“‘Opportunity’ is missed by most, because it is dressed in overalls and looks a lot like ‘work’”
Thomas Edison
Machineguns!
By the time I was involved in active fighting in Vietnam in 1968, “heavy” infantry machineguns of World War fame were all gone. My unit (USMC Infantry) was equipped with the open-bolt, gas-operated, belt-fed M60 machinegun. Each copy required a three-man crew. Belts had to remain sealed in ammo-cans until the last moment, as ammunition would corrode immediately (and subsequently refuse to feed) when exposed to moist air.
The M60 earned a spotty reputation for reliability (since improved, but the M60 is now also long-gone). My gun-crews maintained them meticulously, but it was still difficult to keep them running.
Some history:
At the turn of the Twentieth Century, American-born Hiram Maxim happily sold his avant-garde machinegun to anyone and everyone, and nervous Europeans displayed great and immediate enthusiasm! The only nation’s war-planners who expressed only casual interest were America’s!
During WWI, belt-fed, recoil-operated, closed-bolt, water-cooled Maxim and Vickers machineguns (toggle-jointed, but with no rotating bolt) ran well, but recoil operation ultimately proved inferior to gas operation, combined with rotating bolts, particularly as machineguns got lighter and handier.
In subsequent years, rotating-bolt/gas-piston and roller-delayed-blowback operating systems are considered by many to be the only ones suitable to auto-loading military rifles, automatic rifles, and LMGs. Recoil-operated rifles and machineguns, with their reciprocating barrels and required bearing surfaces, don’t work as well in the field.
Maxim’s toggle-lock would influence George Luger when he designed his famous Luger pistol, also John Pedersen when he developed his toggle-lock Pedersen Rifle (which ultimately lost-out to the Garand in 1936).
Most Maxim and Vickers heavy machineguns were “gas-assisted” via a bulky funnel-shaped muzzle device (actually a venturi) that generated a degree back-pressure which contributed in driving the bolt backward and thus reliably completing the gun’s cycle of operation Many such boosters came with a manual carbon-scraper, as excessive carbon build-up on the inside of the booster was a common issue.
Vickers was a huge British arms company, who immediately saw the potential of Maxim’s system. Vickers engineers took the original Maxim design and flipped it upside-down, making the Vickers ultimately lighter and more compact than the Maxim. The Vickers, adopted by the UK in 1912, continued in active service in the UK until 1968. It acquired an excellent reputation for both reliability and durability. The Vickers was generally considered superior to the Maxim, although both saw extensive service during WWI. During the course of the War, the UK had both Vickers and Maxim guns in their system, mostly Maxims. 75k Vickers guns were manufactured in the UK before the end of the War.
After WWI, Maxim and Vickers Guns, due to their weight and bulk, were considered outdated, so most were packed-away into warehouses and forgotten. Interestingly, many have been recently re-discovered, brought-out of mothballs, and returned to active service in Ukraine- modern battlefield monitors, over one hundred years after being naively declared “obsolete!”
For continuous, sustained fire, water-cooled machineguns have no equal! So long as the water-cooling jacket is full of water, these guns will never overheat. “Water-cooled” machine guns are more correctly described as “steam-cooled,” as water used for cooling is quickly super-heated as the gun fires. There is no “active circulation” of water. Water is simply collected in a condensation tank and then poured back into the water-cooling jacket. The condensation tank quickly re-condenses the steam, so that a plume of steam does not rise up and reveal the location of the gun.
One exception is the Italian Fiat/Revelli water-cooled machinegun of 1914 (Italian version of the Maxim), which actually featured a hand-pump on the collection tank, so that water could be force-circulated through the water-cooling jacket.
The Finnish version of the Maxim featured a large screw-cap on the top of the water-cooling jacket, which allowed crews to fill the jacket with snow, when liquid water was unavailable. Russians later copied this feature on their own version of the Maxim.
