The world's longest serving machine gun, the Maxim Model 1910 with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- Our Christmas special this year sees Jonathan delve into a weapon with a fascinatingly extensive service life. Copied from a Finnish design from the Winter War, this Russian/Soviet Maxim variant saw extensive service in both world wars and continues to crop up in the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine today.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:50 Maxim History
02:18 Russian Maxim
05:00 Snow Jacket
11:30 Service History
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Considering it has been almost 140 years since development of the first Maxim gun they were clearly made to last
Sir Hiram invented his machinegun before smokeless powder was invented. In fact, he was one of the first designers to develop smokeless powder for his machine guns. His son, Hiram Maxim, also developed the sound suppressor because his dad's hearing was going. Funny thing, Sir Hiram's nephew, also named Hiram Maxim, worked with Carl Porsche (but got fired) (Edit: Carl Benz, not Porsche) designing the early car engines, but he got the idea from the sound suppressor to invent the car muffler. Funny thing, car mufflers reduce noise and boost back pressure, just like sound suppressors. But back pressure is a bad thing in guns. :)
@@wittsullivan8130 there was no Carl Porsche. The man behind Porsche as well as Volkswagen was Ferdinand Porsche.
@@fuckinantipope5511 I got his name wrong. I meant Carl Benz. Our local car museum had one of the early Benz carriages.
R😊⁵55😊😊
At about 6:30 into the video, you mention the Finns not bringing water with them because there was snow everywhere anyway. One thing there, if you are at 15 centigrade below zero, you wouldn't be bringing water, you would be bringing a solid block of ice. That you couldn't get out of the canister. So it would be totally, totally useless. So snow would be the only option. So that snow cap thingy wasn't there because it was a little bit more convenient than bringing water along, it was there because it was absolutely vital!
How do you know Finns didn't keep their water close to their body underneath their uniforms? They would still need to drink during the battle.
@@10pattern Seems you answered your own question.
@@10pattern Eating snow, boiling it, mate. Simple.
How do you express the value _-15°C_ in as many syllables as possible? 😄 Excellent point though. I guess you could use some form of antifreeze (or even just plain ethanol) to solve the problem, but cutting a big hole in the top is a simpler and more practical solution, even if it's not a very elegant way of addressing the issue.
@@rjfaber1991 Most English-speakers are American, and it's really a toss-up whether or not Americans will recognize that format.
Every time I watch one of these videos, I think that Jonathan is the most perfect person for this job. Not only is he madly passionate about the subject matter, but he also has a most pleasant conversational style of communicating that passion for us lucky viewers. Thank you Jonathan, for your efforts is making these and other videos, and for writing portions or complete books and reference materials for us as well. I am thinking in particular about the little booklet on 'Tea or Milk in First?' as yet another example of your sense of humour and love of history.
I'm currently working my way through his book; Thorneycroft To SA80 - a little too large for bedtime reading.
It sat at a friend's in the US for 2 years, thanks to Covid travel restrictions.
1000% better than Othais. Ugh.
There is a coloquial expression in Balkans when someone is a heavy hitter - _'He hits like a maxim on a division'_ .
And now I finaly know what that means. ☺️
Lupas ko maks po diviziji hahahahaha kod nas je kad neko prica gluposti cesce
@@tomislav2494 može i tako :)
Small correction: the first time the Soviets encountered capped water jackets on Finnish Maxims was actually in 1939 during the Winter War.
When your museum curator/staff is excited they have all matching serial numbers on a piece the general public probably won't be close enough to see, that's when you know you have the right man for the job...
