11mm Vickers "Balloon Buster" Machine Gun
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The United States adopted the Vickers gun as the Model 1915, but one of its uses was as an aircraft machine gun. Since it fired from a closed bolt, the design was easily fitted with synchronizer or interruptor gear systems to fire through the arc of a propeller. The French developed an incendiary loading of 11mm Gras for use on observation balloons, and the US adopted this variation as well, ordering 1700 of them from Colt in 1918 (in addition to 4300 aircraft Vickers guns in .30-06). The guns were fitted with muzzle protectors, recoil buffers, feed block booster springs, strengthened top cover latches, ventilated barrel jackets, and a new type of fusee spring adjustment system.
This example has been fitted with a Birkigt synchronizer, as would have been used on a SPAD XIII in American service.
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"The 12 gauge auto-loader.
The 45 long slide with laser sighting.
Phase plasma rifle in 40-watt range.
The Uzi 9mm.
The Vickers balloon gun in 11mm gras."
"Just what you see buddy...."
Good for killing down to the decimal.
Terminator?
@@karlbush89 yes
hey , you cant do that..... Wrong
So which will it be?
All...
I am constantly impressed at how adaptable the maxim design was, especially for such an early machine gun.
Maxim knew his shit. The basic design was good from the start. There's a reason he's in the Pantheon along with Colt and Browning.
Yep, the Vickers is the best weapon in the Heavy Machine Gun category, having been used all the way into the Cold War.
That's what happens when you severely overbuild a gun but do it in the right way.
The pieces on Maxims are stupidly big, there's no magic to the guns, it's just that the design is reliable and all of the components are very chonky.
All they had to do basically was scale it up.
@@anzaca1
They didn't exactly scale up the gun, they kept the same receiver and most components, as I said before the Maxim was flexible because it was overbuilt and pretty big
When you need to be absolutely sure that annoying neighbor's kid party is ruined
Do it work on icecream trucks or do I need to bring out the 40 mm triple A for that :)
@@exploatores no you need a 37 mm pom pom
I think a average 50cal with work but or a what was it.... I think it’s a 8pouder aa gun will do the job
@@sicknashty3837 I think a QF 40 mm Mark III would be easyer to get shells for. ok that is a bit later in history. but do we realy need all WWI stuff.
@@exploatores ... Yes, definitely. It has to be from the Great War, otherwise you're just not being sporting.
At one point being a Balloon Buster meant you were a hero.
Now they call you a "creep" and throw you out of the theme park.
Hey watch it, that could have a double meaning. In my youth busting the balloon had a negative impact on your wallet 9 months later. trust me on this.
@@stevenbaker8184 ...hmmm... Yet more revealing signs that times have indeed changed for the worse.
@@ravenslaves unfortunately true.
Wow. How blind people are when they don't know the meaning of every word they hear.
Haha
Balloon killing machine, or world's most intricate rolling pin, you decide.
Nice
Why not both?
Nice
"You be the judge"
I see it as a giant lightsaber.
Need to crowdfund a set of 11mmx59mmR Gras Disintegrating link stamping dies...some reloaded ammo, and get Ian up in a SPAD...
@@williamkeith8944 Snoppy flew a Sopwith Camel (which looked suspiciously like a doghouse). FWIW Sopwiths used 7.7mm Vickers guns.
@LabRat Knatz He would die in a single seater. It was amazing these things flew at all. The rotary engines of those days didn't even have a throttle which would be recognized by the pilots of today (there was none...they "Blipped" the magneto's input power - Power was ON or OFF.... no in-between... there was also a manual spark advance to keep the engine running smoothly (detonation was almost immediately fatal to these old engines, and the fuel they used back then was basically white gasoline - TetraEthyl Lead not being used in fuels until the 1920's). The SPAD did have a simple throttle, however.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine For ground/test purposes, I should think that one could develope specifications for a cloth belt with suitable spacing and retention/extraction characteristics, but I don't know enough about setting up some sort of industrial sewing process to get the requisite uniformity. The next step would be identifying a suitable production or swadged, or less likely cast, bullet, and developing a load to 11mm Vickers specs rather than 11mm Gras (IIRC, the Vickers had distinctly higher pressure).
@@joelvca a cast bullet with a gas check would probably work just fine, since they're being used in modern 45-70 and 50-110 cartridges and pushed over 2,000 fps. It would very likely be the cheapest option, as a bullet mold isn't that much, and use .45 gas checks.
@@randomidiot8142 That simplifies things, and I was partially mistaken about the cartridge. I've been hunting specifications on 11mm Gras/Vickers, and the only thing I have found so far is that base was flat rather than stepped as the original Gras (thicker/stronger rim). Apparently, the original French incendiary loads were to Gras specs, and I found this posted on a forum:
From 'Flying Guns - World War 1: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1914-32' by Emmanuel Gustin and myself:
"More successful was the French development of a Vickers gun in their old 11 mm Gras rifle cartridge (11x59R) together with the Desvignes Mark XI incendiary bullet (which was actually a long-burning tracer), the resultant conversion thereby being known as the 11 mm or Gras Vickers. As with the British .45 in, the lighter bullet permitted a much higher muzzle velocity in the region of 600 m/s. The French were the major users although the USA adopted the weapon and ammunition in late 1917 (both being already manufactured there) and produced the weapons by converting some existing Vickers guns chambered for the 7.62x54R, a Russian order which had been cancelled following Russia's withdrawal from the war. The USA developed their own high-velocity loading with a tracer/incendiary bullet weighing 17.5 g. The guns could be fitted in place of any Vickers, but were reportedly not popular as the recoil was significantly heavier, causing more vibration when firing. However, these weapons were still much in demand at the end of the war, despite the development of similar ammunition for rifle-calibre guns, as the bigger projectiles permitted a much larger filling of incendiary and HE material. The USA continued experimenting with the 11 mm guns into the early 1920s, and manufactured over 500,000 rounds of ammunition for them."
