Heavy Machine Guns of the Great War 

Glad he made it out of the war

My grandfather too, but during WW2

Same here Dave so of the machine guns got so hot that they would have to piss on them apparently I know some of them had water flow through Them,

How old are you?

Living through both world wars AND seeing Vietnam is fucking insane! Big props to your paw!

The Great War Glad to help!

The Great War You should see if you can get Forgotten Weapons to do one on artillery. :)

TheRipler If we get some in, he'd be the first to know!

Rock Island Auction Company I do have a video coming shortly on the Mauser 1918 Tank Gewehr - it's almost artillery. :)

Forgotten Weapons Oooo! Really looking forward for that, I just love the looks of the gun!

I guess the alternative would have been hard to swallow too though "Huh...I guess we are. Well pack it in boys, I guess cavalry is useless now"

@@RaidsEpicly "welp, guess the strongest command in the millitary force of the most powerful Nations in the world is literally useless now. ladidah"

@@RaidsEpicly that tone changed quite fast once the first weak of trench war was over with 60k dead french soldiers gunned down by german mg´s.

Big Millennium Challenge energy Though in that case, OpFor actually did cheat, but still the complete disregard for anything that might be worth taking into account and the response of fully rejecting all of it and railroading round 2 still comes across as having the same mindset.

@@RaidsEpicly The funny thing is, that wouldn't really be right either - even in WWII, cavalry had (niche) uses and even the classic cavalry charge would be employed effectively (as it turns out, soldiers who aren't drilled on anti-cavalry tactics are not very good at stopping cavalry). But it would be closer to right than just ignoring the new technology like that.

True this, he should've said this back haha. Probably gonna earn him even more detention time though.

Wow you're really stupid, oh, and a bozo

@@ryanlowry5409 Well you are clearly American... If you are not, you should consider becoming one

@@doctor-atuti we don't want him, give em to the canadians

@@sandtrap175 The Canadians are too nice to accept him. Asides from those in Quebec. They're spiteful enough to where he would fit right on in.

Sad

God bless America

@@marcpomaville9429 schools would probably disagree

Yes very limited and we like it that way.

@@Stevie-J Funny ideas about the world?there's the pot calling the kettle black. Tell me, when have civilian owned weapons been used in an international conflict in the last couple of hundred years. Your civil war doesn't count as you were using them against yourselves.

You stick a water jacket on a AK and it will outlast the vickers

@@a.t6066 what are you waiting for?

@@nichevo1 to have an extra $50k lying around...

I've never seen someone compare an AK-47 and a Vickers, while attaching themselves emotionally to either. New experiences

Wow the water cooled, barrel exchanged heavy duty machine gun beat an infantry rifle? Crazy

NOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST DISMANTLE THE DOMINATING FORCE ON A BATTLEFIELD FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!

Well more like chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck

@@kj_heichou Yeah Maxim's weren't MG42"s

@@jonathanallard2128 still quite mortal

Underrated Comment lol

+Onur Can Vural , its simply impressive and crazy

I cant agree more

Well at 450 rounds a minute, for 7 days and 7 nights, that makes something like 4.5 million rounds that were ran through the gun, not taking into account any time spent not firing

NarcassisticGamer that's a very long belt of ammo! I assume they stopped to reload and top up the water

and probably to change gunners

+Nathaniel Rincon The movie War Horse has exactly that same result and highlights that outdated concept.

SomeReallyUniqueName It does indeed.

I'd like to think if he had to send that message in a letter, even in the early 20th century, he'd have included a winking smiley lol

Nathaniel Rincon ~ I quite agree. You must give the young man extra credit for being so dashedly polite. It is a true pity that his commander was not so dashedly bright.

The starting point of this anecdote containing this quote: 17:50 Mainly putting this here for future personal reference, however it occurred to me that others may benefit from this.

If 9 yards was a common length for machine gun belts, it's possible the expression originated multiple times

Matilda - I have cast my lethargic eye over this comment and found it good.

"A pom pom is an excellent weapon when you are using it but a horrid thing when the other chap has got it." - Sgt. P.C. Jonas, 43rd (Suffolk) Company Imperial Yeomanry, on his experience in the 1899-1902 South African (or Second Boer) War; quoted in Stephen M. Miller's _Volunteers on the Veld._ Jonas was talking about the Maxim-Nordenfeld QF 1-pounder autocannon, but the principle is similar; the Second Boer War was British forces' first taste of what a war against an enemy with even approximate technological parity would be like. Unfortunately, it seems Lord Kitchener _et al._ learned few lessons from the experience.