Plus as far as museum staff that wear suit jackets(blazers?) He's got the *most awesome* set of shirts he has on in most of the videos he makes(granted this one lacks such a shirt)
“Whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim, and they have not,” 💀
-Hilaire Belloc
I think a large part of the reason why these are still around in Eastern Europe is because the Soviet Union had some serious preparations for surviving a nuclear war and part of those included keeping a lot of obsolete technology in storage because it would be much easier to use if civilization had mostly collapsed after a nuclear war. This included things like maintaining a fairly large fleet of steam locomotives and armored trains since they'd be the most viable form of transport if the infrastructure for oil had been destroyed and be useful for maintaining control of the vast area of the Soviet Union. The Maxim MG is similar in that it's so dead simple that in the event of a nuclear war it could probably be kept running with a tiny industrial base and would mean that the Red Army would still have access to automatic weapons, same goes for the Mossin-Nagant. The Soviet Union of course also just liked to maintain massive stockpiles of weapons but they generally did get rid of things that were too obsolete, either by selling them on or just destroying them like their heavy tanks, but they kept around the absolute oldest stuff because in the event of a nuclear war it'd maybe be the only things you could keep running.
This is also where some of those armored trains that have been spotted probably come from. The Soviet Union obviously didn't use them itself and had no plans to use it in a war but they were there as a worst case survival plan.
“Lots of machine guns have improved upon it to do its job… except for one thing”
That never gets old.
Where does he say that?
@@essex3777 Its a paraphrase but it is in there.
Just what I wanted in a "special Christmas episode"
We now know what Santa has to ward off any pesky fighter jets.
2:45 That looks like the right color to me. I used to have an army surplus business, and deactivated Russian Maxims were widely available at the time. They all looked to be the same color as your example.
I suppose it's possible that they could have been repainted at some point, but they looked original, and they were selling for so little at the time that I doubt they would have gone to the trouble of repainting them. They were selling for around £300-£350 at the time. They go for a lot more than that nowadays, and I wish I had bought ten of them lol
I wish I could get a demilled one for that price :((
@@khemib Me too. They cost a fortune now. I'd love to do a semiauto build one day...
@@thepenultimateninja5797 you were talking in GBP, can you get converted to semi auto weapons over there? Here in Spain it's illegal :(
@@khemib Sorry, that probably was a bit confusing. I'm originally from the UK, but I emigrated to the US in 2009
@@thepenultimateninja5797 ah makes sense. I moved away from the UK too, and have found Spain to be alright in this subject
I am amazed about how people get to watch websites, such as yours, that produce quality videos about all kinds of topics, for free, and yet complain about volume, lighting, etc. I'm in my 80s, and am so glad to sit in my home and be educated and entertain about every subject under the sun for FREE. It would never occur to me to complain. Maybe it's the concept of younger generations that we are entitled to perfection without paying for it. Thank you for your time, effort and expertise in producing weekly videos for our edification and enjoyment. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from an old fart in America.
Could not agree more. Plus the new techniques in archeology connecting us to our past reveal more hidden truths right under our feet.
There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism. Nothing to do with entitlement as you suggest - younger people are just keener to help out and improve things, I guess.
I agree to a point. I’m 60 and British.
Until the internet we only had reference books, video tapes or DVDs, or the occasional tv documentary in low resolution.
I don’t mind if people are suggesting improvements in lighting, maybe recommending better cameras for higher resolution, better camera angles to spot details such as proof marks or machining on items, sound level changes (as I’ve got older my tinnitus makes it harder to pick out words at times even with the volume turned up) etc.
But as you say we can now watch hours of videos on almost any weapon we want with expert analysis from people such as Jonathan, Ian at Forgotten Weapons, Chieftain (armoured) and others.
As a Brit who used to shoot pistols in the eighties I love firearms, their technical side and their history. But with British gun laws my chance to experience them for real is very limited.
@@nigeh5326 My hearing has also gotten worse over the years. For some reason, she still talks to me at the same volume she used years ago(especially when she is in a different room from me, such as when she wants me to bring her something). I have to go to her to find out what she wants, and then back to the room I was in to get it for her.
As to your gun laws, it is a shame what the politicians have done to your law abiding citizens. We are lucky that our founding fathers gave us our second amendment to our constitution. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment.
There is absolutely no question its effectiveness for entrenched defence. Especially if you use the armoured shield.