As noted, water-cooled machineguns were pretty-much considered obsolete by the end of WWI, definitely by the end of WWII. Too heavy and ponderous, and they required large crews to move them, set them up, and keep them running. Efforts to lighten these guns and make them more portable (MG08-15, 08-18) were only partially successful.
Germany enthusiastically adopted the Maxim Gun (MG08), manufactured under license by DWM (Deutsche Waffen Munitionsfabriken) in Berlin and SNA (Spandau National Armory), after seeing how effectively Russians used the earlier Madsen Gun (what few copies Russia had) during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). Germany’s war planners clearly saw what most others didn’t, and by 1914 the German Army was thus equipped with 4400 copies of their MG08, along with crews well-trained to run them, while the naive British and French were still nostalgically in-love with their flashy cavalry!
The Swiss, who had adopted and Gatling Gun in the 1870s and in 1883 had just replaced it with the crank-operated, hopper-fed, two-barreled (alternate-firing) Gardner gun, (designed by William Gardner and manufactured by Pratt and Whitney in America), suddenly ordered the Maxim Gun, based on an impromptu demonstration in 1887 by Hiram Maxim himself! The Maxim Gun used in the Swiss demonstration was chambered in 11mm Mauser, a black powder cartridge. The Swiss wanted the system, but chambered for 7.5 Swiss (7.5×55), a smokeless-powder cartridge. Maxim immediately goes to work and delivers the first Swiss-contract guns in 1894 (MG94).
Maxim’s patent expired in 1909, and DWM immediately produced an improved version of Maxim’s Gun for the German Army. The Swiss, in turn, adopted DWM’s version in 1915. It remained in service in Switzerland until 1951, replaced by the Swiss MG51 (Swiss version of the German MG42).
During the inter-war years, Germany lead the way to the next generation of machineguns with their open-bolt, belt-fed MG34 and later MG42 (designed by Grossfuss). These guns were relatively light and could be moved and set-up quickly. Quick-change barrels replaced water-cooling to address the issue of overheating. A two-man crew sufficed!
In fact, German infantry squad tactics during both World Wars centered around the machine gun. British infantry squad tactics were largely the same, centering around the Bren LMG. Other squad members existed mostly to bring ammunition to the machineguns. And, this is the reason neither German, nor British, war planners saw any need for an autoloading individual infantry rifle and thus stuck with bolt-guns for the majority of WWII. Only Americans and Soviets started developing autoloading infantry rifles prior to the outbreak of WWII. At the end of WWII, the rest of the world finally (and embarrassingly) took notice and had to play quick catch-up!
Browning’s first machinegun, the gas-operated, tilting-bolt 1895 Colt/Browning “Potato Digger” enjoyed only a luke-warm reception. The 1895 Browning acquired a spotty reputation for reliability, and it quickly overheated, so it was not suitable for prolonged use in static positions, but it was lighter and much more mobile than the Gatling Gun! The 1895 Browning (in various calibers) was exported to Europe, the UK, Russia, and Mexico, seeing some active employment in far-flung places, including South Africa. It saw some use with Canadian troops during WWI, but was quickly swept-aside by the Vickers. None saw use with American Troops during WWI (aside from stateside training)
The French Hotchkiss (Benjamin Hotchkiss, by now long-dead, was originally an American) Mk 1 “Benet-Mercie” (Lawrence Benet and Henri Mercie were the designers) machine gun also enjoyed a mostly irrelevant tenure with the US Army, although around the turn of the Century it did see significant use in other parts of the world. The US Army purchased 670 copies in 1909, manufactured under license by Colt. Some were also manufactured at Springfield Armory. The gun was chambered for 30-06, air-cooled (but now with quick-change barrels), gas-operated, strip-fed, and fired from an open bolt. As was the case with the 1895 Browning, none saw service with US troops in Europe during WWI. However, four copies of the Benet-Mercie were used by US troops to fire upon Pancho Villa’s Columbus, NM marauders in 1916, and some went with Jack Pershing during his subsequent brief punitive Mexican excursion.
