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Title:A MACHINE GUN BATTALION TRAINING IN FRANCE, THE MEN LUDENDORFF FEARS [Main Title]
Film Number:IWM 243
Other titles:THE MEN LUDENDORFF FEARS [Alternative Title]
Summary: Demonstrations of tactics with the Vickers machine gun at the Machine Gun Corps Training School at Rombly, France, 15-17 June 1918.
Description: (Reel 1) Exercises and physical training on a parade ground. The trainees strip and re-assemble a Vickers machine gun. This is followed by a demonstration of a machine which fills cartridge belts automatically. Four machine guns blast a hole through an 18-inch deep (50 cm) sandbag parapet at a range of about 100 yards/metres. A machine gun section on the march with its eight pack mules entering the start of a trench system. A machine gun platform hidden in a tree. Back at the parade ground, teams of three demonstrate setting up and dismantling their machine guns. A sports interval of wrestling on horseback and officers' quoit tennis. An RE8 overflies the school slowly so that machine-gunners can practise sighting on it. A section coming out of the line is "greeted" (acted?) by men at the school. The men out of the line strip and clean their weapons. (Reel 2) A series of demonstrations of machine gun tactics. A section of four machine guns shows how to conduct a retreat at the gallop, moving the guns in pairs from cover to cover in limber carts. Men crawl forward in long grass to set up a "nest" undetected. Machine-gunners and Infantry make a practice attack under smoke and shellfire. Finally "the dogs of war", a head-on shot of a mascot dog balanced on the barrel of a machine gun fades into a shot of a man aiming the same gun at the camera.
Alternative Title:THE MEN LUDENDORFF FEARS [Alternative Title]
Production Details: Ministry of Information (Production sponsor)
Topical Film Company (Production company)
Jury, William F (Production individual)
Buckstone, Walter A (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, Machine Gun Corps (regiment/service)
Keywords: training, British military - weapons: machine gun & [+] (object name)
weapons, British - smallarm: Vickers machine gun & [+] (object name)
animals, mammals: dog (mascot) (object name)
recreation, British military - casual: quoit tennis (object name)
recreation, British military - sport: wrestling on horseback (object name)
aircraft, British - combat: Royal Aircraft Establishment RE8 (object name)
01/3(4-15).8 (event)
Machine Gun Corps Training School, Rombly, Pas-de-Calais, France (geography)
Instruction (concept)
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W
Sound format: Silent
Soundtrack language: None
Title language: English
Subtitle language: English
Technical Details: Format: 35mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 2
Footage: 712 ft; Running time: 19 mins