Yes I was saying the other day to those mocking its continued use in ukraine, theres no other machine gun around you can fire as continuously and reliably as this one. The fast flying jagged metal doesnt stop coming out of the end just because it's an old design. Still a very good gun for fixed positions with a crazy range.
@@Ukraineaissance2014 yeah I think people forget that for the niche its used it does well, and for Ukraine who still has limited resources in some cases. A Maxim at a choke outside a city frees up a more modern MG for other soldiers to use in more mobile actions. And the bullets from the Maxim make enemies just as dead as they would if they came from a brand new machine gun.
Yeah enemy small arms fire is your least concern when fighting entrenched, What you should be worried about 2022/23 is accurate artillery and air burst munitions, the latter is very and i mean VERY effective in removing basically everything that could fire back at you.
@@BeeTriggerBee and thats where the maxim excels- suppresive fire to keep the enemies where they are
@@Ukraineaissance2014 the ones mocking the maxim gun clearly knows nothing about firearms, but only knows it's really old. sometimes, age is just a number indeed. i would actually have a maxim for defensive purpose instead of a pk/pkm tbh
Can You make video about the Finnish Sampo L41 - after the German MG34 one of the first GPMGs and one of the rarest machine guns of the world? According to the Royal Armouries website the Royal Armouries collection has one.
The German version of the Maxim was officially called 'Heavy Machine Gun 08'. A lighter version was called 08/15, this became a colloquialism in German meaning 'bog standard' or 'absolutely nothing special'.
As Jonathan says the Maxim still has a role to play when used in a defensive position such as a bunker.
It’s basically reliable, has a decent rate of fire, can be used out to long range and being water cooled it doesn’t need the barrel changed as often as many later machine guns.
Yes to modern eyes it’s very heavy, clunky and lacks a precision sighting system but if you want to sweep an area of ground where enemy infantry are it still does the job.
Overall it was and is still an iconic weapon everyone recognises and respects.
Merry Christmas Jonathan thank you for good content this year it has been hell of a year but with ur royal armories series has been interesting n your other series aswell IV have tuned in to every episode so merry Christmas from Australia
My father used to be an NCO in coastal rangers in 1980's and in the navy in 1990's. They still used Maxims in fixed costal and archipelago fortifications, all the conscripts were trained to use them ( even I had a chance to shoot these when I was about 10 years old). Not 100% sure, but these probably were phased out in mid-1990's when ex-DDR PKM's were bought in large quantities.
Some things that I remember about this gun:
- pissing to the gun was actually told in training , something like "Whatever you do, dont let it dry out. Just throw anything in that's not flammable."
- Maxim is really, really good in one thing - sustainable fire. You cannot get as much RPM out from it as you can from MG34, but you can shoot hours. No need to change barrels.
Ahh yes of course, Santa's PM1910.
*St. Nicholas's Maxim
*Belsnickel's Vickers
@@stevemc6010 Tovarish Ded Moroz!
Pere Noel’s Pewpew
I love this channel! A very fitting and exquisitely English holiday firearm treat!
Whatever happens, we have got
Johnathan Ferguson doing content on here and Gamespot
It's hard to explain to people that turn their nose up at anything that isn't cutting-edge, but some things don't change. If you're killed by a Maxim, you are just as dead as when you get hit by any modern weapon. It may be harder to hit or move with one of these, but they work, and work, and work....
Jonathan is the sort of fellow who calls a "spade grip" a spade grip.
Thank You Jonathan Ferguson. Have a Safe & Happy...
Always enjoy watching Jonathan. Him and Ian are my goto for gun stuff!
Arshins? Really? I've never, never expected to hear this ancient Russian measure of length mentioned in an English language video.. For some reason I'm really impressed ))
Except it’s not Russian, it’s Turkish and literally means “arm”
@@sperrfeuer4158 Well, "arm" seems to be as good way as any to measure length (certainly as good as a "foot" )) ). I wouldn't be surprised if we have gotten this word from Turkish - I think we have plenty of borrowed words from turcik languages over the years..