They learned some pretty big lessons from the Boer War, like the increased focus on musketry skills and other basic soldier skills. But the Boer War was very different to WWI- it was primarily mobile guerilla fighting, against a numerically inferior enemy. Therefore, WWI-era artillery and heavy machine guns were not the type of weapons that perform well- they are too slow to respond to guerilla attacks. British tactics against guerilla fighters to this day are based upon experiences in the Boer War. Most of the combat was small unit actions between light infantry and mounted infantry, so the British improved the quality of their infantry, and upgraded their infantry weapons to match the realities of modern infantry combat. A really key lesson learnt was that the British public health was abysmal, so welfare programs were implemented, and this greatly improved the health of the general population. This may well have been a decisive factor for WWI.

@@ZGryphon Few will truly enjoy a proto-Mk. 19 being fired at them, I think, regardless of time period.

@@TheHaighus The Boers taught the British to stop using their ridiculous conspicuous outfits and use camoflauge to make less of a target for the enemy guerrilla tactics,, something the French learned from the attack of the Germans in the early stages of the first world war? You know your history and i appreciate your knowledge my friend

What, do you want all 3 guns on a table with him standing? This is professional "even for standing up". No idea how sitting down would imply the speaker is less professional

@@slinkerdeer hi I'm your physical therapist. We're going to get you up and standing. now even though that car crash really damaged your legs I feel confident with my help you'll be able to stand again. Know what I'm going to want you to do is try to stand up while I sit on the floor.

Dude that’s not even a funny comment that’s just depressing, I’d be so pissed if somebody tried to pull that shit at my therapy

Looks more like he is going to teach you how to smoke a Bong.

Nick Anderson WILL HE BE MORE PROFESSIONAL IF HE STAND ON A CHAIR?

ecksdee

@Doge Maverick yikes, what have I done to you?

The Commander was a master of nerf hit calls before nerf was even a thing.

Doge Maverick 🤓

@HiWetcam he would have to have cart load of cigarettes to offer them first.

I can confirm everything you said, I am German. Pretty spot on!

The high command of all major powers did read many extensive and detailed accounts of these guns being used before WWI to wipe out peasant and colonial uprisings, to great effect. Because of course our honorable imperial forces would easily wipe out subhuman peasants and ethnics, surely it has nothing to do with more effective armament, but rather with the superiority of our noble men! They didn't fully understand _why_ they were so effective. Once they had firsthand experience of fighthing other rich european peoples, their opinions started to change. When you learn how to fence with a sword, you learn that the arm matters more than the weapon it's holding; but technology is an equalizer of men, it throws a mass-produced industrial wrench into the clear-cut social hierarchy on the field of battle.

It stopped before that. On August 22nd the French armies counterattacked Germany according to their offensive pre-war plans. 22.000 french died in a single day to German artillery and machine guns with little German casualties. This broke the French pre-war spirit and led to hastily new directives on how to fight. For Austria it was already the first few days of the failed offensives into Serbia. For Germany it were some of the opening battles and then the battle of gumbinnen almost losing east Prussia due to some hasty overly ambitious frontal attacks.

Vinnisl a *laughs in the somme*

There were quite intelligent thoughts behind their choise. Obviously, their air cooled gun was not flawles, but worked remarkably well. And of course the French had to be different. They had wastly different war experiences than the Germans and British. They lost the 1870-71 war, mainly due to poor means of communication and were more than anxious about being run over again. So, of course their military doctrines were different. Britain was by far the most different great power. An empire twice as great at the second largest empire before them (the Mongols under Djengis Khan) held together by the largest navy the world had ever seen. Apart from serving as colonial suppressors, the British Army had little to do, other than leave the main defence of the British Isles to the navy. But hey. Let's play another round of bash-the-french-because-they-lost-the-wrong-war.

I don't think anyone is bashing the French because they "lost the wrong war". I think you're reading a little too much into his comment, and frankly I don't blame you, because there's a fair amount of French bashers in RU-vid firearms content comment sections. It can be easy to get jaded and annoyed by all of it. I think he's just noting that the French seemed to have a tendency to choose weapons platforms that were a little and sometimes vastly different than most of their counterparts. I could be wrong, and that could have been his reasoning behind it, but taken on the substance of the comment alone, I don't see it that way...

I may have over-analyzed or over-interpreted your message. I apollogize.

I'm sure he won't notice ;) It was two years ago. Props to you for doing so though. Always nice to find reasonable people in a seemingly unreasonable world. Hope you're having a great new year Thomas!