Browning’s 1917 water-cooled, recoil-operated machine gun, firing from a closed bolt, was clearly superior to the Maxim, Vickers, the 1895 Browning, and the Benet-Mercie, but it was not in production (at Colt) until WWI was nearly over. Remington and Westinghouse were also recruited to produce the 1917 Browning after it was officially adopted by the US War Department in 1917. Westinghouse produced the majority of 1917s. Browning’s machinegun did not require a muzzle-mounted “gas booster.”
Browning 1917 Machineguns were not actually used in WWI combat until September of 1918, just two months before the end of the War. Val Browning (John Browning’s son) went to France and instructed troops in the operation of this new machinegun, and also the new BAR, but neither had much impact on the course of the War, which as noted was virtually over by the time they arrived on the battlefield.
The subsequent M1919 Browning Machinegun was air-cooled. With the M1919, a gas-booster was re-added. The M1919 was first developed for use in tanks, only later adapted to infantry.
German-made Maxim machineguns did enormous damage on WWI battlefields, and Americans entered the War with nothing that compared!
Germans had sound machinegun tactics down pat, right from the beginning of the War. Americans (when they finally arrived in Europe in 1918), had no idea how to deploy, nor use, any kind of machinegun and had to learn on the fly! Conversely, both British and Germans had long-range machinegun fire down to a science and were routinely using Maxim and Vickers guns essentially as artillery, to great effect!
American troops had to rely upon the marginally-reliable French-manufactured CSRG Automatic Rifle, the infamous Chauchat, as it was the only “support weapon” they had. Better candidates were not available until the very end of the War, as noted. President Wilson’s unpreparedness was caustically criticized during the inter-war years!
During both World Wars, “interrupter-gears” and “synchronizers,” that prevented machinegun fire through active aircraft propellers from actually striking propeller blades, were suitable only to machineguns that fired from a closed bolt, like the Vickers and Maxim.
“Interrupter gears” blocked the gun from firing when a propeller blade was directly in front of the muzzle, hence generating a “staccato” pattern of fire. This method was employed first.
Subsequent “synchronizers” coordinated fire with the rotation of the propeller, hence tying the machinegun’s rate of fire with the propeller’s RPM. Mechanical safeties had to be added, so that a mechanic working in front of the aircraft would not shoot himself, since manually rotating the propeller would fire the gun!
Open-bolt guns could not be made to work properly with synchronizers, because with open-bolt guns, lock-time is variable enough so as to not fit within the brief window necessary to protect the propeller. Hence, Vickers guns were installed in aircraft low enough to fire through the propeller, but open-bolt guns (Lewis, BAR) were not.
As noted, the pan-magazine Lewis Gun, which fired from an open bolt, could not be made to adequately synchronize so as to shoot through a spinning propeller. Lewis Guns were thus set-up on a universal mount and used by the observer, who sat behind the pilot. Lewis Guns used by American and British forces during WWI were mostly manufactured by Savage Arms and mostly confined to aircraft. Bulky water-cooling jackets (air-cooling in the case of the Lewis Gun), where gone or skeletonized, as airborne slip-streams provided plenty of cooling.
American design genius, Issac Newton Lewis, invented his famous “Lewis Gun” in 1911. It was the original “light machine-gun.” Rugged, potent, portable, enduringly reliable, and American troops loved it, but precious few ever got to use it!
Lewis himself, like Maxim, had a abrasive personality, and did not suffer fools! Not surprisingly, he developed an immediate personality conflict with the gallery of shallow, self-serving “careerists” at the War Department. Like Maxim, in disgust and frustration, he took his gun to Europe, where it was enthusiastically received by the British and Australians. Wasting no time, they mounted the Lewis Gun on bi-planes, converting aircraft from merely observation platforms to weapons of war!
/John
