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My guess also is that it is mechanical damage. i have seen damage like that on weapons that have been dropped into engine compartments and also having been trapped in revolving turrets of AFV's.
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Some very interesting pictures and comments on those rifles the CDN one the shell must have landed pretty much right on top of the poor b*gger was good to see the rifle get back to Canada.
As far as distance between trenches some points in Galipolli the trenches were @10yds apart with the Ausies exchanging jam tim bombs with the Turks cricket balls on more than the odd occasions, with laconic replies of "Play you next summer Johnny" denoting the cricket season.
Some times they exchanged food or notes after the May 1915 truce which was to bury the dead Turks in No Mans Land the Ausies attitude changed about the Turk as they respected him as a soldier an equal of their own high praise coming from our troops;
Some idea of the magnitude of this attack look at the expenditure from the ANZAC's of 303 ammunition!
By the 19th May, the Anzacs were ready.
Between 3.30 am and noon on 19 May, Turkish soldiers hurled themselves at their enemies. As always in this war, when close-packed masses of men attempted to storm strong trench positions defended by thousands of riflemen and machine guns, disaster ensued. Thousands were killed or wounded within metres of the Anzac line, but nowhere was it breached. It was calculated that more than 948,000 rounds of rifle and machine-gun bullets were fired at the Turks.
When the attacks ceased, the scene was horrific. Charles Bean wrote:
... the dead and wounded lay everywhere in hundreds. Many of those nearest to the Anzac line had been shattered by terrible wounds inflicted by modern bullets at close ranges. No sound came from that terrible space.
Of the 42,000 Turkish soldiers involved, 3000 lay dead along the ridge and another 10,000 had been wounded. That day gave new Turkish names to positions on the Anzac battlefield -- Kanli Sirt, Bloody Ridge; Kirmezi Sirt, Red Ridge; and Shehidlar Tepe, Martyrs Hill. Anzac losses amounted to 160 killed and 468 wounded.
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Just horrendous Ron.... It must have seemed totally unbelievable to those brave WW1 veterans when war kicked off again only 20 years later.....
