as a frontline weapon.
* '''Bren''': The Bren far outmatched anything made by the Americans, Japanese, or Italians. It was well-balanced with a decent number of shots and mechanically reliable. In spite of this, it was outshined by the Commie and Nazi LMGs, the former because the DP-27 was objectively better at providing suppressing fire, and the latter because 1000 goddamn RPM. Nonetheless, the Bren performed very well as a squad-level gun.
* '''Charlton''': Created by the ANZACs when supplies of Bren and Lewis guns were low; this was a full-auto conversion of the Lee-Enfield by adding a gas rod to the side of the gun and replacing the bolt. 
===Anti-Tank Infantry Weapons===
* '''Boys Anti-Tank Rifle''': A five-shot bolt-action rifle that had been designed to penetrate tanks from the first World War, but had already become obsolete by the start of WWII. Still, it could punch holes in half-tracks and other light armor.
* '''PIAT''': The PIAT was a unique AT weapon that was a spigot mortar that shot a shaped charge in an arc that would hit a tank on the lighter top armor of the vehicle. It had the secondary advantage of being an excellent house clearing weapon and unlike a rocket launcher, you could fire it from inside a house without burning your jimmies off with the backblast. While easier to build than the rocket weapons that would become the norm like Bazookas and quite popular among troops, it became rapidly outdated and was notoriously difficult to reload even to the point of causing injury, and to reliably hit a tank you had to get uncomfortably close and wait in ambush. It got ditched in favor of rockets in the fifties, specifically the M20 Super Bazooka. However, it was ubiquitous enough to be used by the Viet Minh and the French in Indochina and Israel had British surplus as well.
===Misc===
* '''No.2 Flamethrower'''
==Artillery and AT Guns==
==Vehicles==
===Tanks===
===Tank Destroyers/Assault Guns===
===Half-Tracks and Armored Cars===
==Ships==
===Aircraft Carriers===
===Battleships===
===Cruisers===
===Destroyers===
==Airplanes==
==Misc==
{{WW2}}[[Category:History]]