Metal items the disheartened must carry in battle (7)
I believe the answer is:
tinware
'metal items' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the disheartened must carry in battle' is the wordplay.
'disheartened' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'must carry' is an insertion indicator (I've seen this in other clues).
'battle' becomes 'war' (I've seen this in other clues).
'the' with its centre removed is 'te'.
'in'+'war'='inwar'
'te' going around 'inwar' is 'TINWARE'.
(Other definitions for tinware that I've seen before include "Cheap material" , "Metal utensils" , "Metal items" , "Baking sheets" , "Metal products" .)