This month, we look at the collecting of munitions from the Great War. Mark Khan examines this collecting area, highlighting some of the pitfalls and potential dangers that might be encountered.
MILITARIA COLLECTING
One of the fascinating aspects of collecting related to the First World War is the subject area that covers ammunition and ammunition related objects.
During the First World War, prodigious quantities of ordnance were manufactured. To give some context to this, by November 1918 the total strength of the British and Colonial Forces was listed as 5,336,943men. Supplying the men that comprised not only the fighting element, but also the supporting arms, required vast quantities of ammunition. For example, during the opening of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916 through to the following day, British gunsfired some 1,177,396 rounds of high explosive artillery ammunition alone. And, as another example, the number of standard British .303 ball ammunition manufactured just in June 1916 at the Royal Laboratory Arsenal, Woolwich, amounted to 42,900,000rounds.
What we now call “recycling” is not a new concept and during the First World War the prodigious expenditure of materials dictated that any …
