British War Material Vol V 1918-1926

The War Office lists were first circulated to officers commanding as ‘Changes in Artillery Materiel, Small Arms, Accoutrements and other Military Stores’. From the late 1860s they became ‘List of Changes in Artillery Materiel, Small Arms and other Military Stores’. In 1872 they were renamed the ‘List of Changes in War Materiel and of Patterns of Military Stores’. Each item on issue, from siege guns, mounts and carriages, to wagons and small arms, right down to trivia such as admirals’ chamber pots and rat traps, was announced on introduction and any changes or advance in mark or nomenclature notified therein. From this extensive library of generally locally bound volumes, the paragraph references relevant to the muskets, rifles, carbines, pistols, bayonets, swords, dirks, weapon accoutrements and accessories, leather & webbing equipment, ammunition, pouches, chargers and even the rifle chests and ammunition boxes, have been compiled into a useful format which also lists the dates of approval and introduction of individual items. Reference here is made by paragraph number rather than by page or section, making this a veritable bible for any serious collector of British, Empire or Colonial firearms, edged weapons or militaria. The List of Changes were often referred to in official correspondence and papers. Land forces, Naval forces and later on, Air Ministry, were separate services to which a distinguishing letter was applied, ‘L’ for land, ‘N’ for naval and ‘A’ for air, with ‘C’ being used where an issue was common to all forces. This designation letter was applied to the nomenclature heading of each item. Each volume indexed, with master index in Vol. 5. 210pp.