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
This looks like something you'd dual wield in a new Wolfenstein game.
Or Serious Sam 4
It reminds me of some of the low poly models from the Turok series on N64 where all the weapons just look like a tube with a barrel lol.
These early machine guns with cylindrical cooling are the inspiration for fallout 4s machine guns, too.
@@lasarousi Please don'tremind of those "assualt rifles". If the had called them machine guns I wouldn't have a problem, but they went from the sensible AK inspired "assault rifles" design of the other 4 games (Vegas is Canon, I don't care what Bethesda says) to a WW1 era (intended solely for use with bi/tri-pods) design and it (like so many other things about that game) annoys me to no end.
@@Hello-og I believe the reasoning behind the machine-gun style AR was that it was an AR meant for mechanized American Power Armor troops, where the weight of the large barrels and drum mags weren't much of an issue for someone with the strength of full power armor. The "AK" style rifles from prior games are Chinese assault rifles, which alongside the smaller Service Rifles, were meant for the pure infantry troops during the war.
"There is no 11mm Vickers ammunition available."
*Steinel would like to know your location.*
This is one of the most steampunk weapons Ian has shown us.
Because the Maxim style action is so reliable it will probably see a come back in the 23rd century when the Imperium battle the techno-barbarians for control of the Wasteland.
I think you mean "Maxim Pattern Heavy Stubber" brother.
Hmmm... it'll do until I get my twin linked storm bolter
I think we're reaching light autocanon territory
It's still used far after the Heresy, but too bad the technophiles hoarded all the remaining guns.
welp, biomutant humans vs cybrgs inc.
With the Experience from the early Zeppelin attacks over london, they figured out that you can't just shoot incendiary bullets into a hydrogen balloon and have it explode. even if ya shoot a whole magazine of explicitly incendiary bullets. They enter the hydrogen envelope, and pass right through. because the hydrogen and the oxygen don't fully mix there is no ignition. so what they discovered in these heated night battles over london, was that if you mix incendiary bullets to every four normal bullets what will happen is the normal bullets will poke holes in the balloon and cause the hydrogen to mix with the air, which the incendiary bullet will then light. cuz like Ian said, these balloons can take a surprising amount of bullet holes put into them before anything happens.
Yes! Darn, I just made the same point in another comment thread!
Indy?
wrong channel, dude
Surely firing only incendiary's would also poke holes in the balloon for hydrogen and oxygen to mix. I see that firing mostly normal bullets would be more effective though.
@@tord1508 The thing is, the incendiary bullets will use up any oxygen they manage to drag in themselves as they're passing through. Peppering the balloon with FMJ will allow air to mix with the hydrogen peoperly, making the whole thing a seriously inflammable target.
Hydrogen. Shaken not stirred.
Quite an unflattering name for something that looks like it should be attached to the Millenium Falcon
"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself."
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good Vickers machine gun at your side, kid"
I like your reference as the mauser C96 was the basis for the blaster of Han Solo👍
@LabRat Knatz I think it had more to do with surplus being cheap in the 1970s before many of the stupid laws we have today, even more so if someone was trying to get rid of malfunctioning ones, they still had to modify them significantly to not look like they were using 50 year old weapons. The E-5 blaster and E-11 blaster don't seem out of place compared to each other.
@@jackmcslay The films were shot at Pinewood in the UK, so the armourers had an odd mixture of mostly European firearms, including a Lee-Enfield. I've always been fascinated with the occluded eye gunsight on the Rebel blasters - it was a kind of early red dot sight that worked by blocking off one eye.
Let's also not forget that the fabric that the balloons were made of also tended to be coated in flammable coating to create a good gas seal... Also send this thing over to C&Rsenal so Othias can do that incendiary weapons special he has been promising us.
Here's hoping he will include the Martini's Royal Labs "flaming bullet" rounds in that video.
@crgzero Nitrate aircraft dope. still around today.
@crgzero Doping made the cloth rigid. So it was used in planes and outer skins of the zeppelins. The observation balloons were dirigibles. So the cloth had to be flexible to collapse when deflated. The balloon cloth could be impregnated for a good gas seal but surely was not coated as the coat would crack the moment the balloon starts to inflate or deflated. Also also contrary to popular believe most mixtures used for doping were combustible but not flammable. So it would burn presented with enough heat but not start a fire from a spark just like for example wood or the cloth it coated.
Thank you Ian. Commonly called a 0.5" Vickers but Vickers made their own heaver 0.5" gun used for AA and as AT mounted in tanks and armoured cars. Not the same gun as this one but both used the normal Vickers maxim design.
I have a video on a .50 Vickers coming...
@@ForgottenWeapons hopefully with some shooting...
@@ForgottenWeapons Excellent. I look forward to it.
I wonder if the barrel jacket whistles when air goes through it.
Stars & Stripes, God save the King or La Marseille? 🎵
@@williamkeith8944 Hm, suddenly the flight goggles make even more sense than they did already!
