During the Great War, John Charles Raginald McCrudden saw the need for a cheap and reliable automatic weapon to support foot soldiers. Once discharged in 1917, he began his work at a small workshop shack near Sydney, completing it two years later. By then, the ANZACs had left home, though the Federal Army found itself in a new predicament; its small arms, most being of British origin, had been cut off from reliable supply as London's empire fell into anarchy and revolution. McCrudden's design, called the Light Machine Rifle, was eagerly adopted by the Federal Army, though it was phased out in the 1930s in favour of the more reliable Bren Gun, also of British origin.
