I sort of hijacked PmClaines thread the other day, but heck maybe some of you might be interested in this.
Several years back I got interested in the Winchester A5 snipers from WWI. And reading the books that have been written on them, usually you will find a one or two sentence paragraph and nothing else. So I took several years and pulled all WWI documents from the Winchester files at Cody, and several other Archive locations around the country. Also I should give a special thanks to Andrew Stolinksi as he spent a huge amount of time pulling the documents from the National Archives as well on this topic.
It's much more in dept than this, but this is a short abbreviation of the history.
The most common known version of the A5 sniper is the Mann Niedner. Which is often pictured in books. But there is a second variation from WWI that is not really known. This variation was used by both the Marines and the Army in WWI.
In May/June 1917, Adolph Niedner Mounted 150 Winchester A5 scopes on Marine rifles in Philadelphia. He was supposed to take a short vacation and come back and mount 1500 more. But after making some comments in a bar, that the patrons considered un-American. They contacted the FBI and stated that they thought Niedner might have been a German Saboteur. Since he was a German Immigrant, a full FBI investigation ensued for nearly 2 years, and Niedner was lucky he probably wasn't imprisoned.
The FBI though was concerned that the rifles that Niedner had mounted might have been sabotaged, so Niedner was basically fired by the Marines. The Contract was Given to Winchester in July 1917 to mount 500 A5 scopes on rifles provided by the USMC. These rifles were mounted and all shipped by late 1917. One of these rifles is pictured in France and is dated 1917 in the official National Archives documents. But it is possible it might have been taken in the first couple weeks in January 1918.
In January 1918, with delays in the Model of 1918 Sniper ( A sporterized M1917 rifle with new Winchester scope modeled after the German Goerz design) that WRA had promised to the Army, and a shortage of 4000 Warner Swasey rifles from an undelivered contract. The Army contacted WRA and requested that they would like the exact same A5 style rifle that the Marines had received in 1917. The first order was for 500 rifles. The rifles were supplied by Springfield Armory and were shipped to WRA. WRA mounted up to 40 rifles per day. After the first 500 order had all shipped back by March 1918, the Army requested another order of 400 mounted by WRA. So in total the US Army had received 900. It is noted that these rifles were to be used for emergency stateside training. But they did for sure go to France with the US Army as I have inventory counts of them in Army Depots in France.
There is not any difference in the rifles that WRA mounted for the US Army than the ones mounted for the US Marines. In fact the Army was adamant on the fact that the rfiles and even the accessories to the rifles, be exactly what the Marines had received in 1917.
It is also interesting to note that before the war officially ended, the Army actually made this style rifle the official sniper rifle. Even though in the document it states it is only a placeholder until the WRA Model of 1918 sniper could be finished by WRA. But this a fact that has never been notated in a book, as everyone only details the usage of the Warner Swasey and the Army.
The blocks on this rifle are nicknamed by WRA as the "Springfield Marine." It appears in the WRA documents that they first show up around Spring 1917. The spacing on these blocks are the traditional 7.2'' spacing, and are of a beefier design that an earlier version WRA had created with 6'' on center spacing, which WRA had named the "Springfield." WRA had provided the US Army several 6'' on center sniper rifles with the "Springfield" blocks in 1914/15. But the US Army said in the trials that they were too weak to be used on a sniper and the 6'' on center spacing was troublesome. So the 7.2'' Springfield Marine blocks seem to be created to address the downfalls of the rifles the Army trialed earlier.
First this is the most common pictured A5 sniper in all sniper books. The date and location was never detailed in any books, as they said it was unidentified. I found the picture at the National Archives and had a high quality scan taken of the glass plate. The Picture is an Army Signal corps Photograph and is dated 1917 of a Marine in France with one of the WRA rifles.
This picture below was posted by someone else on another forum and incorrectly labeled as a Mann Niedner. Its actually of the WRA style.
Here are the rifles pictured with the US Army.