This is most definitely not the only video that mentions Arshins as a distance measurement on firearms, btw. Forgotten Weapons has done it several times on firearms produced under that system ( as well as Jonathan on here ).
Ain’t no Maxim like the Old Snow Maxim, cuz the snow Maxim service don’t stop.
Years ago I used to play online games with a couple other gun guys and one of them had a Maxim machine gun. It had been passed down through his family and he would often just wheel it out and show it off for video chats. It was an awesome conversation piece and came with great bragging rights.
Merry Christmas Royal Armouries staff :)
And to you too
Merry Christmas Jonathan!
Yards, metres, arshans... I gets sixteen rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!
Who are you so wise in the ways of science?
@@RoyalArmouries There are some who call me... _Tim._
Loved seeing a picture of a Ukrainian Maxim with a modern red dot sight on it :)
Ukraine is apparently using twin mounts of them as anti-drone weapons, so you've got a weapon with it's start in the 19th century used against weapons from the 21st century.
@@SgtBeltfed Well it got used as AA during ww1 so what goes around comes around i guess.
We still use the M2 Browning, which first entered service in 1921.
a nice holiday gift!
I bet there's been a few Brits who looked at that water system and thought "hot water for a brew"?
Thanks for the great content Royal Armouries! All the best for 2023.
Probably a deciding factor in its acceptance?
Believe me, you wouldn't want to drink any beverage made from water taken from any water-cooled mg's barrel jacket. The hot water often was used for shaving and basic field hygiene, however...😉
Thank you and Merry Christmas 🎄.
I had no idea the range on those that's amazing.
ty
My favourite quote of all time is applicable to this video
‘Now I have a machine gun Ho-Ho-Ho’
keeper of firearms and artillery is such a cool job title.
Merry Christmas!
Hello mr jonathan! great video as allways! have a nice christmas my man!
Thanks for all the videos this year, hope to see you again in 2023 to carry on my research project. Best wishes, N.
See you then :)
happy holidays and have fun with le machine gun
working in a machine shop implementing many old 50s era machines I see Vickers "made in England" on a lot of them. They are pretty complicated, take a ton of oil to stay happy, but they never breakdown.
Very cool, a local gun shop near me has one of these on display.
I have several different Maxims in my collection. They're built to last forever.
When the British Army were changing from the .303 calibre, in 1963. There is a tale that they brought a newly overhauled vickers out. The army bases entire stock of 303 ammo amounted to five MILLION rounds. This had to be somewhere like Catterick Garrison. It took them a week to run through the entire stock of ammunition. Apart from a pile of worn out barrels the rest of the gun had suffered no wear that rendered it unserviceable.
That is one man firing, another feeding the belts. The third man shovelling away the pile of ejected cases. Makes Knob Creek look like a church outing.
Sat what you will about a Maxim Gun; it's clumsy, heavy, slow to reposition, but when you need to pound out a continuous stream of rounds, there's very little that can match it for firing time.
Just what you want at Christmas, a machine gun! 🙂
This is literally still in use in Ukraine right now. As a defense against Russian human wave attacks, nothing else compares.
With modern optical sights too
How bizarre
oh plenty of things _compare_ it's not like they are the only way to make a machine gun, these just *still* work great (short version? that "water cooled" part is important, all other comparable-function options are different approaches to the same problem). the basic device has remained largely unchanged since the first couple models all the refinements over the last _nearly a century and a half_ have pretty much just been more thoroughly refining and optimizing parts with the occasional switch out of materials. kinda like how there is surprisingly little mechanical difference between a GAU8 avenger, an M134 "minigun", a nerf gun that fires darts as a near-solid stream that some glorious geek made for the heck of it, and a hand-cranked gatling gun literally made by Richard Gatling himself.
heck, even back then gatling made some versions with them newfangled "electric motor" things which got up to around 3000 rounds a minute, wayyyyyy less practical back then though since you do NOT need that much spray in your spray and pray unless you're doing something like shooting at/from an aircraft or something like bouncing around in the back of a truck where at best your aim is going to be a general direction, for shooting into outdated military formations from a stable stationary gun mount they actually had to train gun operators to keep the fire rate _down_ to give events a chance to process.
