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World at War

WWI Weapons

Captured German trench mortar, automatic rifle, and German and Russian machine guns
Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee Enfield, .303 inch, Mk 3

1914
A heavy shell bursting during the Battle of the Somme.

1916
A French gunner of the 53rd Infantry Regiment (Tenth Army) with his Chauchat machine gun in the Somme area, 25 August 1916.

1916-08-25
The Vickers .303 inch Class C was a commercially-available, water-cooled machine gun which was trialled by the British Army from 1910. Following a few changes, it was adopted by the British Army as the Vickers Mark 1 on 26th November 1912 and became the standard machine gun of the British and Commonwealth forces. It weighs about 28 lbs when empty of water and typically required a six to eight-man team to transport and operate them and their associated accessories and ammunition.
Members of No.1 Section, 131st Machine Gun Company, receiving training on the Vickers machine gun at Belton Park Camp, Grantham, Lincolnshire in 1915.

1915
Interior of a British shell factory during the First World War.
Munition workers in a shell warehouse at the National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell, Nottinghamshire. This was one of the largest shell factories in the country. Around 21 August, 1917.

1917-08-21
A German flamethrower team in action in a front line trench.

1916
Ben Tillett (trade unionist and founding member of the Labour Party) examining Mills bombs (grenades) near Fricourt, Somme , Autumn, 1916.

1916
Battle of Guillemont 3-6 September 1916. British infantry waiting their turn to advance. A tank moving in distance. Guillemont, September 1916.

1916-09
Battle of Albert. A dump of 18 pounder shell cases used in the bomdardment of Fricourt. Extraordinary quantities of ammunition were used in successive bombardments.

1916-07
Soldiers of 'A' Company, 11th Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment, occupy a captured German trench at Ovillers-la-Boisselle on the Somme. In this photograph one man keeps sentry duty, looking over the parados and using an improvised fire step cut into the back slope of the trench, while his comrades rest.

1916-07
Aerial photograph of a British gas attack in progress between Carnoy and Montauban in June 1916, shortly before the Somme offensive. Montauban, then still in German hands, is at the top left of the picture and Carnoy, behind British lines, is at the bottom right.

1916-06
French trench mortar. (Dumezil) 58 mm.
The First World War: German artilleryman wearing his gas mask whilst in a battery position near Les Boeufs on the Somme.

1916-08
Guns captured in the Battles of the Somme, in the grounds of Querrieu Chateau, 4th Army H.Q.

1916
Gunners of the Royal Garrison Artillery carrying trench mortar ammunition to the trenches. Acheux, 28th June 1916.

1916-06-28
Camouflaging a shell dump, 29 July 1916

1916-07-29
British troops stacking salvaged Lee Enfield rifles at Aveluy, September 1916. These would be sent back to base, stripped and cleaned and reissued.

1916-09

Advancement in Weaponry

"Modern" Weapons

The combination of industrialization and the further advancement of science and technology, weapons of war increased in quantity and quality. World War I saw the switch from 19th-century war tactics to the modernization of war. WWI was a war that depended on artillery and the mass production of weapons. Additionally, the war saw the introduction of newer weaponry such as chemical warfare and tanks. The Battle of the Somme took place in the middle of the war and saw newer weapons in action. WWI weaponry was deadly and destructive, as seen through the battle of the Somme.

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