So you don't hit a deer on the runway
extremely high pitched and annoying version of the Stuka siren. The "Jericho ring tone"
@@ericpode6095 Flight of the Valkyrie.
11 mm incendiary full auto, the future comes from 1914!
I would prefer a different caliber on that. The french 11mm was basically outdated during WWI. Revolutionary when it came out but they made some bad design decisions on it and the rifle to first use it. Though it did spur a firearms and cartridge arms race to update as it was the first smokeless cartridge. Check out C&Rsenal for more in depth information. Good channel and Ian helps them out.
@LabRat Knatz maybe on round variants for incendiary technology. But cartridge design only things they share are materials pretty much. As for firearms I don't think those are really related much either. Ma Deuce is a John Moses Browning design and the other was not and he would have been subject to patents if they were too close. Again C&Rsenal would be a great place to see what they have to say.
@@TheDraco877 I think you're confusing 8×50R (so called Lebel) and 11×59R (Gras) rounds. The first one was indeed the first smokeless powder cartridge (and had all the problems you've mentioned), the latter was its predecessor and was still using black powder, and for its time was perfectly adequate. Now, this gun is using a smokeless variant of 11×59R, which would be just fine for this type of use, providing large bullet volume for the incendiary composition and adequate muzzle velocity.
@@F1ghteR41 could be too many calibers out there to remember them all correctly.
@LabRat Knatz
Though I can't remember the source, years ago I read that exact thing, that this gun specifically led to development work on the .50 BMG
The Brits had a .303 incendiary round during WWI, phosphorus compound and meant to only be used against lighter than air targets.
Scout pilots were required to carry written orders from their CO when running Buckingham or face potential court martial.
I'm guessing the 11mm came about as the larger bullet would carry more compound for a longer effective range.
Not as much range as more payload , I suspect. I do not know that as a fact, though!
If I remember correctly, the written orders were an attempt to protect the pilots from reprisals if captured, as the use of incendiary rounds weighing less than a pound against personnel was a violation of the Hague Convention, which German propaganda was obsessed with, even as they deployed poison gas and flamethrowers.
@@jeffreyroot6300 A larger payload equals longer effective range for these rounds as more compound burns longer. Once the compound is consumed they're no more effective than FMJ
I wonder how long they carried those written orders. Early War, I think if you didn't have those orders and were shot down on the wrong side of the lines with those rounds in your MG, you could be put up against a wall and shot as a war criminal, but later on in the war, I think it was fairly common for the ammo loadout to be a mix of incendiary, tracer, etc.
@@mulgerbill
You IDIOT! The "compound" is the incendiary portion of the round. It does NOTHING to propel the round.
That flash guard and cut jacket look badass. :O Also, I've always found it funny that synchronized machine guns are, technically speaking, semi-auto.
Fascinating as ever, Ian. Interrupters and synchronizers would be a fascinating video all by itself. They were around for a surprisingly long time - the Axis powers made very widespread use of cowl-mounted machine guns so their use with WW2 aircraft weapons would be worth covering too.
Russians also used a lot of cowl mounted guns. Japanese too, with cannon in the wings.
The Me109 also fired through the hole in the centre of its propellers boss.
Yes more aviation related content please Ian
Cowl-mounted guns are more effective because they concentrate fire. Wing-mounted guns have to be set to converge, which only concentrates it at a given distance. It's one of the things that made planes like the P-38 and the F-86, with multiple .50's (and a 20mm cannon in the case of the P-38) in the nose, so fearsome. Imagine all that firepower within a couple of square feet at any range.
@@myparceltape1169 “Motorkanone”, Engine gun/cannon. Not unique to German designs, but rather common for German single-engine fighters. Often 20mm or 30mm - after all, they had to kill bombers as well as fighters…
Not all planes who could mount one had one, even if they had the hole in one propeller hub.
Literally 20 minutes ago I was just watching a C&R video about the Gras rifle and they talked about this thing they did with the ammo. Thanks Ian love learning more about strange things like this
I would love to see Mae get her hands on one of these, or even a 37mm Pom-Pom. She would require a grin-ectomy after decimating a target.
The 11mm Gras cartridge is quite astounding due to the applications it was applied. The casing used to develop the 8mm Lebel and now a machine gun chambered for use in the skies!
They would winch the balloon down when it was attacked, into a nest of AA guns. So you didn't actually have very long to safely shoot at the thing. when it was up in the air. why they wanted a more effective cartridge.
That and the fact normal holes are easy to patch.
Interesting. I know the balloons themselves had a machine gun to defend itself against air attack, and that anti-aircraft guns were far more effective around the balloons because they could use the very known length of the line on the balloon to more accurately judge the altitude of the attacking aircraft.
@@classifiedad1 I don’t know of observation balloons carrying weapons - airships certainly did, though.
Do you have any sources?
@@advorak8529 I recall in C&Rsenal that they talked about observation balloon observers carrying various small arms, to include various rifles and pistols, and Drachinifel's episode on Royal Navy operations in the Baltic did note an episode where a Red Russian observation balloon shot down a Sopwith Camel with the observer's revolver.
I had assumed they carried machine guns as a result without looking further. However, none of the pictures I had found in the searching yielded a machine gun-armed balloon or even a basket with the provision for such a weapon. They all seemed to have parachutes, visible by the steel container on the side containing the parachute.