-miniguns are called "mini"guns because they are literally just M61s scaled down from 20-mils to good ol' 7.62x5.56 nato...I'm not even sure they bothered rebalancing any of the parts for physics interactions that scale geometrically vs exponentially.
guns are simple devices and like with most engineering generally speaking the simpler you can make the device the better, adding parts almost never adds efficiency _or_ reliability, after permutating out firing/ammunition mechanisms and gas exchange systems advancements in guns (that's the guns themselves not the ammo) almost entirely consist of production process advancements allowing more production of higher quality tools...basically to make a better gun all you can really do is make a straighter barrel and a more finely balanced gas system that wastes less energy.
If it works don't change it.
Saw a picture of a maxim being used in Ukraine recently, pretty crazy stuff.
Not really. Browning MGs are of the same era and are also still in use. The only thing that pushed them aside was the adoption of different ammunition.
I think I've seen one of these in a photo from Ukraine with a red dot sight attached..... talk about old verses new. But your right, you wouldn't run in front of one of them when it's firing, even if it's 100 + years old.
Inspired engineering
Excellent as usual but I did want to hear some more about the shield and carriage/tripod thingy.
We'll have to revisit this then ;)
There's a couple of nice examples in the Light Infantry museum in Shrewsbury , with cards that say where they were captured when and by whom .
He stood upon a little mound,
Cast his lethargic eyes around,
And said beneath his breath:
“Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”
Hilaire Belloc, 'The Modern Traveller'
Can anyone give me a reason why other Maxim guns such as the Vickers didn't have a similar cap? I can't really see any major downsides to it because it means you can do away with the funnel but it's still got a good fit to keep hot water and steam in it.
Yes they've had to reinforce some aspects a little bit but I would think the trade off is worth it.
Russians used snow
Simply unnecessary for the situations the British were going to use it in, I suspect other countries made the same decision.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 I think being able to refill the jacket using a bucket, canteen, or whatever else rather than using a pencil sized orifice is a pretty big improvement, no matter the environment. Just probably not big enough to justify retooling, which even for relatively minor changes is very expensive.
Apparently Maxims are a major part of the defense of Bakhmut.
Dear Jonathan, greetings from Kyiv.
Bonus, you can make tea from the water in the Maxim
More dakka!
great video but i'd love to hear more about the carriage which is what always seems unique about the Russian (and Finnish?) Maxims, was the wheeled/skidded carriage a good enough stabiliser or was it often removed from that kind of mount if it was expected to defend a fixed position for a significant length of time?
This channel is like softcore Forgotten Weapons.
I think in 2110 we will still be using this.
I saw a photo of a carriage based Maxim mounted in the bed of a Ukrainian pickup to make a technical.
There's one in the most recent Azov SSO video from Bakhmut on its wheeled carriage in the last few days...
It appears at 34.49 in...
czcams.com/video/CIdHKwvXaEg/video.html
Water might freeze. Snow as subsitude is quite brilliant
Great video - To compare things the Swedish Kulspruta m/36 would complement this video smoothly. But It spang up in its modified state at a little later date. Do you happen to have an example at your Royal Armouries?
Hi I'm from Maine and can resist anything about Maxim's. Matter of fact Sangerville Maine,Hiram Maxim's Birthplace and childhood home was also the birthplace and childhood home of Harry Oakes;who was also a titled British Citizen. What are the odds?
"niche application" is a nice way to say, "if it aint broke, dont fix it." despite all the replacements and upgrades over time.
Must admit that mount always makes me think it is for people the size of Hobbits from Lord of the Rings :) Here you are Mr Frodo another belt of ammo, :)
I can't carry the ring Mr frodo, but I can carry your maxim!
I imagine the British version replaced the water cap with a tea kettle?
They would take the boiling water from the Vickers’s water jacket to be used for tea
@@stc3145 That would have tasted like shit if actually done...
