There was one intelligent machine gunner, Meet my Maxim, And the other machine gun was easel
By the nickname, too, Maxim.
Music: Sigismund Katz. Words: V. Dykhovichny. 1941 g.
So, last time we stopped at the fact that the "Maxim's Armory Company" began to produce machine guns and widely advertise them at the end of the 19th century. No money was spared on advertising, because everything paid off immediately. First, the machine guns themselves were sold, then the cartridges for them were sold. Secondly, production licenses were sold, and they were very expensive. Moreover, one of the reasons why Hiram Maxim managed to push his machine gun to the market was its excellent survivability and reliability, which is of great importance for mass weapons. It is known, for example, that at the end of 1899 one of his machine guns chambered for the British.303 (7, 7 mm) cartridge fired 15 thousand shots without any particular difficulty, and after that all its parts had no signs of wear. The rate of fire chosen by the inventor was also successful - 600 rounds per minute (with a combat rate of fire of 250-300 rounds per minute), which made it possible to control this weapon without any problems and with an acceptable ammunition consumption.
Atlas of drawings of the machine gun "Maxim" published in 1906. Let's not talk about its content now. We only note one thing - all the drawings were made in black ink by hand using a reefer, and only then printed.
The successful demonstration of the Maxim machine gun in European countries ended with Maxim's visit to Russia, where he arrived with his.45 caliber machine gun (11, 43 mm). Then, namely in 1887, Russia conducted tests of his machine gun chambered for 10, 67-mm cartridges from the Berdan rifle, equipped with black powder. On March 8, 1888, a significant event happened: Emperor Alexander III himself fired from a machine gun, who approved the purchase from Maxim of 12 of his 1885 machine guns under the Berdan cartridge.
The first Russian machine gun "Maxim" on a "high" machine with an additional tank for water. (Photo by N. Mikhailov)
Museum plaque under the exhibit. (Photo by N. Mikhailov)
Machine gun in the hall of the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg. (Photo by N. Mikhailov)
Handles, trigger, cocking handle and tape receiver. (Photo by N. Mikhailov)
The machine guns were to be supplied to Russia by the Sons of Vickers and Maxim company. The entire order was completed in May 1889. The Russian imperial fleet also showed interest in a new type of weapon, which hastened to order two more machine guns for testing on ships.
A page from the Atlas of Drawings. General view of the machine gun.
When Berdan's rifle was removed from service, the machine guns were altered already for 7, 62-mm rifle cartridges for the new "three-line". In 1891-1892. bought five machine guns chambered for it 7, 62x54 mm. And then in 1897-1904. another 291 machine guns.
In 1901, 7, 62-mm Maxim machine guns on a high wheeled carriage of the English model and weighing 244 kg officially entered service with the Russian imperial army, which received the first 40 machine guns in the same year. Machine guns were supposed to be used for the defense of fortresses, where, if necessary, they should be installed in pre-equipped and correspondingly defended positions.
The deployment of its own factory production of machine guns in Russia began in March 1904. Then the order for the production of 122 machine guns and 100 thousand rubles for the deployment of their production was received by the Imperial Tula Arms Plant. It was planned to make the first machine gun on it by September 1, 1904, but they managed to assemble it only by December 5. But on December 8, a report was sent to GAU from the plant that the machine gun made by the plant “passed all the established tests quite satisfactorily,” and that 3000 shots were fired from it, and no delays or breakdowns were observed. But in view of the fact that the plant did not receive special steels from the Vickers company, the same steel was used for its production that was used for the manufacture of rifles arr. 1891 g.
A page from the Atlas of Drawings. Longitudinal sections of the machine gun and bolt.
The cost of the domestic machine gun was supposed to be 942 rubles + 80 pounds sterling should have been given to the Vickers company, that is, approximately 1,700 rubles. At that time, this amount was very large, although it still came out cheaper than purchasing ready-made machine guns from the British at a price of 2,288 rubles 20 kopecks per machine gun. Production began in May, but, as we can see, it was deployed rather slowly due to the complexity of the technological order.
A page from the Atlas of Drawings. The position of the shutter when firing.
At the end of December 1905, 32 machine guns were already ready for delivery at the enterprise and almost all the parts needed to assemble another 105 machine guns were manufactured. However, for the whole of 1905, the Tula Arms Plant managed to hand over only 28 machine guns, of which only 16 were delivered to the army. But the reason was objective. The plant lacked equipment. 700 machines of various types were required, and they could be obtained mainly only from abroad. True, 600 machines were received, but not immediately and it took time to adjust and master them.
A page from the Atlas of Drawings. The shutter in various forms and the machine-gun belt.
