Designed for use on the Bren light machine gun under the design specification CIA(FC) EXP 1082 few if any of the scopes would be issued in this role on the Bren. Having been designed for use on a machine gun the scope and its mount were both rugged and durable in design and construction. A peculiarity of the design was the mounting of the windage knob on the left side of the scope, a concession required by the Bren's vertical magazine which blocked access to a right side of the scope.

With the Fall of France and Dunkirk in the Spring of 1940 and the mass loss of British Army equipment, the dovetail mount on the Bren was removed to simplify production of the Mk I Bren and help speed up production (Grant, 2013). Ironically at the same time that the RSAF Enfield was deleting the scope mount from the Bren, another team at Enfield was adding scope mounts to its weapon to mount the very same No.32 scope.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, the British Army found itself with no standard sniper rifle. The Alex Martin company of Glasgow would be contracted to outfit 800 Enfield 1914 pattern rifles with Aldis and PPCo scopes. Designated the No.3 MkI*(T) these rifles were dated designs that made use of exisitng WWI technology. Shortly after the adoption of the new No.4 Mk I rifle in November 1939 Enfield began work on a sniper variant, the No.4(T), using the already exisiting Bren scope design (Peger, 2010 ).

Between September 1940 and March 1941 minor refinements would be made to the scope and mount design and the scope would be given the name No.32 Mk I (Payne & Tomkinson, 1999). From May 1940 till September 1942 Enfield would produce 1,403 rifles using the No.32 scope. Starting in September 1942 London based Holland & Holland would take over the process of converting No.4 rifles into No.4 (T) sniper rifles, in total 26,442 such rifles would be converted (Peger, 2010 ).

Production of the scope in England would be done by multiple factories including:

• Houghton-Butcher Mfg Ltd of Fulborne Road, Walthamstow, East London
• United Instrument Company (a divison of Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd), York

Images



Disassembled scope. Photo from opticalrepairs.com.au.



With Commenwealth soldiers on Lee Enfield.



With German soldier on Lee Enfield.



With Dutch soldiers in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).



With Israeli soldiers during 1948 Independence war.



With French soldier during Indochina war.



With British soldier in North Ireland.



With British soldier in Falklands.


Serial Numbers

Serial	Mfg	Mk	Mount	Images	Notes
75	UIC (United Instrument Company)	MkI		2 3 4 5 6 7	Probably a 1941 or 1942 production scope.
4100	Goldberg	Mk3?		2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9	Israeli copy probably made by Emmanuel Goldberg of Tel-Aviv. טלסקופ (Telescope) is the only marking I am clear on.
5067	Goldberg	Mk3?		2 3 4 5 6	Israeli copy
5681	Houghton-Butcher	MkI	D34952
9718	HMBCo	MkI		2 3 4 5 6 7
18059	AK&S	MkIII		2 3 4 5 6 7

References

Grant, Neil. (2013). The Bren Gun. Osprey Publishing.

Pegler, Martin. (2010). Sniper Rifles. Osprey Publishing.

Payne, Roger J. & Tomkinson, David R. (1999). (Retrieved December 11, 2025) 4(T) or not 4(T) That is the Question. https://www.warpc.org/our-collection/4t-or-not-4t-that-is-the-question


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