Quote Originally Posted by Marine A5 Sniper Rifle View Post
Document or no document, I have my doubts they were ever delivered, if they represented additional scopes not ordered in the 1150 initially ordered. Could you be looking at the delivery of the last of the initial orders?

jt
Ok now I get where you are coming from and why it doesn't make sense to you. I'm guessing you are thinking the Marines received the 2nd order of 500 scopes from WRA.

Jim there were four orders of A5 scopes placed with WRA in the war. A 500 and a 1000 order was placed by the Marines, for the Marines. And a 500 and 400 order that was placed by the Army procurement Div. All four are different WRA contract numbers, so all four seperate contracts.

The 1st order of 500 placed in July 1917 by the Marines were the ones that WRA mounted and actually shipped during the war. The 1000 order placed by the Marines doesn't show completed till 1919.

The 500 and 400 orders to the Army procurement are questionable if they did ship. It's not exactly clear. Like with the Marine order I can cross reference the contract numbers in all the ledgers to make sure they were completed. But on the Army orders it's not as clear. They might have though. i really can't prove it 100% either way. But again if they did ship, it was again not unitl that 1919 timeframe, same as the 2nd shipment to the Marines.

But yeah I think you must have saw something about that the 2nd 500 contract order to Army Procurement and thought it was going to the Marines. But that one honestly wasn't. But I think that is where you were getting that 1150 number. 500 + 500 + 150.

The Marines only got 500 from WRA during the war, and then the 150 from Niedner. You can also confirm this also by the Nov 15th Ordnance manual listed above, which also details they only got 500 during the war. Which it's interesting to note they don't even count the ones Niedner did in that report. I think Niedner was blacklisted honestly as his FBI investigation was still going on when that book was printed. But that manual was also printed before the 2nd Marine contract would have came in from WRA. So that is why I think the 2nd contract was listed.

And that also would explain if the Army procurement orders shipped why they are not listed as well in that book. They too would have shipped after that book was written.