What was the French weaponry in World War 1?

Answer 1

The standard issue rifle of the french army in WW1 was the 'lebel' gun which carried 8 rounds from a tube magazine which ran underneath the barrel. These had to be loaded incredibly carefully as bullets were placed nose to primer, which means if one round were to smack into the bullet in front of it it could fire every bullet in the magazine in front of it causing small explosions. This made the rifle incredibly dangerous to use but it was all the french had, eventually it mas modified to carry a 3 and later 5 round internal magazine similar to those found on Austrian Steyr manlicher (Spelling?) rifles.

Another weapon used by the french as well as several other nations was the chauchat ( pronounced show shah ) which carried a 20 round magazine. It was inexpensive to make but notorious for getting jammed as magazines were open and in the dirty environment of the trenches, mud and dirt could foul up the magazine and weapon as a whole.

One of the most used weapons of the war though was Field guns (artillery of various shapes and sizes) and Mortars in attempt to break up or destroy enemy defenses amongst the trenches as a precursor to an assault, both the french and Germans tended to use this tactic