It seemed that standard procedure was rather to jump out in the event of attack, and let the AA do the rest. Being under a doped cloth bag of highly flammable hydrogen would be quite disconcerting at the best of times.
I do stand corrected in that regard.
“BALLOON GUN!!!” *airhorn noise*
Man just woke up and I’m already gunna learn something today
Ah yeah, probably the sorta guns you'd mount on a Hughes Devastator so you wouldn't have to rely on aerial torpedoes to pop gasbags ;)
"When you hit the ground, tell them Nathan Zachary send you!"
Agreed. They don't make Combat Flight Sims like they used to. Warthunder is nice, but it doesn't scratch the same etch as CS, Janes Fighter Anthology, or Aces of the Pacific did.
"And I'm just supposed to stay behind while you're out pretending to be Errol Flynn?"
"Exactly. And let's get one thing straight, sister: Errol Flynn pretends to be me, not the other way around!"
Someone let me know if I’m thinking about this correctly:
- Interruptor: The normal RPM of the gun has no relation to the RPM of the propeller. Every Nth round of the gun is delayed to prevent it from hitting the propeller, making the fire rate inconsistent.
- Synchronizer: The RPM of the gun is modified to be a factor of the RPM of the propeller. Only the first round is delayed until the propeller is in an exact position, and so the fire rate is consistent.
Something like that, but the interruptor was probably rigged to prevent the gun from firing whenever the propeller blade is where it shouldn't be. As it can spin at different speeds it would be impossible to protect it just by skipping every n-th round, you'd hit the blade sooner or later.
@@raics101 Indeed. From the top of my head, it basically just worked by letting the gun fire, but a camwheel would interrupt the gun whenever a propellor was about to pass by. As you also mentioned, that made them function regardless of the engine/propellor RPM, which is something an 'every nth round'-system would horribly fail at.
The fire rate on the synchronised guns wouldn't be consistent either, surely? Dependent upon the RPM of the engine? Fire rate would increase as you increased throttle I'm guessing.
@@KenworthW900HG or stop altogether upon engine failure, although an interrupter has a good chance to not fire in the same scenario.
The interrupter works preventing the gun firing when the propeller blade will be blocking the muzzle. The gun will fire at its set fire rate, only stopping when the interrupter is in preventing it.
The Synchronizer fires the gun once at a set "safe" portion of the propellers arc, depending on syncronizer design, this would be 90 degrees off from each propeller blade, ie firing twice per full rotation of the prop (on a two blade prop) or in some earlier cases (as I believe was the case on the Nieuport 17-21) 90 degrees off one of the blades , firing only once per rotation. with this system, it does mean that the gun fire rate is tied to the engine's RPM. On some of the Albatros aircraft, you can see the tachometer mounted askew, with 130 at the top as this was the engine rpm that gave the optimal fire rate, lower and the guns would have to wait for the propeller, faster and they couldn't keep up.
I was hoping you’d make a video about these machineguns one day. Thank you.
Idem !
About 10 years ago I inherited a small square thingy with 11mm scrawled on it. It came out of my great-grandfather's gun smith chest. I had no idea what it went to until Ian here showed a regular 303 Vickers being broken down. I emailed him and asked what I had and he was the one whop told me what it was, "11mm Vickers lock". Nice to finally see the full gun on here.
This is an interesting video on so many levels! I'll go into just a few:
1) The fall of the Russian Empire is the reason why air forces around the world are generally wearing light greyish blue uniforms - as far as I know. The Russian government had ordered the light blue cloth from Britain to equip new cavalry regiments with uniforms in that colour.
Similarly to the arms manufacturers the weavers were definately NOT going to deliver to russia without prepayment (that was not forthcoming), so they were stuck with a large amount of coupons of light blue woolen cloth.
At the same time (more or less) the Royal Flying Corps amalgated with the Navys Flying Service to form the Royal Air Force - and they needed uniforms - so that came in handy that there was a considerable unsold stock of cloth. That was light blue was rather immateriel.
2) I was not aware of there being two systems for firing through the propeller. I knew of the interrupter gear, but the development of the gear to positively fire/trigger the gun was new to me.
3) That the disintegrating belt was developed for aircraft use was also news to me.
4) That the Vickers firing from a closed bolt should be an advantage is also something I have never thought of before.
This is a video, that deserves a wider distribution to the aeronautical community.
Thank You very much for an interesting and informative video!
For 2) check the wiki page on synchronization gear. Both terms interrupter and synchronizer gear are technically incorrect.
Pure wool doesn't support a flame.
@@oldleatherhandsfriends4053 I know; but it was warm. Those aircraft were damned cold - and normally they wore something warmer over the uniform. The flame problem was, that wood and doped canvas did. Furthermore the main problem of the engines was their cooling - their terminal efficiency was nothing short of appalling by todays standards.
The aircrafts were firetraps and some pilots preferred to jump without paracute instead of being burned to death.
Nice to see the first examples of disintegrating link!! I am an Infantry Veteran from the Australian Army Royal Australian Regiment and was in DFSW (Direct Fire Support Weapons), we used the 84mm Carl Gustav, the 106mm recoiless rifle and the Mag-58 Machine Gun both direct and indirect fire!! Love to see the history of things I have used!! I think DFSW now uses the MK-19 Grenade launcher and the Javelin AT Missile!!
