Vickers-Maxim Machine Guns Enthusiasts' Manual
Vickers-Maxim Machine Guns Enthusiasts' Manual

Author: Martin Pegler

Publisher: Haynes Publishing UK

Published: 2019-11-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781785215636

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Vickers-Maxim Machine Guns Enthusiasts' Manual is the first in a new range of Haynes ‘crew-served’ heavy weapons manuals. The Vickers is one of the best-known British heavy machine guns. The Maxim gun was the first fully automated machine gun to be introduced into military service at the end of the 19th century. Gradually refined to become the Vickers 0.303in medium machine-gun, it was used widely by British and Commonwealth forces in both world wars. Operated by a three-man crew, it was popularly known as ‘the Vickers’. Firearms expert and acclaimed author Martin Pegler, a former Senior Curator of Firearms at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, describes the concept of an automated machine-gun and its potential use for land forces; its genesis, design, development and early trials; and the introduction by the UK military of the Vickers machine gun and its adoption for infantry, aircraft and armoured vehicles in the world wars of the 20th century.

The Vickers-Maxim Machine Gun
The Vickers-Maxim Machine Gun

Author: Martin Pegler

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 178096384X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The world's first self-powered machine gun, the Maxim gun became a potent symbol of Victorian colonialism in the closing years of the 19th century. It was the brainchild of Sir Hiram Maxim, the American-born firearms inventor who founded the company bearing his name with financing from Albert Vickers, who became the company's chairman; Maxim's company was absorbed by Vickers, Sons and Company in 1897. Subsequent variants in British, German and Russian service – the .303in Vickers (1912), 7.92mm MG 08 (1908) and 7.62mm PM M1910, respectively – dominated both the Eastern and Western Fronts during World War I and soldiered on into World War II, while the Vickers remained in front-line British service essentially unchanged until 1968. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork and written by a noted authority, this is the engaging story of the Maxim and its descendants, the innovative rapid-fire weapons that saw combat with British, German, Russian and other forces in the late Victorian era and throughout the world wars.

Machine Gun
Machine Gun

Author: Anthony G. Williams

Publisher: Crowood Press UK

Published: 2008-11-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781847970305

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The machine gun had a dramatic effect on the conduct of warfare; one or two men operating a single machine could produce the same weight of fire as a squadron of rifles, and when used against an inferior enemy, the effect could be devestating. During the First World War, the use of the machine gun in conjunction with massed barbed wire and other obstacles put an end to battlefield mobility until new weapons and tactics could be devised. This book describes the development of the machine gun from the earliest models to the present day. The focus is very much on portable infantry weapons used in the support role, so automatic cannon of 20mm and larger calibres are excluded. The categories of weapon included are, therefore, Light Machine Guns [LMGs], a term which includes the Squad Automatic Weapon [SAW] and Light Support Weapon [LSW]; Medium Machine Guns [MMGs]; Heavy Machine Guns [HMGs] and General Purpose Machine Guns [GPMGs]. One specialist variety of machine guns is included in a separate chapter: the grenade machine gun [GMG], also known as the automatic grenade launcher [AGL]. With a country-by-country breakdown of machine guns, including comprehensive appendices of gun and ammunition data, along with hundreds of photographs, this is a comprehensive study of a most effective battlefield weapon.

The Vickers Machine Gun
The Vickers Machine Gun

Author: Dolf L. Goldsmith

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780996521871

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the limited-quantity Exclusive Edition, which features an upgraded red casing with gold stamp design and beautiful red and gold end papers. The Vickers Machine Gun: Pride of the Emma Gees is an updated and expanded edition of a previous work by author Dolf L. Goldsmith called The Grand Old Lady of No Man's Land: The Vickers Machinegun, published in 1994. Dolf and several other subject expert collaborators, including Dan Shea, Robert G. Segel and Richard Fisher, have collectively added over 300 pages of new content and photos! This hardcover book, printed in the U.S.A., is an invaluable reference for Vickers machine gun enthusiasts.

Hotchkiss Machine Guns
Hotchkiss Machine Guns

Author: John Walter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-28

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 1472836154

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Created by a long-forgotten Austrian nobleman, Adolf Odkolek von Augezd, the air-cooled Hotchkiss machine gun was the first to function effectively by tapping propellant gas from the bore as the gun fired. Although the Hotchkiss would be overshadowed by the water-cooled Maxim and Vickers Guns, it proved its effectiveness during the Russo-Japanese War. The gun, quirky though it was, was successful enough to persuade Laurence Benét and Henri Mercié to develop the Modèle Portative: a man-portable version which, it was hoped, could move with infantrymen as they advanced. Later mounted on tanks and aircraft, it became the first automatic weapon to obtain a 'kill' in aerial combat. Though it served the French and US armies during World War I (and also the British in areas where French and British units fought alongside each other), the Odkolek-Hotchkiss system was to have its longest-term effect in Japan. Here, a succession of derivatives found favour in theatres of operations in which water-cooling could be more of a liability than an asset. When US forces landed on Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima, battling their way from island to island across the Pacific, it was the 'Woodpecker' – the Type 92 Hotchkiss, with its characteristically slow rate of fire – which cut swathes through their ranks. Supported by contemporary photographs and full-colour illustrations, this title explores the exciting and eventful history of the first successful gas-operated machine gun.

German Machine Guns of World War I
German Machine Guns of World War I

Author: Stephen Bull

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-05-19

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1472815181

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

World War I's defining weapon for many, Germany's MG 08 machine gun won a formidable reputation on battlefields from Tannenberg to the Somme. Although it was a lethally effective weapon when used from static positions, the MG 08 was far too heavy to perform a mobile role on the battlefield. As the British and French began to deploy lighter machine guns alongside their heavier weapons, the Germans fielded the Danish Madsen and British Lewis as stopgaps, but chose to adapt the MG 08 into a compromise weapon – the MG 08/15 – which would play a central role in the revolutionary developments in infantry tactics that characterized the last months of the conflict. In the 1940s, the two weapons were still in service with German forces fighting in a new world war. Drawing upon eyewitness battlefield reports, this absorbing study assesses the technical performance and combat record of these redoubtable and influential German machine guns, and their strengths and limitations in a variety of battlefield roles.

The Vickers-Maxim Machine Gun
The Vickers-Maxim Machine Gun

Author: Martin Pegler

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 82

ISBN-13: 1780963831

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The world's first self-powered machine gun, the Maxim gun became a potent symbol of Victorian colonialism in the closing years of the 19th century. It was the brainchild of Sir Hiram Maxim, the American-born firearms inventor who founded the company bearing his name with financing from Albert Vickers, who became the company's chairman; Maxim's company was absorbed by Vickers, Sons and Company in 1897. Subsequent variants in British, German and Russian service – the .303in Vickers (1912), 7.92mm MG 08 (1908) and 7.62mm PM M1910, respectively – dominated both the Eastern and Western Fronts during World War I and soldiered on into World War II, while the Vickers remained in front-line British service essentially unchanged until 1968. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork and written by a noted authority, this is the engaging story of the Maxim and its descendants, the innovative rapid-fire weapons that saw combat with British, German, Russian and other forces in the late Victorian era and throughout the world wars.