I try to be reasonable. I fail from time to time (especially according to my daughter :-D ). And a happy new year to you :)

Interesting comment. You might enjoy reading In Pursuit of Military Excellence.

So basically, do it like a zerg player and send masses until something breaks from never ending wave of soldiers.

In my highschool years, one of the neighbors was an infantry general. He had been to Egypt for some reason, and he was impressed by Nubian soldiers. Tall and muscular top fit young men, shooting a .50 machine gun, like it were a rifle. They simply shouldered it, aimed and shot it. You do not want to be their target, you'd need serious armor. In my country, that same gun was a group weapon, carried between two soldiers. Just like you said, almost like small artillery. Today the army uses new types of personal weapons, but I guess nobody has such a heavy gun as a personal weapon. Seeing that is shocking, even to a general, who knows a thing or two.

@@voornaam3191 i guess races are different

@@voornaam3191 ER you sure it wasn't just a heavy machine gun of some sort. .50 machines guns don't generally have a stock, and while someone could feasibly shoulder it there is no way they are targeting anything more than a general area lol. IDK how strong you are you aren't carrying that gun and enough ammo to make it effective.

Almost $500,000

Too bad Maxim couldn't just take the money and live the easy life.. Like he should have had: So many ppl died by his contraptions.

@@nyyotam4057 so?

@@nyyotam4057 then someone else would have designed something similar to fill the demand, only probably less influential and not as well engineered as the Maxim gun is.

They made the equivalent of $150,000 a year? An infantry man? I don't think so. They made $50 a month, or $745 a month today - still pretty crappy pay. The interweb is at your disposal; you might want to think about using it.

+Will Myersw It doesn't precisely have to be water. If you run out of water you will use urine. You want a cuppa?

well you can always ask the company to piss in buckets and bring it to the MG, but yeah I doubt they had to go that far very often, if at all. Especially on the european fronts, where water usually isn't so hard to supply in quantity (looking at you, Passchendaele)

Loïc Rebts Actually as the classic WW1 comic Charley's War pointed out via the legendary character Machine Gunner Smith 70, you can't just pour any water from a puddle (or the mini-lakes)the rains of Passchendaele produced. There was so much mud in the water that if you filled a gun's water jacket, a few bursts would solidify it into a clay that (like a clay oven)would overheat the barrel quickly. Leaving you with an even more overheated gun. The main virtue of the over heavy Hotchkiss and the not quite perfect Colt-Browning 1914 was that their air cooling systems could handle all but the most extreme firing. The American H.W. McBride's bio on his service with the Canadian army gives a good example of that(the early Canadian army were equipped with Colts)and there is an awesome account of a pair of Hotchkisses at the battle of Verdun. All done without large use of water.

MrReded69 yeah, I wasn't really thinking of pouring muddy water directly in it, just that when the ground is that soaked, wells are never empty nor rare. Could have phrased that better. Has for using whatever is availlable, I like russian and finnish maxims, with the big cap to pour snow directly in the jacket.

Loïc Rebts Actually in the blasted battlefield landscapes, intact wells can get kinda rare. Not to mention favorite targets for artillery spotters and snipers.

They were just upset that they cant sit cross-legged like this guy.

clearly 19 cavalry men

180 now (17/06/2019).

It is people accidentally pressing the button on their phones

They are all dead, sir!

A big part of the problem, just as in the story Ian relates, was that a lot of those commanders still regarded war as a form of sport, where God was with the brave and righteous, and the battle was meant to be won with chivalry and flare so that dashing young lads could go home and impress pretty girls with war stories. The machine gun made war a whole lot more unsportsmanlike; a lot more of those dashing young lads were going home in pieces, and when six hundred rounds per minute are coming at you while you dash towards that next trench, God is usually nowhere to be found. And the commanders, themselves far removed from the front lines, took much too long to realize that.

It's never black and wite. The French were dressed in bright uniforms, but were the first that tried to even the playing field, equipping their soldiers en masse with portable automatic fire, in the form of the Chauchat.

Something ironic, according to tales of the gun, the maxim gun didn't fire flat 600 rounds, but actually 666 RPM. So god truly did not exist during and after WW1, at least in wars.

It's fair to say that the true menace in WWI were the generals who wanted to wage war the same way they fought in their youth.

