Year 13 Warfare Trip

On the 1st April we had the fantastic opportunity to take 13 of our Year 12 and 13 History A Level students, along with students from Devizes School, on a trip to witness the nature of firepower from the early 1900s. The day was hosted by the Vickers Machine Gun Collection & Research Association, a military history charity dedicated to the study of firearms and their place in history, they arranged for a demonstration of a selection of firearms from the late 1800s to the mid-1910s which concluded with a Vickers and a Lewis Machine Gun being fired with live ammunition. This is an extremely rare event and our students were incredibly lucky to see these historic artefacts being used. In addition to the firing demonstration the Vickers Machine Gun Collection also hosted a talk on how weapons and firepower changed over the course of the 1870s to the 1910s with the chance to handle deactivated examples of numerous First World War firearms. This also included an incredibly rare belt filling machine which students were able to watch in action as a belt of 100 rounds of .303 ammunition was loaded as it would have been in the First World War. 

After a fantastic demonstration of the firepower which changed the nature of warfare, our students had the chance to handle and shoot a selection of First World War rifles.  Being coached and supervised by members of St. Barbara’s Rifle & Pistol Club our students had a truly unique experience, starting first with training rifles, as soldiers in the First World War would have done, before moving onto to either a Lee Enfield of Mauser rifle, the main British and German weapons of the First World War. Our students showed some incredible marksmanship potential as well as bracing themselves for the heavy recoil that the Lee Enfield would produce for them. This put an awful lot in context for them about the experiences of soldiers in the First World War. 

The whole day was a great success and has provided our Y12s with an idea of what they will be studying next year and our Year 13s a unique revision experience of content which could come up in their final exams. All of this was made even more relevant by the fact that the ranges we were using were in the Regimental Depot of the Worcestershire Regiment who used them during the First World War for rifle practise. We would like to thank the Vickers Collection and St. Barbara’s Rifle and Pistol Club for volunteering their time and designing an event which was geared towards supporting our students final outcomes as well as providing them with a truly unique experience that we are sure few, if any, other schools can provide. 

Mr D Voisey – Teacher of History