Hard to imagine so Brit soldier to see maxim as tea kettle when
shit and parts from body are flying around.
Not even going for that small fact that when hands stops from shaking
after fight that water is warm at best.
If we really want to push that then not getting diarrhea from that water
is next to miracle anyway...
Now... if they mounted one of these on a sled...
In fairness, pretty sure our Danish boys were still lumping around variants of the MG42 in Afghanistan. Considering the trouble they were having with them, probably more likely the MG3s but still, same toy really. Auto-fired 54R is gonna be something else.
This is a basic water-cooled machine gun from before the First World War in 1884, but its inventor was an American-British Steven Maxim who discovered it, but the Russian Red Army used it the most, and it is also identified with it, even though the imperialist British started to use it for the first time when occupying the territories of Africa
It has also been produced in 7.92x57mm German Mauser and 7.62x54mmR Russian rifle ammunition versions, although these two are not common
Rate of fire 550-600 rounds/min, but the MG42 became a much better design by the Germans during WW2, which in a slightly modified version is still very successful to this day
In the First World War, the Germans also used water-cooled machine guns, but since the sniper mode of combat was very rough in the First World War, as it was extensive, everyone was shot by the snipers, from the Red Cross medics to the food deliveries to the water carriers, so some German soldiers drank from puddles on the ground. or they drank the oily water from the machine gun, which only made them sick
So thankful these are still allowed and exist in the UK. I could spend days in that armoury.
Why wouldn't they exist in the UK? The UK has lots of history with the Maxim/Vickers guns. Of course they got some in armouries and museums
@@fuckinantipope5511 some countries don't allow museum pieces to be intact iir. Can't remember off-hand, but it's Euro.
"... like no Maxim I know..."
Wow
Most importantly about the "snow caps" is that if there is snow around, carrying liquid water would not be easy. It would freeze.
"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have n--wait, they do? Oh. Bugger."
I'm sure there's a few people that could put this to good use on Christmas morning to ease family tensions.
Should have given the maxim a beard and a Santa hat, I can just picture Santa's sleigh with dual maxims to fend off the air force
I'm not sure if it is still the case, but in the 1990s, it was forbidden to export any of these from Russia - all of them had been placed into storage and they were going to stay in storage just in case - no sellingthem off as surplus as was done with the Mosin Nagant and SKS - the Maxim is simply too useful as even a barely trained person can use one effectively in a defensive position.
The fighting you were refferring to happened 1939-1940.
Have you done a video on the folding stock m1 garand? I think it would be a short video, but that thing is just so cursed I want to know more
Could one reasonably say that that the Maxim machine gun was a joint venture between the U.S and the England?
If so, that would be cool.
Thank you Johnathan for not being one of those "it's called magazine not clip" type of gun nerds
Why does using correct firearms-realated terminology classify someone as a 'gun nerd' to you? Do 'gun nerd's' live rent-free inside your head? 😠
@@haroldjedrzejczyk9449 🤓
There's a picture of one of these sitting at the back of Loncin tricycle, probably used by pro-Russian militia.
There's also a picture of two of these put together on a single mount with some kind of optic sight sitting between them. IRC it was serving with Ukrainian forces around 2014.
Some Ukrainian teritorial defence units got them, as mister Ferguson said, mostly as a mean of defence. Again, there's a picture of one of these in hands of a unit made up from anarchists, Ukrainian and others, with a caption saying that they're proud to be using same gun that was made famous by "father" Makhno.
Now there are dual AA versions of these with optics for SHORAD use on pick-up trucks.
@Alexandru Ianu Against Shahed drones it might do the trick.
@@PobortzaPlno because there are not enough of them to place them around cities, and shooting drones in city is bad idea, as some reports showing.
Yes I saw an anarchist group in ukraine recently, they were signed up to territorial defence and had ones of these which they liked, even though they had managed to get hold of a lot of ridiculously modern equipment. They were cagey on where the modern stuff came from but just donations from other anarchists around the world I'd imagine. Made my donation of 25 ponchos and arctic sleeping bags look a bit poor in comparison.