Hindsight is truly 20/20. To us, today, growing up in a world of fire and manoeuvre, of automatic weapons, where standing up in the open has meant near certain death in warfare for over 100 years, the military mind-set in 1914 is unbelievable. But in 1914 this is what the military mind-set had been... well... forever. We're literally talking about traditions and techniques that had worked since the beginning of recorded history and now suddenly, they didn't. And too be fair Machine guns where really only part of the problem, the biggest killer by far, and the one that had advanced most since the Franco-Prussian wars was Artillery, which had become truly murderous. And then when you begin to bring in issues with command and control, co-ordination, and just working out how to train your troops... you understand what a monumental learning task commanders at all levels had in 1914-1918. As for bright colours, the Germans had only adopted Feldgrau in 1907 (it was so recent that when Paul von Hindenburg was brought to the Eastern Front he only had a Prussian Blue uniform), the British, the earliest adopters of camouflage, had only made Khaki the army's colour in 1902. The idea that your troops should *not* be easily visible was super high tech at the time. So again you have a high command that is forced to choose between a tried and tested uniform style that has worked since uniforms where invented, or this risky new drab uniform the British are introducing which might hinder command and control, and deplete the men's courage (why would they have confidence to fight the enemy if their uniform is designed to hide them from the enemy?). Now of course their thinking was wrong, and 100 years on it's clearly so painfully wrong that everyone can't believe it, but at the time they didn't know that. And nobody would *really* know until that moment when two European armies clashed for the first time in 40 years in 1914. And once the French had found out to their cost that the bright uniform idea was wrong they changed them rather quickly to be fair. I'd also add that in the Battle of the Somme the British army that got butchered was very very green (the British Army at the beginning of the war was *tiny* only about 70,000men, and had to be built up with people who'd never served a day in their life prior to 1915 (compared to the French and Germans who made everyone do some military service at some point in their lives)), part of the reason they where ordered to walk was because a lot of commanders where afraid that if they let their troops run they'd run, and run, and run, and there would be no way to control anyone, and then everyone would die. One last side note, as the war went on people learned to take trenches, still with heavy casualties, but they learned how to take them, the problem was that 1) once you'd taken a trench it was almost impossible to co-ordinate a breakout and destroy the enemy, or force them to retreat due to the lack of modern technology (there are lots of battles in WWI that start out really promising and then go to shit once the rehearsed and planned opening is done and everyone has to work out where everyone else is and think on the fly). 2) Okay you can take an enemy trench, but then the enemy artillery will know exactly where you are and will ruin your day, all your defences are now pointing in the wrong direction, communications and reinforcements have to cross what was no mans land, and the enemy can bring reinforcements your way very easily by railway. Chances are you are going to loose that trench you took in the next couple days.

MrReded69 It could have been some enterprising officer who threw water on the gun to see what would happen when they were testing it. Either that, or perhaps it began to rain during one of the French tests of the Maxim.

***** yeah well, while its true canvas belts are vulnerable to moisture I notice all the rain on the Western Front never stopped the Maxim guns from mowing down Allied troops like grass when needed.

Soren G Then they should have begun making the Portative (light) M1909 Hotchkiss the standard gun before WW1.

Dry rot of canvas could pose serious problems in the Sahara.

The French Empire always prioritized useage on their home turf, because their expeditionary forces are always just "temporarily mobilized". They didn't really care about losing colonies, so long as they could always call their troops back in a pinch to secure the motherland. This is how New France became British, the French reinforcements that were promised to Quebec never came. A single fleet and regiment of French men was deemed more valuable than half of North-American land, so they gladly gave the land to keep the men.

I get that it's bulky, but at the weights Ian gave I could carry it by myself; not very easily, but it would be more than fine with someone else helping. I don't consider myself particularly strong, either. Consider that most of the soldiers were strong young men who had probably grown up on a farm (especially considering the german demand for politically reliable soldiers) or doing other manual labor.

farmerboy916 I could carry it too, on flat, even ground. But even with two dudes moving that through the trenches would be so terrible.

Patrick Takada Can confirm. It wasn't easy moving just the short distance for this video, so I can't imagine moving it through the conditions that would've existed for a WWI soldier in the Great War.

Rock Island Auction Company Yeah I don't doubt that. How much do you expect/hope it will be sold for? I've never seen one with the armor, at least that I can remember.

Patrick Takada It's estimated at $7,500 - $13,000.

Rafael Gonzales Thanks!

thank you Forgotten Weapons - quality stuff.

+Glendalina Ziemba The Japanese bought Hotchkiss guns, and over time adapted the design to domestic production. Check out my video on the Type 92 Heavy MG for an example.

