Slate notes that women made significant contribution to work force in weapons manufacture during World War 1. Interior of a rifle manufacturing plant in France. Men and women busy at their jobs. Belt-driven lathes and other machinery seen. Workers clean out newly rifled barrels. Others work on wooden parts. stacks of assembled rifles are moved through the factory on motorized carts, and between factory floors by elevator. (WWI. WW1)
A French soldier shows a Lebel Model 1886 bolt action repeating rifle (French: Fusil Modèle 1886/M93 ) with cartridges laid out on a table. He loads the cartridges into its forestock tube magazine and then uses the bolt to eject the rounds. Next is shown a French Mannlicher Berthier M.1890 Cavalry Carbine. An animated sequence shows a 3-shot clip being loaded into this weapon.
Camera pans assortment of different French hand grenades lined up in a row. (one falls over.) Scene shifts to a man inserting percussion fuses into F1 grenades. Next sequence shows World War 1 French soldiers behind sand bag barriers as they practice the technique for throwing hand grenades. (World War 1. WWI. WW1)
A group of French soldiers with rifles equipped to fire grenades. From a position low in a trench, they fire V-B rifle grenades.
Soldiers fire 37 mm mobile trench cannon in France. Soldiers sit in a field. A cannon in the field. They fire. (World War I. World War 1. WWI. WW1)
French soldiers clean the tube of a 58mm trench mortar and load a shell (bomb) equipped with fins onto the tube. Next scene shows the mortar in a trench, as one soldier lights the fuse and moves away from it. The fuse burning. ( World War 1. WWI. WW1)