@george bird Any cent, any penny, any poncho, battery, pair of warm socks counts.
Since Feb. 24 till today I send something about 2 monthly wages towards Ukraine.
Have you got a sledge mount? They used to tow them behind horses in the russian civil war and do sort of like handbrake turns to unleash fire on the enemy
It could also serve as a samovar.
Really interesting. No surprise that it was the Finn’s who came up with this innovation
Strange part there is that not even orginal russian makers didnt see that problem coming.
Too much of just copying of existing thing. Field tests should have showed that weaknes
when it was accepted to service.
Or typical russian doctorine was acting even then.
We heard some problems from field. But we arent allowed to fix it before that order comes from
above. I guess same idea when submachine guns were firsly seen as unnecessary
waste of resources.
@@Kesssuli Initially, the Soviets didn't understand the importance of metallic ammunition belts either. Every so often, their cloth ammo belts would freeze solid, jamming the gun.
Also, Soviet machine gunners weren't allowed to adjust their aim according to where their tracers landed. Instead, they had to trust their sights, with the result that their aim was too high. You can't make it up!
Vickers were just as good
They certainly built these things to last. I'm sure I read somewhere that when the British adopted 7.62 NATO, they had all this .303 ammo that they needed to get rid off so they dusted off an old Vickers and decided to have at it. Apparently they had people with shovels removing the spent brass as it just kept on going and going and going and going! When they took it to bits later on after about 5 million rounds... there was hardly any wear on it! I bet they went through quite a few barrels though!
The M2 is getting on a bit as well when you think about it!
Can one man carry a Maxim
Большая горловина крышки для залива воды нужна была, для того, что б зимой можно было набивать в бак снег или лед вместо воды.
I am sure I read many years ago that they did a test to see how long a Vickers could shoot for, I am sure it was II days.
I also saw and fired in South Africa in I977-78 Vickers machine guns in 7.62 MM
In the 1960s, the British Army wanted to dump surplus .303 rounds so they ran a Vickers machine gun firing a million rounds for a couple of days!
@@BHuang92 It wasn't 1 million rounds....it was over 5 million rounds over a 7 day period running non-stop. Obsolete ammo that needed to be got rid of on a REME base.
I believe the test ended when they ran out of ammo, the gun kept going!
@@alexanderstaats1449
The gun was prepared by the unit armourers before firing and inspected afterwards.
Seven million rounds and several hundred barrels later, it was reported to be within specifications in every way.
Today I watched a video of you showing weapons from red dead redemption 2 but a few from the multi-player mode are missing.. Could you tell and show something about the LeMat Revolver or the Carcano-rifle?
Around 2000GBP for any weapons permit owner in Poland ;)
Was/is there any problem of these freezing over during winter? Could you shoot these to warm them up again if the water in the jacket is frozen?
I can't help but think that if you bring a lot of jerry cans full of water with you during winter warfare, you will very soon find yourself with a lot of jerry cans full of _ice_ instead, which would be a lot less useful.
But if you have a lot of snow on the ground...
You can always bring jerry cans of antifreeze from the motor pool or the local auto parts shop
@@hailexiao2770
Lets think that bit longer
You wanted already overencumbered soldiers to carry extra cans of liquid which is necessary
for cars and tanks to keep them running on wintern.
Specially when that liquid will still steam off from guns when they get hot.
Do we even need to say how waste of energy and resource that whole idea is ?
Even worser when all that was solved by bigger cap hole.
Literally no need to haul nothing else than gun and ammo in position.
Very Christmassy.
The fact that this gun is _Still_ being used in modern conflicts is absolutely amazing (for better or worse). Sir Maxim died in 1916 yet his inventions are still being used to this day, genuinely impressive.
На видео Максим на станке Соколова не образца 1910 года, а образца 1941 года, под металлическую ленту и расширенную горловину в кожухе ствола для закидывания в нее снега, льда.