Thank you fot the brief description on synchronisation, methinks, perhaps there is an opportunity of a whole video to be done as a forgotten weapon
Hugh Gordon
Disney covered synchronization in VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER. I have no idea how ACCURATE that was, but it is available (or was last time I checked).
You wont see these at the fair in the balloon busting arcade tent, but it would be cool if they were or a replica shooting BB gun
Great video Ian, you've covered many aspects. Great and very interesting gun. Nothing beats 1900-1940s machinery.
Balloon artillery guy: "uhh, a little bit to the right... Keep going! Uhh, my balloon is making a funny noise. Why's it hot up here?"
At least the guy was provided with a parachute. Not a very sophisticated parachute, but If I was jumping from a burning balloon I would't be too choosy.
@@donjones4719 , I didn't know that they were provided with a parachute. I was thinking, how horrible it would be to have a flaming ball of hydrogen exploding above you. I wonder what their survival rate was.
@@MrJeepmarine low I would imagine, even with most of the fireball going up and out [from penetration points]... there would still be enough flaming material coming down on them.
I would surmise it would be hot enough to cause serious burns on the skin, and potentially fatal burns if it enters the nose or mouth.
Only good news is that it would be a fairly quick flash, that right there might make the explosion survivable... the fall? No clue.
That thing's got a pretty high goth steampunk coefficient. Nice.
*Dieselpunk
FirstDagger someone finally said it, these motherfuckers say EVERYTHING is steampunk
@@sawyere2496
Nobody cares how you differentiate the subcategories of your bizarre niche interests anymore than you care about the degree of angle of attack on a Nascar spoiler, how the linkages of a locomotive behave, or what type of fondant most chocolatiers prefer. Keep your avocado n' toast man-child angst to yourself.
Ok,
both of you should calm down 😂 I'd say its generally dieselpunk with hints of steam.
I love it when you make a swallow noise while doing great narration over the picture of the gun
The low muzzle velocity was probably the biggest reason for not using them against enemy aircraft. You’d have to give a lot more lead, and I wonder if leading a target was universally understood at that time
Hi, Ian. That was one great educational video. I appreciate your depth of research. Too bad there aren't any movies of Spads shooting down balloons. The Spad is one of my favorite planes as a boy. All my models were plastic. The planes that I flew were balsa and paper but were WWII models or Stunt planes. Thanks for sharing! Stay healthy!
It's an English gun, built by Americans for the Russians, then modified for the French?
For use against German Party Balloons.
So is it an Aircraft gun, or an Anti-Aircraft gun?
... the automatic light adjustment on this video is a bit jarring.
Yes
Also, it has no pistol grip or a trigger to be a ground gun
@@invictusangelica No version of the Vickers machine gun has a pistol grip as far as I know. And it was very much used as a ground gun, with great success.
@@sshep86 I was giving an example of a detail to know if it's a ground gun or not. The Vickers has a spade grip which is still a grip.
Both.
Observation balloons are the drones of their day, as long as youve got a balloon up you can spot any movements for miles around and counter it with artillery, plan to counter any attacks and so on.
that makes them priority targets, any observation balloon would be protected by batteries of AA Mgs on the ground and probably a couple of fighter planes up high, plus a mechanical winch to pull them down to safety as soon as a risk is seen.
The way of attacking them was to get in with a squadron of planes early in the morning so yo can use darkness and try and take them out with incendiary bullets before the ground crew can pull it down.
Its high risk, balloon busting was the mission with the highest casualty rate in WW1 simply because they were so high value they were incredibly well defended.
I had a chance to get one of these in the early 80's while in college. Local guy had one from his Grandfathers attic (really what he said!). He wanted an AR15 in trade. If I had only known that May 1986 was coming. And in the 90's, LOTS of cheap Vickers kits to rebuild it into something useful...
The RNAS and RFC (RAF precursors 1914-18) both had aircraft with Vicker's MGs in .45" British MG caliber - another odd cartridge different to .450/577" (which also existed as a Maxim for Naval service). The Brock fireworks company developed incendiary ammunition for Britain during WW1, IIRC only made in .303". A very old British-ism was to describe a large and spectacular explosion as a 'Brock's Benefit' after the companies fireworks displays.
The RFC's first incendaries were fired from Winchester 1886 rifles in .45-90.
Brilliant video as always Ian wish people like yourself who do such amazing videos would stop worrying about "making long videos", we LOVE the detail you go into, so we don't care. Keep it up.
Here's the World War I flying ace posing besides his Sopwith Camel
Underated comment
snoopy
Certain doghouses are known for their thrust to weight ratios.
Curse you, Red Baron! I shall bail out now, but I shall return once again, to fight you another day...
@@nolanolivier6791 except on christmas. Remember The Red Baron let Snoopy go on Christmas as he was a gentleman combatant. or at least The Royal Guardsman said so.
Man, another great video. Learned a ton here. Super interesting design points and modifications and philosophy of use. Love it. Ian, make your videos as long as you care to sir, I will watch every minute of it.
Great video Ian; and please, don't ever worry about whether your videos are too long or not. Since we viewers are also firearms history aficionados and since your presentation skills are superb, we enjoy every minute.
So... this gun became relevant again now.
Thanks Ian for satisfying a curiosity I've had since I was a kid! I live near the National Museum of the USAF and have always wondered how some of the guns on those old planes would have worked. The museum actually has a Spad XIII painted in Capt. Rickenbacker's livery since he was a native of nearby Columbus; but it's actually one that never saw combat.
