455 revolver, developed by Webley & Son (Webley & Scott Co. The pistol carried by British officers was often the powerful British Webley. Officers were armed with a revolver and sword – both were soon discarded since they made the user an obvious target for snipers. The rifle was further modified in 1916 to take a five-round box magazine and the resulting weapon was widely used by a number of foreign armies in the inter-war periods. The box was better than the tube magazine, but French soldiers were equipped with three-round clips in contrast to the five-round clips used by the British and Germans. The Lebel was replaced during the war by the 1907 Berthier a more modern design that used the Berthier bolt action and the box magazine feed from the Mannlicher.
It was slow to load and there was always the risk if the job was rushed that the bullet of one round would hit the percussion cap of the round in front and cause an explosion. This was its eight-round tubular magazine derived from the Austrian Kropatschek rifle in which the bullet of one round butted up against the percussion cap of the cartridge case in front. The French rifle was modified in 1893 and again five years later, but had one key fault. It retained the straight bolt action of the Gras rifle of 1874. The 8mm Lebel Fusil Modèle 1886 with which the French Army entered the war had been the first service rifle to fire smokeless ammunition, although this was its only design distinction. In other words to hit a target at 700 yards a Lee–Enfield round would climb to a height of 10ft from the ground, while a Mauser ‘S round’ reached approximately 6ft. Higher muzzle velocity meant that a soldier could engage distant targets without having to make ballistic adjustments. 303 round exited the barrel at 2,060fps and the French rounds at 2,060fps. However, the Mauser fired one of the highest velocity rounds of the First World War – the ‘S round’ had a muzzle velocity of 2,882ft per second (fps). While the Mauser’s action is superb and there are an estimated 102 million rifles with the model ’98 bolt action worldwide, the rifle suffered, as we have seen, from its inferior magazine. The 7.92mm Gewehr ’98 introduced into service with the Imperial German Army on 5 April 1898 was designed by Paul Mauser and was the standard infantry weapon in the First World War. Reliable and extremely accurate, the SMLE is regarded by most authorities as the finest rifle of the First World War. However in the 1930s, a Small Arms School Corps Warrant Officer managed a rate of 37rpm. In the hands of a trained soldier the British Short Magazine Lee–Enfield was easily capable of 15rpm (rounds per minute) of accurate fire. A soldier could actually load eleven rounds if he had one in the breach, or ‘up the spout’, and this gave him a significant advantage over German soldiers whose Gewehr ’98 had a five-round magazine. blade the theory behind this was that it gave a foot soldier sufficient reach to be able to bayonet a mounted soldier. The ‘sword’ bayonet fitted to the SMLE had a formidable 17in. 303 calibre round it weighed 8.62lbs was 44 ½ in. The British Army had the Short Magazine Lee–Enfield Mk III Rifle more commonly known as the SMLE it was the standard infantry rifle in the First World War and would be for much of the Second World War.Ī bolt action weapon that fired a. In terms of weaponry, by 1914 all European armies had a magazine-fed bolt action rifle.