MovieChat Forums > 'Breaker' Morant (1980) Discussion > Bushvedlt Carbineers

Bushvedlt Carbineers

posted 19 years ago by membrane_mac
15 replies | jump to latest

Just for anyone wondering - which is a fair few who have watched Break Morant- what does "Bushvedlt Carbineers" stand for?
Well, here is the answer.
Bushvedlt is broken into 2 parts, the second part 'vedlt' is the key part - the 'Vedlt' is the Bore term for the terrain type in South Africa, "Open country, bearing grass, bushes or shrubs, or thinly forested."
Also the 'Carineers' refers to the type of rifle that they used - the .303 - called the "three o three" - but they used the Carbine version which was lighter and shorter than the .303 at the time - .303 refers to the the caliber of the rifle which is 0.303 of an inch in diamiter of the boar (not Bore the people).

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] cmcnulty-2 19 years ago

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

[–] rem483-1 19 years ago

Boer (as in the Dutch/German Boer people) is spelled 'Boer'. The bore of a firearm is spelled 'bore'. There is an animal whose name is spelled 'boar'. People who put you to sleep are spelled 'bores'.

Just for anyone wondering.

[–] hunter_1_32095 19 years ago

And crude people are "Boors".

[–] carygee 19 years ago

And some Boers are boors
And some Boers are bores
But no boars are Boers (well, hardly any)!

[–] KarlMaldensNose 19 years ago

Tee hee, very funny....:)

Signatures?.........we don't need no stinking signatures!

[–] kjd03842 19 years ago

Reminds me of the time I ate boar with a boring boorish Boer.
Reminds me of the time I ate boar with a boring boorish Boer.
(I thought that bore repeating).

[–] lbs1942 19 years ago

...was a 19th centuy chemist.

[–] Corner_House_guest 17 years ago

...was a 19th centuy chemist.

Only fourteen when the 19th century ended, Bohr helped develop the atomic bomb and lived till 1962, the year of the Beatles first single. A 20th century physicist.

Yours
A.Pedant

[–] duracellbunny 19 years ago

Just a thought, the carbineers in the film are actually using the Long Lee Rifle, the same as the infantry, not the carbine version. I don't actually know but Carbineers has often been used as a descriptioon for cavalry soldiers and by the early twentieth century didn't mean anything in particular. A lot of the colonial regiments raised had extravagant (sp?) titles perhaps to encourage enlistment. Spotter hat off.......

[–] Jakealope 19 years ago

Carbineers refers to cavalry or dragoons(mounted infantry). Carbines are short rifles used by cavalrymen.

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

[–] kjd03842 19 years ago

So if not all Carbineers used carbines, then not all Grenadiers throw grenades?

[–] Jakealope 19 years ago

I guess??!! If I remember the movie correctly, they had the carbine version of the SMLE.

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

[–] duracellbunny 19 years ago

Actually yes. You're spot on. Grenadiers have not used grenades (generally) since the end of the 18th century. It simply became an honorific for the strongest, tallest soldiers (again, generally speaking). In fact when the British army reintroduced grenades in large numbers during the first world war, the soldiers using them were called bombers as the Grenadier Guards didn't want ayone else using the name Grenadiers.

Oh and incidentally, (spotter hat on) the blokes in the film are using carbine versions of the Lee Rifle, not the SMLE which was an all purpose rifle introduced after the Boer war to replace the Long-Lee's of the infantry and the carbine version with one weapon. The first nation to do so......(spotter hat off)

Don't you just love the internet, a place to share useless information.......

[–] ray-28 15 years ago

You sorry sods, you forgot to bring it back to the movie, the line where one officers, referring to Morant's bragging, says to another (paraphrasing) -

"He's practically one of the enemy, isn't he?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he's a ruddy big bore (Boer), isn't he."