Weapons of the British Army at Gallipoli.

Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey. 1915.

Two soldiers sit beside a pile of empty tins cutting up barbed wire for jam tin bombs (grenades). The bombs were made near the beach, a spot popularly known as the 'Bomb Factory' near Anzac Cove. All the old jam tins and other used containers were used to make bombs which were then filled with fragments of Turkish shells and enemy barbed wire which had been cut into small lengths.

The .303 Lee Enfield rifle, introduced in 1895, was the main military service rifle of the British Empire and her Commonwealth countries for over 60 years, over this period of time it went through various upgrades and modifications. This model had a five round magazine. It was a single shot, (cock after every round fired) design. The most notable alteration being the adoption of a single size of rifle in 1903 for both the cavalry and infantry use. This rifle, known as the Short Magazine Lee Enfield, or SMLE was still Britain's service rifle in 1939 and was not declared obsolete and officially replaced until 1941 with another Lee Enfield, the No 4 rifle. Both models stayed in use until the end of WWII.

The rifle originally introduced in 1895 was designed by James Paris Lee (1831-1904), a Scottish born firearms designer who worked chiefly in the USA and Canada. His design incorporated a "cock-on-closing" bolt with rear locking lugs and a detachable 10 round magazine.

This action was combined with Enfield rifling to create the Lee-Enfield. It was the common British practice at the time to designate their service rifles with the name of the action and rifling, hence, the Lee-Metford or Martini-Henry etc.

Canvas breech cover for .303 rifle

It wasn't until 1926 that the British re-designated their rifles and adopted a number series to identify their ordinance, at this time the SMLE became officially known as the Rifle, No1 Mk III.

Explosives. Great Britain used guncotton, which was issued in tin cases containing 14 1.0-lb (0.45-kg) slabs in the explosive’s wet form for demolition purposes and in boxes of six tin tubes that each contained ten primers in the dry form for detonators

WEBLEY Revolver Mark 6 (.445 cal.) Mainly a personal side arm for officers and senior NCO's. Sometimes an individual digger would scrounge one from a wounded or dead comrade and the AIF used to turn a blind eye. Adopted in 1915, it was the "ultimate" Webley .455 six-shooter. Mark 6 featured redesigned, more squared grip, 6 inch (152 mm) barrels, removable front sights.

Lewis machine gun

The Lewis Gun, a light machine gun, was developed in the United States in 1911. At 12 kg it was far lighter than the Vickers Machine-Gun and in 1915 the British Army decided to purchase the gun for use on the Western Front.

Another advantage of the Lewis is that six of these guns could be made in the time taken to produce one Vickers gun. Although too heavy for efficient portable use, it became the standard support weapon for the British infantry during the First World War. It used either a 47 or a 97 round cylindrical magazine.

<<< This is how Lewis gun ammo came packed

The Vickers Machine Gun was virtually a lightened Maxim Gun built under license by Britain and throughout the Commonwealth. It was the standard medium/heavy machine gun of the British army from before World War 1 and up to 1960.

While most armies had adopted some kind of air cooled machine gun for their principle MG, the British continued to rely on the water cooled Vickers.

Despite its weight it was unsurpassed in reliability. As long as the condenser was kept filled with water, the Vickers could be fired for an indefinite period of time.

In 1912 the British Army adopted the Vickers as its standard machine gun. Produced by the Vickers Company, it was a modified version of the Maxim Machine-Gun.

The Vickers Gun used a 250 round fabric-belt magazine and had the reputation as a highly reliable weapon.

The .303 Vickers Gun could fire over 600 rounds per minute and had a range of 4,500 yards. Being water-cooled, it could fire continuously for long periods. There were usually six men in a Vickers gun team. In his book, With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, George Coppard, explained how the Vickers Gun Team worked. "Number One was leader and fired the gun, while Number Two controlled the entry of ammo belts into the feed-block. Number Three maintained a supply of ammo to Number Two, and Number Four to Six were reserves and carriers, but all the members of the team were fully trained in handling the gun."

When war was declared in August, 1914, Vickers were manufacturing 12 machine guns a week. Demand from the British Army was so high that Vickers had to find new ways of increasing production. By 1915 Vickers supplied the British armed forces with 2,405 guns. These increases continued throughout the First World War: 7,429 (1916); 21,782 (1917) and 39,473 (1918). The Vickers Company was accused of profiteering when in the early stages of the war they charged the Home Office £175 per gun. Under pressure from the government, Vickers reduced the price to £80 per gun.

Fitted with interrupter gear, the Vickers was also standard armament on all British and French aircraft after 1916.