A start, with a gift.

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Hello all! iv been lurking this mod for what seems like forever now and iv finally urked up the courage to make an account. that aside, i wanted to add bring something that may be of some use to the forum. has anyone ever heard of the "Bannerman Catalogue of Military Goods?" it has alot of useful information pertaining to weapons and uniforms of the first world war. probably not as in depth as, say, a wikipedia article, it still adds some neat insight and variations on weapons and such. lucky for all of you, i have a copy its a reissue of the 1927 catalogue. ill post here some images of the weapons and if anyone asks for specific weapons ill take better quality photos of the guns and their info. uniforms to come soon.

sorry for the bad centering btw. ill make sure to try to correct this. atm i see no edit function. also note that these pictures are copies of hand drawn pictures. so certain liberties or variations may be notable.

ok, sorry to the moderator who has to tidy up this thread but here are the same pics aligned and with the extended information page. again quality is hit or miss but if anyone wants specific country/weapon pics ill be happy to post them.

having some difficulties with this layout as you can see. again apologies.

[Rights of the Individual]

Is that a mauser with a box magazine in the first photograph?

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yes indeed. its a gew. 98 pictured with a breech dust cover and a 20 round box magazine, also a muzzle cover. basically a "trench modification" for invading the opposing trench. also the bayonet pictured is much longer than the standard "butcher" blade bayonet. according to the book over 40 different variations on bayonets werre used.

food for thought.

[LotsofxXandzZ]

yes indeed. its a gew. 98 pictured with a breech dust cover and a 20 round box magazine, also a muzzle cover. basically a "trench modification" for invading the opposing trench. also the bayonet pictured is much longer than the standard "butcher" blade bayonet. according to the book over 40 different variations on bayonets werre used.

food for thought.

Kind of weird how all nations were obsessed about the length of the bayonet, if anything a shorter bayonet is much better suited for close combat in trenches rather than something as unwieldy as the one shown.

More surprising to me: Is that a Lever-action Mosin Nagant on picture 8?

[Vamisk]

Is that a Lever-action Mosin Nagant on picture 8?

That is probably a Winchester 95 which was also chambered for 7.62x54r. Unlike other leverguns, this one had a box magazine. Unfortunately most of the shootable ones are supposedly in the hands of two collectors.

[LotsofxXandzZ]

That is probably a Winchester 95 which was also chambered for 7.62x54r. Unlike other leverguns, this one had a box magazine. Unfortunately most of the shootable ones are supposedly in the hands of two collectors.

Why would they put a Win.95 on a page called Weapons of WW1 inbetween a bunch of Mosin Nagants?

And why would America give teh Russians lever action rifles? Unless Russia produced them...

[Dan113112]

@don_Durandal: A long while ago I read that sometimes the Russians sent entire regiments into battle with no rifles or weapons of any kind. Is this true? If so how common was it? At least in WW2 they had enough weapons for every two people at the beginning of the war.

@Rights of the Individual: I was watching WW1 in Colour a while ago and it said by the middle-late war the Russians were near collapse. Demoralized by the huge losses they incurred (more so than the Western members of the Entente). Russian commanders were more willing to waste lives because they had such a large source of manpower (that may be my opinion, though). Soldiers started to not even care about the affairs of state or their nation) Even the Russia's top general wanted to reinstate capital punishment in the army (which had been lacking) to instill discipline into the army.

[Rights of the Individual]

@don_Durandal: A long while ago I read that sometimes the Russians sent entire regiments into battle with no rifles or weapons of any kind. Is this true? If so how common was it? At least in WW2 they had enough weapons for every two people at the beginning of the war.

The Soviets (and Russians) had more soldiers than guns in both wars for the most part. it was only in 1944 that their production actually recovered and was able to keep up with the massive proportions of the Red Army, while the Tsarist army in the first great war never really got the chance to recover.

@Rights of the Individual: I was watching WW1 in Colour a while ago and it said by the middle-late war the Russians were near collapse. Demoralized by the huge losses they incurred (more so than the Western members of the Entente). Russian commanders were more willing to waste lives because they had such a large source of manpower (that may be my opinion, though). Soldiers started to not even care about the affairs of state or their nation) Even the Russia's top general wanted to reinstate capital punishment in the army (which had been lacking) to instill discipline into the army.

Yep. Stalin noted this and used the political commissars at the platoon level to keep his men in check. During the 30's, 40's, and 50's, you were just as likely to be shot by your superior officers than by the enemy.