I cannot get enough WWI weapon history.
My paternal grandfather was a Pvt in the US Army and served in France during WWI. He was severely wounded by artillery (shrapnel pretty much ate up his thighs, he was able to walk but had a lot of pain and trouble the rest of his life). My father was a late life accident and I was a kid life surprise (surprises being somewhat more welcome). I never got to meet him as he died at 66 (when my father was a teen), but heard many stories. The Great War has always fascinated me. It's like Steam Punk meets Diesel Punk (and Napoleonic tactics meet the machine gun).
Thanks for this video.
Thanks for showing examples of the ammo
Because he was a former race car driver/mechanic Eddie Rickenbacker made sure his ammo was double checked for cartridge sizing as he was aware that most stoppages were due to incorrect casing size.
He also carried a small hammer which he used at times to help remove a stuck case while in the air.
(Source, Rickenbacker's autobiographies)
I wonder if, Frank "Arizona Balloon Buster" Luke who is credited with 19 overall kills (placing him second behind Rickenbacker), with 14 of those kills being balloons, used one or two of these 11mm guns.
A Vickers with a failure? Must of been you yanks doing something wrong. ;)
@@sshep86 if I remember correctly, the armorer was actually a Brit.
Just kidding.
I enjoyed your comment.
@@sshep86 ammo stoppage.
@@ScottKenny1978 should of stuck with the .303 Proven reliability record.
@@sshep86 but the US Navy wanted the machine guns in their new rifle caliber, for supply reasons.
Just not enough recoil force with that little 6mm Navy round to run the heavy Maxim action. The Colt 1895 weighs about half of what an 08/15 does.
Slowly Nena's song is playing in my head... "neun und neun...."
..........zig luftballoons!
Marc Birkigt a Swiss engineer who founded Hispano-Suiza, famous for autocannons (HS.404) and autocars (H6).
He not only modified the guns in SPADs, he also designed the V8 aeroengine used in the SPAD 7, 9, 12 and 13.
Ah yes, I remember the P-38 had a Hispano 20mm autocannon (different war, I know.)
@@mikespongili8254 most British planes in WWII used 20mm Hispanos to keep up with the Germans who used 20 & 30mm autocannons.
I remember reading about this in the early 70's, but you're giving a lot more background information Ian. I thank you for that.
Designer "So we made it up to 11mm so it will be the most damaging"
soldier "uummm...Why don't you make 10mm the most damaging?"
"...."
"Designer " but it's up to 11.."
i recognized that reference! They definatly turned that gun up tp 11, long before spinal tap thought of it.
other designer: I only like guns that go to 11
Why not just make a 10mm with higher muzzle velocity?
*BECAUSE THESE ONES GO TO 11*
Probably the earliest way of saying "crank it up to eleven."
18:35 Ian, you an I both know that in this modern era, all you have to do to hear and see an 11mm Vickers fired at a balloon is to find someone who cares enough to open their wallet, provided that wallet has enough in it. Parts can be remade, ammunition can be customized.
so we get a kickstarter going?
@@shinget heh, and step one is seeing if Colt retained the blueprints...
I remember reading about Frank Luke the American flyer who liked to bust balloons. He was said to use a 45 caliber MG for this purpose. I never knew what that was until today. He received the first MoH as an airman, and in Arizona, Luke AFB is named in his honor. Thanks for the historical clarification and always nice to learn something new. Dave
I love your videos, they're so informative and I really like how you go into detail about each gun. Thank you.
Detailed video on an aircraft machine gun: Easily my favorite Forgotten Weapons content.
There's actually a fourth way to get a gun to fire safely through a prop, and that's electrical. AFAIK it wasn't used in WWI though. It was defintely used in WWII, the prime example being the 20mm MG-151s in the wing roots of the Fw-190. These used electrically primed ammunition, i.e. there was no firing pin, just an electric current applied to the primer. It was then a relatively simple matter to arrange interrupted slip-rings on the prop shaft that cut power to a gun when a prop blade was in front of it.
Isn’t that functionally identical to an interrupter? Just instead of mechanical timing it’s electrical?
@@ryanrising2237 Yes essentially. It's a lot more reliable than trying to temporarily stop a machine-gun with a collection of long rods and cams though.
Ditto mg 17, mg 131.
Why isn't electric primed guns used more often? Beside the etronX that is
@@thesturm8686 It's used widely in aircraft cannon to this day.
Ian, a quick point. I work at a facility that makes, stores, purifies, liquefies, hydrogen, and we ship it by pipeline and by tanker trucks. Hydrogen will burn, but only when mixed with oxygen. I suspect that the 11mm wasn't much more effective at carrying an incendiary payload as much as it was more effective at making larger holes to allow better mixing of the hydrogen in the balloon with the atmosphere around it.
@ 6:20 thank you! I was wondering why, forgot the reciprocating barrel design.
Clicking like button early. This just when I thought I had a handle on cartridges, even the obscure stuff! That 11mm round would be a serious day-wrecker!
