WW1 Kit for Into no mans land

Prepping for local Sydney convention. Im focusing on commonwealth and german kit for current game but will try and get French, Russian and Austrian later. WW1 minis include croatian, Canadians, ANZAC (Australia and new zealand), colonial troops, african colonial forces and many more. I have two brit tanks, two french and a german. I have some bases to stick on. I have a few fighter planes. Players will get choice of entering the zone from the air or from ground infantry or tank or underground with sappers. Hmm might need a quick air encounter chart or two but i do have TSR Dawn Patrol game. 

Commonwealth kit I need as the Experimental Operations Command is British in this period. Covers commonwealth nations but canadians did have a lame rifle for a period. American doughboys gave up the boy scout hats and adopted lots of Tommy kit.




1916 private soldier, Battle of the Somme (above)


1 Hob nail boots
2 Puttees (for binding trousers around lower legs)
3 Socks
4 Shirt and vest
5 Gas mask container
6 Gas mask
7 Non Commissioned ranks hat
8 Notebook and service warrant card
9 Battledress tunic – note stripes on sleeve denote rank
10 Mess tins
11 Tin opener and can of food, appears to be tinned stewed apple
12 Oxo cubes
13 Bar of chocolate
14 Bar of soap
15 Water flask
16 Belt
17 Leather belt with leather pouches for kit
18 Haversack
19 Longjohn under garments, battledress trousers and braces
20 Boot polish and two brushes
21 Blankets
22 Dog tags – imprinted with name, rank and service number
23 Trench club – for breaking heavy ground for trenching into and for fighting the enemy at close quarters
24 Entrenching tool handle; often the handle was customised with lumps of metal and made into a trench club
25 Leather pouch for entrenching tool
26 Field dressing
27 Cigarettes and matches
28 Mess kit containing knife, fork spoon, shaving brush, soap and brass button polisher (slid underneath battledress button to protect BD from polish)
29 Polish
30 Razor
31 Gun oil
32 Cloth for pull-through for cleaning barrels internally
33 Bullet
34 Ammunition belt, with five pouches of five rounds
35 Penknife and pull through cord
36 Entrenching tool spade; sometimes soldiers sharpened the edges of the spade and used these to fight
37 Lee Enfield 303 bolt action rifle. It was developed at the beginning of the twentieth century as an attempt to create a standard rifle for both the infantry and soldiers on horseback. As it turned out it was ideally suited to conditions in the trenches – it wasn’t good at firing over long distances, but was really robust and could stand up to the mud. It was still used right up into the 1950s. 5 shots.
38 Bayonet – to be attached to fore end of rifle
39 Helmet – with cover 6AP
40 Fob watch, personal effects. Officers tended to have pocket watches more so than infantry soldiers
41 Coins – possibly local francs or similar, personal effects
42 Scabbard for bayonet, worn on leather belt around waist over hip
43 5 round ammunition clips – ready to load magazine of 303 rifle - enough for 75shots cavalry getting 90 shots

There were two breast pockets for personal items and the soldier's AB64 Pay Book, two smaller pockets for other items, and an internal pocket sewn under the right flap of the lower tunic where the First Field Dressing was kept. Leather was used for training outfits but were deployed often while most were supposed to use webbing.

32kg or 70 pounds weight making most users operate fatigued

Officers use a Webley .44 revolver

Lewis Machine gun
The British officially adopted the Lewis machine gun in .303 calibre for Land and Aircraft use in October 1915. Despite costing more than a Vickers gun to manufacture (the cost of a Lewis Gun in 1915 was £165, and the Vickers cost about £100), Lewis machine-guns were in high demand with the British military during World War I. The Lewis also had the advantage of being about 80% faster (in both time and component parts) to build than the Vickers gun (and was a lot more portable). They were nearly ubiquitous on the Western Front, outnumbering the Vickers gun by a ratio of about 3:1.

The Lewis Gun utilised two different drum magazines, one holding 47 and the other 97 rounds of ammunition and had a rate of fire of 500 to 600 rounds per minute. The gun weighed 28 pounds (13 kg), only about half as much as a typical medium machine gun of the era, such as the Vickers machine gun, and was chosen in part because, being more portable than a heavy machine gun (such as the Vickers), it could be carried and used by a single soldier. Used for anti aircraft and on aircraft,

Mills Bomb
First modern british fragmentation grenade for defensive purposes. 7sec fuse early ones replaced by 4 second fuses during ww2. The British Home Guard were instructed that the throwing range of was about 30 yards with a danger area of about 100 yds. Rod type ifle grenade version appears 1917 with a range of 150m but they ware rifle out. Weight

Will try to crank out air tables and character sheet tonight,