[1] As part of the British preparations for the Battle of the Somme, 183rd Tunnelling Company from February 1916 onwards dug dozens of Russian saps for the attack in the front sector allocated to XV Corps.

Two tunnels which housed such weapons – located at Kiel Trench south-west of Mametz, and between Carnoy and Kasino Point – were damaged by German shellfire before the attack.

[4] The weapon was used in Belgium in 1917, but was found too cumbersome to use, requiring bringing to the front line and assembly by 300 men, dangerously loading it with flammable fuel, and then being able to fire only three bursts before emptying.

Compressed gas would then drive a piston forward in the main body of the device, forcing fuel out of the underground tanks into the surface nozzle, to be ignited and directed at the target.

Historians Peter Barton and Jeremy Banning with archaeologists Tony Pollard and Iain Banks from the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow were successful in May 2010 in finding at Mametz the remains of one of the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projectors.