I'm honestly curious to know if that ammo is able to be reproduced from a parent cartridge? after all:what good is an NFA machine gun if you are absolutely unable to feed it? stay well friend!!!✌
loud American youre actually allowed to have any weapon you please without anything the government says you need for it to be legal cause of the second amendment but we havent been using it as intended and have just been giving in to the so called “laws”
Michael McDermott youre the complete idiot and are forgetting the second half that says "the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear "arms" (which just means weapons not certain ones and its not just short for firearms) shall not be infringed. (limited since you apparently dont know what that means) and its wasnt just cause they didnt have a standing army and wasnt just for back then or they wouldve written it to say that but they didnt they said all PEOPLE have the right to all weapons and didnt say "until a certain point in time" or "ony if its certain weapons" or "only weapons as long as they dont have certain parts or function a certain way" etc you get my point theres no way to change what they said and actually mean in it for any reason or any circumstances or after any amount of time etc the "well regulated militia" is literally anyone not in the real army or government or police that isnt corrupt who will fight the corruption physically thats why it says for the security of a free state and the well regulated part means to be well trained and actually able to fight back and stand a chance against the corrupt government cause theyll have way better weapons than you will (if you let them that is by not fighting physically against it like you should i mean) and the more people you have armed with all those weapons the beter off we are (if we're willing to do it though cause if we dont its pointless to have the second amendment)
@@gcart7675 Imagine needing to update a 244 year old document - the horror
Michael McDermott imagine not understanding what it says and why it says that like it does like you dont apparently theres a lot better reason for it being written the way it was than what youre wanting to change it for thats for darn sure just look at history man all the people wanting gun control ended up getting slaughtered by the millions by their own government cause they wouldnt fight that tyranny nazi germany with the holocaust and a ton of communist countries like russia and china
Fascinating to finally see a balloon gun.
WWI aviation is one of my favorite subjects, and many things are long on fable but short on physical evidence, this gun being one of those much fabled things.
This is great. I've been using these in WWI flight simulators, and it's nice to get such a close in-depth look at them.
This is one of the most impressive ideas from early 20th century firearms I've seen so far. Keep up the good work my good sir.
9:29
missed opportunity to say 'adjust the spring tension on the fly'
dislke
In Biggles books, if he was going balloon hunting with incendiary he had to have permission to use the incendiary ammunition for a specific target. I think incendiary was considered inappropriate for use against human targets as it wasn't FMJ. Biggles books are far from a solid reference boom, but I assume this was based on something real. More research required.
W E Johns (author of Biggles) was an actual WWI pilot, mostly as an instructor, but he did see front-line service with the Independent Air Force flying DH.4s. So it's more a case of needing evidence to prove him wrong than prove him right.
@@davidgillon2762 When 2nd.Lt. W.E.Johns was shot up, wounded, shot down and captured, he was put on trial for his life as a terror flyer. The Germans accused him of deliberately targeting schools to kill children etc., etc. Quite untrue of course, and he reckoned it was just an interrogation technique. He thought it futile anyway for as he put it "A 2nd Lt does not know much about anything!" Having said that, it is worth remembering the fate of the captain of the Harwich Ferry, Captain Fryatt. A surfaced U-boat tried to take his ship so he rammed it. He was later captured and tried as a terrorist and executed. As he was RNR it could be argued it was his duty to fight and protect his ship and that his execution was a crime ( the PM of the day certainly said it was murder). I believe he later got a State Funeral as did Nurse Edith Cavell. The German occupying forces met resistance with accusations of terrorism (Franc Tireurs) and executions, which may well have coloured W.E.John's thinking.
I thought the same having been a Biggles fan so had a look I know all sources are not reliable, but this from Wikipedia sounds about right. "The British Royal Flying Corps forbade the use of incendiary ammunition for air-to-air combat with another airplane, as their use against personnel was at first considered to be a violation of the St. Petersburg Declaration. Pilots were permitted to deploy them against only zeppelins and balloons. Furthermore, they were required to carry written orders on their person when engaging these targets." Lets face it Biggles would have never have been so dammed unsporting to have done such thing!
@@Decafnothanks Not entirely sure about the last bit. The very first Biggles books are much darker (and realistic) than what came latter. Biggles drinks hard, smokes and is on the edge of a nervous breakdown and is sent home for a rest. In one story Biggles tracks down a German pilot who is using a captured allied aircraft to ambush and kill unsuspecting allied pilots. I reckon that Biggles wouldn't have hesitated too much.
Wow, that the hell of a machine. Thank Ian for all thoses video you make. 🇨🇦
“If you take an 11mm cartridge and fill it up with some phosphourous incendiary compound and blow that in the hydrogen baloon, it gets it out of the air very quickly” - On the contrary, it gets it into more of the air very quickly. And some of the ground, eventually, i guess.
My grandfather was Ralph A O'Neill, one of americas first fighter Aces. He said these jammed like a motherfucker when you needed them
Thats cool
Murphy's Law ;) But I suppose this was among the worse environments for reliability :P
Dont worry about video length, give all the information you deem necessary, how long it may take, we dont care.
Hi, Ian. I just saw this video. Once again yo9u did a great job teaching history. I made models of many WWI planes. The Spad and the Albatross were my favorites. Thanks for sharing! Stay healthy.
it doesn't matter how long the video takes, this is very informative for me Ian. Thank you.
Epic, nice vid, never knew this existed
Balloons were filled with hydrogen as it was easily available, but helium was only available in the US from gas wells in TX and OK.
Note that parachutes were developed to allow balloonist to get out of their flaming craft.
In WWI, almost all propellers were directly driven from the engine, so prop rpm and engine rpm were the same, but synchronization had to account for number of prop.blades.