+Forgotten Weapons Thank you so much for your reply. I liked your video very much.... watched the whole thing, though not much into guns. I am becoming a Student of the WWI and this helps me understand some things. I am just trying to piece some things together. I do watch Indy's "the Great War" on a weekly basis. I will watch more of your videos. Thanks again.

Donald Eaton couldn't have said it better my self

I didn't know that; thanks for letting us know, Blank-blade.

The Chinese word for jerking off translates to "to shoot planes down", referring to how flak cannons recoil.

@manictiger That's awesome.Rofl

It's very possible that that was the case. However it's interesting to note that studies conducted by the US & other nations found that machine gun crews (& those of other crew served weapons) - although considerably more lethal then riglemen - did not suffer from the effects of PTSD as much or as soon as individual riflemen. The belief is that the guilt & horror is in a sense divided amongst the entire crew. An excellent book which covers the subject of killing in combat, it's effect on soldiers & how it's study revolutionized military training is On Killing by Lt Col Dave Grossman.

LUCNUKEM Thank you for the reference.

LUCNUKEM Are that WOI gunners? Because from the WOII on machinegunners kill more then riflemen but also kill from further away. Ripping apart a building or bush with men inside pr a ridge 1000m away is not the same then mowing down wave of wave of infantry coming at you at walking pace.

J.L. Roberts I don't really know much about the Winter War and the way it was fought but maybe the reasons of that PTSD malady should be looked for in the way the Soviets fought, sending hordes of men to assault enemy positions without any cover against machine gun fire.

Matteo Di Giovanni I believe you are spot on. Soviet Bonzai.

Microzombie inthink it's the maxim but better in every way except for the single pistol grip vs two hand grip.

I heard it was the waist guns on the b17s, but I tend to see this example (WW1 machine guns)the most likely origin of the phrase

Cplblue I've away's heard it was the length of the US bomber' s 50 cal defense mg belts....

I've also heard it used in the concrete industry. The majority of concrete mixing trucks hold 9 cubic yards of concrete.

Cplblue I thought it was the length of plaid fabric used in early, traditional Scotish kilts when they were wrapped around the body rather than the more modern tailored and permanently pleated ones we see today.

Cplblue I've heard it was from the length of belts on Spitfires. It seems like the saying has originated from machine gun belts anyways.

In a way the Machine guns are the reason that Artillery was the main killer. Because you could argue that they forced the generals to abandon offensive maneuvers in favour of trying to weaken the enemy positions with continous artillery barrage before lauching any assaults.

Frederik sh Spot on!

Let's not forget that machine guns very often acted as artillery. The British Army's Machine Gun Corps was equipped with Vickers guns (as the Lewis was replacing them in the infantry from '16-ish onwards) which were worked into artillery fire plans as area denial/suppression. I'm not denying that 'true' artillery played the overwhelming part in major actions and contributed to the overwhelming amount of casualties, but machine guns certainly played a significant role in the artillery's work.

artillery really got the best bang for your buck in terms of raw damage. A couple of shells lobbed into densely packed lines and trenches is devastating - there was no counter even foxholes cause the barrage kept coming, even if the actual artillery commanders can't quite figure out how effective their fire is. It's either an hour long barrage that kills a few messenger pigeons and nothing else, missing everything of value cause they aimed wrong or an empty part of the line or obliterated thousands of men without knowing it until hours afterwards.

Nukle0n from an eye makeup company??? wth?

Nukle0n maybe its natural? X'D

Inhimilis LOL WAYYYY too much TV. Be a Clairol girl LOL

Tommy Rad I have not had a TV in 8 years O.o

+Inhimilis MAYBE HE'S BORN WITH IT MAYBE IT'S COSMOLINE

Because they were adopting the 7.62 NATO cartridge, and the .303 ammo was all obsolete.

Thanks for the clarification. I am the kind of person that wants to know the cause of things. Especially if the fact sounds really odd to me:)

They didn't stop making 303 British cartridges but it's an old black powder-era design. Also a rimmed cartridge that makes it fussy to use in automatic or semi-auto weapons. (7.62 is rimless)

Of course every company can produce them, the point is that the british military didn't have a lot of use for their stockpiles of 303 anymore. They could have sold them as well but it seems they rather wanted to blow them into the dirt.

Its also easier to recycle empty brass cartridge casings than full ones. Imagine all the manual labor required to unseat bullets and primers out of the cartridges and the storage of all the unused aging gunpowder.

+kilbourne50 Thanks!

Still coming back to this

bet he's probably a metalhead :)

+Josh Stanton oh no doubt

Gun Jesus at his best

Gun jesus