Vickers Machine Gun

Origins

The British Army adopted the Maxim Gun in 1889, and in 1897 Hiram Maxim's company became part of the armaments firm Vickers, Sons & Maxim. The Vickers engineers then set out to make the gun lighter and simpler to build. They reworked the locking mechanism, inverting the toggle so that it broke upward instead of downward as in the Maxim, and replaced much of the heavy bronze and steel with lighter parts and aluminum. The result weighed far less than the old Maxim but worked on the same principle. The British Army adopted it in November 1912 as the Gun, Machine, Vickers, .303-inch, Mark I. When World War I began in 1914 only a few battalions had it, with two guns each, and the factories took until 1915 to begin producing it in large numbers.

Design & Construction

The Vickers is a recoil-operated gun. When it fires, the barrel and the lock move back together a short distance. A toggle joint then folds, unlocking the breech, pulling out the empty case and taking a fresh cartridge from the belt, before a spring drives everything forward again. The barrel sits inside a water jacket holding about seven and a half pints. In sustained fire the water boiled, and crews led the steam through a hose into a can so they could condense it and pour it back. The gun fired about 450 to 500 rounds a minute from a 250-round canvas belt. It was heavy: the gun weighed about 25 to 30 pounds without water, and its tripod as much again or more. A crew of six to eight men carried the gun, tripod, water, spare barrels and ammunition.

Combat Use

In October 1915 the British formed the Machine Gun Corps, and the Vickers guns were taken from the infantry battalions and grouped into machine gun companies. The lighter Lewis Gun replaced them in the battalions. The Vickers companies learned to fire over the heads of their own infantry and to drop bullets onto roads and trenches out of sight, using maps and clinometers like artillery. The best-known example came during the Battle of the Somme. On 24 August 1916 ten guns of the 100th Machine Gun Company fired about a million rounds in twelve hours to support an attack near High Wood. Synchronized Vickers guns, firing through the propeller, also armed British fighter aircraft such as the Sopwith Camel.

Legacy

The Vickers served again throughout World War II, in Europe, North Africa and Burma, and in Korea. It was made or used by many other countries, including Australia, India, the Netherlands and Russia before 1917. It earned a reputation as one of the most reliable weapons ever made. Crews kept guns firing for days with only barrel changes. The British Army finally declared it obsolete in 1968, and its role passed to the general-purpose machine gun. The Bren and the Lewis had been lighter and more mobile, but none matched the Vickers for steady fire over long periods.