Hiram Maxim and the Machine Gun
While there were a few primitive examples of machine guns as far back as the 15th century, they did not become practical until the late 1800’s. The first widely used machine gun was invented by Hiram Maxim in 1884. In Maxim’s machine gun the gas produced in the firing of the gun provided the force needed to re-cock the mechanism and load the next round. In this way, the gun could fire continuously with no external power.
During World War I, machine guns came to be the prominent force on the battlefield. The 1914 machine gun could fire up to 400-600 small caliber rounds each minute. It is estimated that a single machine gun was worth about 60 to 100 rifles. The gun sat on a tripod and required a crew of up to six operators.
The major downside to these early machine guns was their bulky weight. Each gun weighed over 100 pounds not including mountings or ammunition. The early machine guns also had a major problem of overheating. They were also vulnerable to frequent malfunctions, which made it more effective to group several machine guns together in battle to assure that at least one gun would always be firing.
Continue to Some Unusual Weapons of World War I
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