The gunner points very accurately, And "maxim" is like lightning strikes.
"Well, well, well!" - says the machine gunner, "Well, well, well!" - says the machine gun.
Music: Sigismund Katz Lyrics: V. Dykhovichny, 1941
Maxim began his experiments with self-loading firearms with a patent for the use of the recoil force in a Winchester rifle, in which automatic reloading was carried out by installing a system of levers on it connected to a plate on the butt plate. His next step was a weapon, which he called the "Forerunner", and which indeed became the "forerunner" of a new type of weapon.
On January 3, 1884, Maxim filed a patent for 12 different developments in the field of automatic firearms. At the same time, Maxim put in order a workshop at Hatton Garden in London, where he built the first model of his machine gun. This first prototype already contained many creative solutions based both on its own ideas and on the developments of its predecessors.
The first prototype of the 1884 model of the machine gun from the funds of the Royal Arsenal in Leeds. Pay attention to the massive mechanism box and the air-cooled barrel. In principle, even then it was a fully functional mechanism, but due to the fact that it used black powder cartridges, prolonged firing from it was difficult. The design feature of this machine gun was a hydraulic buffer-regulator, protected by patent No. 3493 dated July 16, 1883. The passage of fluid from one part of the cylinder to another could be adjusted using a lever on the right of the box and thus change the speed of the shutter and change the rate of fire. This was an obvious complication of the design, and subsequently Maxim rejected this buffer. Experts at the Royal Arsenal in Leeds believe that this sample is the earliest extant Maxim machine gun and, therefore, the earliest example of an automatic weapon known to us.
If you look at this first machine gun of his, you will notice its relatively short barrel and very long box. In addition, attention is drawn to the location of the tape receiver in it: it is located in the lower part of the box, and not in the upper part, as it became later, near the barrel itself. The reason is in the design solutions incorporated in the first sample. The fact is that in it cartridges from the tape did not fall into the barrel immediately from the tape, but through an auxiliary mechanism - a ribbed drum, between the ribs of which the cartridges were placed. Rolling back due to the impact of the recoil force, the barrel through a system of levers removed the cartridge from the tape, and it itself was pulled through the receiver. At the same time, the cartridge fell into the drum, which was essentially a drive, which also rotated. Now the bolt went forward and pushed the cartridge from the drum into the barrel, while the barrel itself and the bolt were fastened with a U-shaped latch. A shot followed, the barrel and bolt rolled back, disengaged, the bolt continued to move, removed the sleeve, and during the return stroke, a new cartridge from the rotating drum turned out to be on its way. The smooth operation of such a complex mechanism was ensured by a flywheel lever that rotated at the rear of the box by 270 degrees and compressed the mainspring at the same time.
Maxim designed not only a machine gun, but also developed an impressive number of different machine tools for it, satisfying all the requirements of the then British military.
The very first machine gun had a unique trigger that allowed you to adjust the rate of fire - from 600 rounds per minute or firing 1 or 2 shots. Early experiments also showed that when the flywheel crank rotates continuously in one direction, the system accelerates uncontrollably, so the working version got a crank that rotated about 270 degrees with each shot and then went in the opposite direction.
Diagram of the mechanism of the very first machine gun Maxim under the patent dated July 7, 1885.
Top view of the box. Patent dated July 7, 1885.
The device of a cloth tape and a cartridge storage cylinder. Patent dated July 7, 1885.
In principle, this crank handle alone would be enough for a machine gun to fire. Spin it, and the machine gun will start shooting. That is, the system, in principle, was close to the Gatling mitraillese. But the presence of a spring turned the device into a machine gun, where the handle had to be turned only before the first shot, and then everything went on by itself.
Subsequent samples of the Maxim machine gun differed from the first in a significant reduction in the length of the box and a simplified design of the mechanism. Maxim was also the first to think about barrel water cooling. He noticed that water is a better means of dissipating heat than steel (that is, it takes more heat energy to raise the temperature of the water than to raise the same mass of steel by the same number of degrees).