Another reason was the requirement for complete interchangeability of all machine gun parts, which was not fully achieved even at Vickers. The percentage of rejects was also high, so the production volumes, despite its undoubtedly very high quality, were still too small.
Therefore, wishing to speed up the process of saturating the army with new weapons, the War Ministry transferred the next order to the Berlin DWM plant. It should be noted that the production of machine guns was sufficiently not only "international", but also "cooperative" in nature. So in the documents of the Tula Arms Plant, it was noted that for 400 machine guns from the Bryansk arsenal, 400 pairs of wheels should be obtained, 400 pieces of large armored shields, 400 small shields, and in addition 400 pieces of wheel axles, and 1,600 pieces of rough machine-gun barrels from the Izhevsk plant.
The barrel for the "Maxim" was a very difficult part for the technologist, requiring minimal tolerances. A page from the Atlas of Drawings.
Note that problems with the machine gun arose literally "from scratch", where, it would seem, there could be no problems in principle. For example, it turned out that English fabric for machine-gun belts is better than Russian, because of the poor quality of which, accordingly, domestic belts are worse than English ones and cause delays in firing.
But this is a very interesting document, which clearly testifies to the volume of production of machine guns already in 1912. (Archive of the Museum of Artillery and Signal Corps in St. Petersburg - F. 6. Op. 59. D. 5. L. 34. - Courtesy of N. Mikhailov)
Another problem was the unusable cartridges. So, in the report of the Head of the Tula Arms Factory to GAU on July 16, 1907, it was reported that the cartridges of the Petersburg and Lugansk factories give frequent piercing of the primers when firing, which causes a breakthrough of gases through the primer socket. There are also cases of bullets falling out of the cartridge case. In addition, there was such a specific "nuisance" as clogging of the muzzle of a machine gun with particles of bullet shells. Moreover, such a defect was especially often found in the cartridges of the Tula Cartridge Plant. It got to the point that in 1906 they even decided to change the design of the muzzle, proposed and made two new samples, but the same thing continued with them.
Marine machines for machine guns "maxim". A page from the Atlas of Drawings.
As a result, in the first three months of 1907the plant handed over only 64 machine guns, then in April - 24, in May - 40, in June - 72, in July - 56, and in August - 40. For the entire 1907, 448 (or 440?) "infantry" and 77 machine guns for the fleet. Before that, for the entire 1906, the plant managed to hand over to the army only 73 out of 145 machine guns (and only 3 to the navy), and in 1907 - 228 out of 525. That is, it turns out that about 50% of the machine guns produced were rejected. That is, until 1908, a pilot production took place at the plant. And in just 1905-1908, the plant produced 1376 "land" machine guns complete with spare parts (556 "field" and 820 "serfs"), as well as 208 machine guns for the imperial navy.
For the successful maintenance of the machine gun, appropriate tools were required, which also had to be made and packed in a special wooden box. A page from the Atlas of Drawings.
Immediately after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the export (if you can call it that!) Of Russian machine guns abroad began. Then the Bulgarian government asked Russia to receive a machine gun for informational purposes. And on January 3, 1906, "by the highest permission" it was allowed to send one fortress machine gun and one pack gun with a reserve of 20,000 rounds to Bulgaria free of charge. The Bulgarians liked the machine gun, and at first they decided to order 144 pack machine guns and 115 serfs from Tuza, but they thought, and in the end, turned with this order to the German company DWM, and Russia ended up with nothing.
Moreover, each machine-gun unit relied on such a machine for automatically stuffing belts. A page from the Atlas of Drawings.
Scheme of pedestal installations for the fleet. A page from the Atlas of Drawings.
The production of machine guns for those years was an extremely difficult business, which required expensive metal-working machines that were purchased abroad and measuring tools, as well as highly qualified factory workers. For example, such an indicator as the tolerance for the diameter of the barrel bore in the fields of its rifling was 0, 0028 for the Maxim machine gun, and 0, 0031 inches along the bottom of the rifling of the barrel. Separate parts of the shutter "rubbed" against each other with an accuracy equal to the accuracy of the patterns on which they were made. And if the three-line rifle consisted of 106 parts and required 540 patterns, then the Maxim machine gun was assembled from 282 individual parts and required 830 patterns, and its machine - 126 parts and only 234 patterns. For the manufacture of one machine gun "Maxim" it was necessary 2448 operations, 2422 technological transitions, working time 700 hours and loading 40 machines per day. For comparison, let us point out that the Mosin rifle took only 35 hours, while the machine gun - 500, and the machine for it - 170 hours. The barrels were made of steel with a low carbon content and impurities of tungsten and manganese. In general, the production of "maxims" has sharply increased the demand in the arms industry for high-quality low-carbon and alloy steels.