First impression: "OMG, that's übersteampunk!"
there's a subcategory of steampunk called dieselpunk, related to a tech era when things first started to be diesel-powered, and also tied to a shift in fashion
I like the Modifications they did to enhance its air cooling - the jacket probably created a nice forced air venturi that really enhanced the cooling. That super stiff spring on the cover makes total sense for a platform that could be maneuvering and spinning around at fairly high speeds (well for those days anyways.) Great Video and very informative. I would have liked to see you operate the charging handle because it looked like it had some weird locking, cam mechanism on it. Great Stuff as always!
A beauty of early 20th century machining.
Always wondered about synchronizer dor propellers, now i know
Someone is gonna start making 11mm rounds and links now because 'Merica.
Starline is probably working on the brass as we speak. 😄
Maxim 37 mm one pound machine gun? 250/300 rounds per minute sound expensive
Very interesting Ian! Thanks for the great video!
Amazing clip, Ian!
Such a shame there's no chance to shoot one of these anymore. Because they look so badass
If you want me to, I could probably build a .22 LR direct blowback semi-auto copy with about a year's worth of milling and lathe work and more money than most people would care to spend
@@wraithwyvern528 A nice idea. You won't be able to legaglly ship it to my country though.
Lieutenant, what do those Vickers Balloon Buster machine guns fire?
11 millimeter explosive-tip cased, standard light armor-piercing round, why?
Another informative and interesting video. Thanks Ian! 👍
Thanks for posting this -- I'd seen one in a museum some years ago and then ran into a wall of "no such gun ever existed" when I tried to research it. Nice to know I hadn't just dreamed it.
For anyone who is interested, there was a fascinating NOVA documentary on WWI zeppelin warfare that mentioned the aerial machine gun technology that was used to shoot down zeppelins, which is all pretty much the same concept as shooting down artillery observation balloons. It covered the use of incendiary bullets to set fire to the hydrogen. (Plus a lot of other stuff about the technology of zeppelins themselves; it's an hour-long program).
Here is the link: czcams.com/video/wzW4258oIyg/video.html
Frank Luke - the Arizona Balloon Buster - apparently used it. KIA and honored with Luke AFB today.
Brilliant! Thanks Ian! Learned something new today. Never knew about this. Assumed it was all Dewilde bullets in 303.
You are awesome Ian I learned so much, keep it up buddy
BLOONS TD INTENSIFIES
What i wonder is was the 11mm Vickers/Grah Incendiary propelled with smokeless powder at equal or greater muzzle velocity than the original? Or was it still using ye olde black powder alongside a modern .303 Vickers MG?
Considering how everytime automatic black powder guns are brought up he ends up saying "They just don't work well, the fouling clogs them up very quickly no matter what you do", I would expect this to have run on smokeless. EDIT: I won't claim to KNOW, just that every discussion on the subject of machine guns running black powder I've seen has so far ended up in the conclusion "nope". =)
I expect its a reduced smokeless loading. The black poweder fouling would be a problem, and seeing the lead rounds tells me it's not ideal for a full filling of smokeless. That would shred the bullet in the barrel. Curious none the less
@@KuroNekoKohi The wiki does indeed suggest that they changed the powder formulation and how the bullets were made during the life of the cartridge. Wiki misses a lot of things, so running them with smokeless late in life is IMO totally a possibility:
The original 1874 cartridge fired a paper patched, 25.0 g (386 gr), 27 mm (1.06 in) long lead bullet driven by 5.2 g (81 gr) of F1 black powder, with a muzzle velocity of 450 m/s (1,500 ft/s), the velocity dropping to 430 m/s (1,400 ft/s) at 25 m (82 ft).[3]
An improved cartridge was introduced in 1879 with a slower burning F3 powder, alterations to the tip of the bullet and a reduction in the height of the patch. In 1884 a bullet was introduced of 5% antimony and 95% lead which was compressed and hardened instead of simply cast, and the tip was flattened to improve accuracy.[3]
During World War I an incendiary round was manufactured to be fired from the cartridge for the balloon busting role.[4]
As far as I am aware they used smokeless, but they would almost certainly had to have kept the pressure down to prevent problems with the cases and keep the total energy levels down to a level the Vickers could handle. The Vickers was a rock solid action, but still an action designed for .303 - approx 8mm. A .50 Vickers was later developed firing 12.7x81, but that required a substantially scaled up action.
@@discerningscoundrel3055 yes, the Maxim gun didn't like going smaller, either. The US 6mm Lee ammo was too small/light to reliably run the design.
Love how patient F.W. is.
Thanks for posting. I've always been curious how they synced the gun to the prop.
Since it blew up hydrogen filled balloons, may I propose a nickname "The Rain Maker" ?
People say "it looks totally Steampunk". They don't know how right they are.
The Chinese "Weather" Balloons don't want the algo to recommend this one....
Pity Ian didn't mention the Arizona Balloon Buster, Frank Luke. He was the leading US ace against Balloons (14) and America's first pilot to receive the Medal of Honor. That aside, one heck of fantastic history lesson on the 11mm Balloon Buster. Learned a lot! Thanks!
Good to see ya Ian!
Oddly looks futuristic.
thats true for so many of the ~1890s era designs :0
Next time I will go to the fair, I will bring one of these guns 🎈
They're in for one hell of a ride back down.
I just acquired one of these for static display. It has an "A" prefix, so it must be one of the French issue guns. I have a number of Gras cases, so loading up dummy ammo should be no problem.
Thank you Ian for teaching me the word 'louver'