The Maxim machine gun played an extremely important role in the advancement of the British in Africa. Without him, they would never have succeeded in their African expansion.
Kitchener's Army (1915). Over time, the Maxim machine gun became an integral part of the arsenal of the British army. But he had a special role to play during the First World War.
Well, then Maxim made several copies of the prototype machine gun, made them work reliably, and then widely announced his developments in the press, where they immediately began to write about them as a landmark news in military affairs.
It is worth noting that this machine gun was developed and publicly shown in 1884 - that is, a year before the invention of smokeless powder. All of Maxim's work on it was chambered for.45 Gardner-Gatling cartridges, which makes his work on creating a reliable machine gun even more impressive. It was not without reason that Maxim constantly filed additional patents during this work, created devices that facilitate the operation of automation in the conditions of rapidly forming powder soot. Naturally, the appearance of cartridges with smokeless powder, although it devalued all of his developments, but it became a real gift for him, as for a gunsmith.
Ship version of the Maxim machine gun caliber 37 mm M1895
To make better use of the automatic fire that his machine gun is capable of, Maxim also developed a feed mechanism that was more sophisticated than the vertical magazines used on the Gatling and Gardner mitrailles. In fact, he came up with two feeding systems: feeding cartridges using a tape and feeding from a drum magazine. The drum was put on the machine gun box from above, and was structurally very similar to the drum magazine from the Lewis machine gun, which entered service later. Nevertheless, Maxim decided that the belt mechanism was more practical and later improved only it, leaving the development of drum magazines.
Nothing else, except for the size (and the oil recoil damper), the 37-mm Maxim machine gun did not differ from its predecessor, the machine gun.
During the tests, Maxim fired more than 200,000 cartridges with his prototype machine guns with a minimum number of breakdowns and delays, which at that time was just a fantastic achievement! However, the size of his machine gun and the technical complexity did not allow it to be used in the armies of that time. And Maxim followed the advice of his friend Sir Andrew Clark (inspector general of the fortifications) and returned to the drawing board, striving to achieve such a simplicity of design that his machine gun can be completely disassembled without tools in a matter of seconds.
On the deck of the American ship "Vixen", 1898
Simultaneously with the rifle-caliber machine gun, at the same time in the late 1880s, Maxim created its enlarged version of the 37-mm caliber. It was a caliber that made it possible to use the developed design with a minimum of alterations, but at the same time the weight of the projectile should not exceed 400 grams (0.88 lb), since it was the lightest explosive projectile allowed for use in accordance with the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868 and confirmed by the Hague Convention of 1899.
German version of the QF 1-pounder pom-pom cannon (Museum of Military History in Johannesburg)
And its English counterpart, sample 1903 (Imperial War Museum, London)
Early versions were sold under the brand name Maxim-Nordenfeld, while the version in British service (from 1900) was produced by Vickers, Sons & Maxim (VSM), as Vickers bought the assets of Maxim-Nordenfeld in 1897 year. All of these samples are actually one and the same weapon.
QF1-pound steel projectile Mk I M1900
High-explosive fragmentation ammunition.
Tracer shells (on the right), which did not have an explosive charge, also relied on the pom-pom.
At first, the British military rejected this proposal of Maxim, and the 37-mm "autocannon" went on commercial sale, including to Germany, and from there it got to the Boers in South Africa in time for the beginning of the Second Boer War. However, finding themselves under fire from Maximov's guns, they quickly changed their minds and bought them for the British army. From 50 to 57 of these guns were sent to the Transvaal, which proved to be good in battles. At the same time, "pom-poms" (as they were called for the characteristic sound of a shot) entered the fleet as anti-boat and anti-mine weapons. During the First World War, these guns were not used in the land units of the British army, but were installed on ships as an air defense system and armored vehicles "Pearless", including those who fought in Russia as part of the armored battalion sent by the British.