A curious thing to note is that though the US and the Russians are pretty much still at odds today over the Cold War, WW1 era Tsarist Russia was actually a close US ally. Following the American Civil War, the Russians sent multiple envoys to the US Armory in Springfield and to Remington. The Russians took multiple designs back to the homeland and began producing Remington made weapons under license at their Tula plant in Moscow.

[don_Durandal]

@don_Durandal: A long while ago I read that sometimes the Russians sent entire regiments into battle with no rifles or weapons of any kind. Is this true? If so how common was it? At least in WW2 they had enough weapons for every two people at the beginning of the war.<...>

A Russian infantry regiment had 4'000 men. What use would an entire unit of 4'000 men without weapons be? That this statement is an absurd exaggeration should be obvious without saying.

However there was indeed an acute shortage of rifles, but also of rifle ammunition, artillery shells, artillery pieces and machine guns.
The Russian army had only about 2/3rds of the rifles they needed; in 1914 for instance they would have needed 350'000 more rifles. Often, recruits joined their new units without rifles and had to either be sent back or go in combat without weapons (until they could pick one from another soldier that fell). So while it was never as bad as "one man in two", the situation could still be quite dire.

The situation also varied depending on time. Shortages were the worst in 1915 as the Russian army lost quite a lot of equipment during its retreats and could hardly replace it. It was much better in 1916 after Brusilov initiated a re-equipment program.
Also home production could hardly follow, hence why they contracted foreign manufacturers. The reason why they got the Winchester M1895 had nothing to do with design: it was the only arms manufacturer available (i.e. that wasn't already producing rifles for another belligerent) that could make a weapon in the same caliber as the Russian ammunition.

<...>I was watching WW1 in Colour a while ago and it said by the middle-late war the Russians were near collapse. Demoralized by the huge losses they incurred (more so than the Western members of the Entente). Russian commanders were more willing to waste lives because they had such a large source of manpower (that may be my opinion, though). Soldiers started to not even care about the affairs of state or their nation) Even the Russia's top general wanted to reinstate capital punishment in the army (which had been lacking) to instill discipline into the army.

Moral varied with time. It was adequate in 1914, fell in 1915 (German raising involvement in the east), rose once again in 1916 (re-equipment, reorganisation and Brusilov Offensive) and completely collapsed in 1917 resulting in the revolution and Russia pulling out of the war.
Still, the Russian army had one of the lowest moral of all belligerent, with only the Austro-Hungarians being worst-off. An easy quantifiable way to check this is to compare the armies' death to prisoner ratio; high morale means soldiers are far more willing to get killed than to be made prisoner.

For the Russian Army this rate is between 1 and 1.5. While not very good, it's no completely catastrophic. The worst year was 1915, with some armies being entirely captured by the Germans without even attempting to resist.

The Austro-Hungarian armies fared far worst, with a rate of 2 (two prisoner for every killed) which even rose to a catastrophic rate of 5 in 1916.
Compare this to:
the British 0.22 (by far the most solid and consistent)
the Germans 0.35 (0.2 for most of the war, but a collapse to 1.7 in 1918)
the French 0.36 (that number is skewed though, as a fourth of the French prisoners were taken during the retreat before the Marne in 1914. French moral during the war was solid)
the Italians 1.1 (0.6 for the whole war, but a catastrophic 30 at Caporetto alone)


Note that the "immense manpower reservoir" idea also doesn't work. The Russian had the lowest conscription ratio of all Belligerent nations during the war (save for pre-1916 UK). The reason is that there were plenty of exemptions for service, meaning only a minority of Russian actually saw military service. That's just the tip of the iceberg though. The real problem was that the tiny educated class had the most exemptions, meaning the Russian Army had a extremely severe shortage of potential officers and NCOs.
Also logistic weakness and wastes means every frontline soldier needed two in support. In the German and French armies it was the other way round.
The Russian Empire had a big population, but unlike Germany and France which called every able men aged 18-45 under the colours, it could only mobilize a fraction of it.

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Hi all! im back with a second set of pics!

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and lucky you, as a bonus, Iv found more odds and ends. some are of lesser known second line weapon/older last ditch weapons.

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tada! did the best i could with little light. more to come soon.

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Hi all, im back to wrap up the main section ive promised to provide. so heres the Austro-hungarian empire, italy, russia, and japan... also the last pic is of landwehr hat pins. if i find anything else of note ill definitely post it. also if anyone has requests please let me know.