Evolution of the Machinegun

[Hamstersss]

Go to the source, that's what they say:

I know the gatling gun never gained prominence, I assume because it just wasn't ammo or manpower efficient, is this true?

What I'm wondering is where does it go after that? Maxim showed up and his initial model was accepted, but how does that lead to the water-cooled and the air-cooled. Most importantly, when does the concept of a squad assault weapon come into play?

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Go to the source, that's what they say:

I know the gatling gun never gained prominence, I assume because it just wasn't ammo or manpower efficient, is this true?

What I'm wondering is where does it go after that? Maxim showed up and his initial model was accepted, but how does that lead to the water-cooled and the air-cooled. Most importantly, when does the concept of a squad assault weapon come into play?

Civil war gatlings were not very reliable. Later models were better, but still a bit heavy, and employed more like artillary (i.e. on carrages) than modern machine guns.

[Dirtweasle]

The A-10 Attack Plane, (Thuderbolt?) is armed with an GAU-8A Avenger 30mm cannon which is, if I am not mistaken, a direct decendant of the Gatling gun. There is also a 20mm cannon that the is a scaled down version used by attack helicopters, and some mobile AAA also use it.

[Hamstersss]

The 30mm on the A-10 does use the Gatling action and I think they developed a 20mm that also used that action for the AH-56 Cheyenne.

However, I only mentioned the Gatling as a starting point, I wonder what models represented the various points in evolution of the mg.

[ August 13, 2002, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: Elijah Meeks ]

[Poobear]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Go to the source, that's what they say:

I know the gatling gun never gained prominence, I assume because it just wasn't ammo or manpower efficient, is this true?

What I'm wondering is where does it go after that? Maxim showed up and his initial model was accepted, but how does that lead to the water-cooled and the air-cooled. Most importantly, when does the concept of a squad assault weapon come into play?

The French developed the Mitrailleuse (spelling?)

in the late 1860s and it was deployed in time for the 1870 War w/ Prussia in small #s. The French had kept this weapon such a tight secret however that field commanders weren't entirely sure how to deploy it at the outset of hostilities. In most cases it was deployed "in battery" along w/ the artillery and was never really decisive in any battles. If used properly it could have vastly changed the outcome of that War. Anyway, I would say that it is one the links between the US Gatling Gun and Remmingtons 1898 (?)machinegun which was soon followed by Maxim's marvel (1908?). By 1916 most countries saw the need for a "lite" machinegun that could move forward to clear trenches w/ the infantry. This led to the creation of a new generation of machineguns known as squad automatic weapons (ie. BAR, the French Chauchat). Here is a small but good site.

www.ankkurinvarsi.net/jaeger/LMG2.htm

Hope that helps. I'm at work so just going off of memory here!

[ August 13, 2002, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Poobear ]

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Most importantly, when does the concept of a squad assault weapon come into play?

I'm going to leave the rest for others and tackle this part of your question.

It depends on what you mean by "squad assault weapon." If you mean the modern General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG), the LMG begins to pop up in WWI, the "Lewis" gun probably being the best known example. It is actually the Brits and the French who first develop the concept of a lighter MG to be used as a more mobile supplement to the Heavy Vickers and Hotchkiss of the time. This put them at a distinct advantage over the Germans, who have to rely on their Heavy MG08s (the "Spandau") to boost infantry firepower. IIRC there were some German LMGs very late in the Great War, but they were way behind the allies in the development of this weapon type, and relatively few saw action. The Russians also stick with their Heavy Maxims for the duration of the war.

If you're talking about the modern assault rifle when you say "Squad Assault Weapon", there's development of what is at first called a 'trench sweeper' in WWI - this is what comes to be the SMG. Perhaps the most famous example is the Thompson, which was originally developed for WWI, but IIRC did not see action in that war. Here we're talking about a lower energy cartridge (i.e., pistol ammo) in an automatic weapon designed mostly for close quarters fighting.

I'm less familiar with French and Russian development interwar, but the Brits and the Americans both develop clip-fed squad LMGs - the BAR and the Bren. It is only the Germans, perhaps as a result of being on the wrong side of the small arms firepower curve, who develop a multi-role belt-fed MG - the MG34. Nearly all modern GPMGs are a direct descendant of these weapons.

So if you're talking about GPMGs when you say "Squad Assault Weapon", then this a concept that gets started in WWI by the Brits with the Lewis, and eventually gets perfected by the Germans with the development of the MG34 and eventually the MG42.

With the assault rifle, many countries develop SMGs during the interwar years - the Thompson, the Sten, the German MP38 (which becomes the MP40), etc. These are seen as mostly close quarters weapons. Due to their relatively light weight and low cost of manufacture, they are also seen as a good '2nd line' weapon. They have other applications as well - from very early on, the developing paratrooper formations are equipped with SMGs to save weight and increase firepower. An interesting hybrid is the American M1 carbine, which is kind of a rifle trying to be an SMG, or vice versa, depending on your point of view.

As the war develops, the Germans especially start to look for a weapon that offers the advantages of the SMG (light, full auto fire), but can also offer range more like a rifle. Without going into techical details, this is were you get the MP43 (which becomes the MP44), and also the AK-47, which doesn't enter service until after the war is over, but has it's genesis during the war. So if you're talking about the Assault Rifle when you say "squad assault weapon", then you're looking at a lineage that starts in the First World War with the development of the SMG, which is sort of cross-bred with rifle caliber weapons for greater range during WWII, and eventually sees full realization in the MP44 and the AK-47.

That's a very simple summary of the development of these weapons; I'm sure others can offer juicy details.

Cheers,

YD

[Hamstersss]

To clarify, by SAW I am talking about light machineguns a la the Bren, Bar and MG34 in its LMG role.

I never thought of semi-automatic rifles as being attempts to mix SMG and bolt-action rifle, though I do agree that the Sturmgwehr-44 (sp?) drew more from smgs than from rifles, especially with the lower calibre ammunition. Did the Russians have any preliminary designs or did they just start right out with the AK? If so, it's a hell of a good first effort.

[Poobear]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

To clarify, by SAW I am talking about light machineguns a la the Bren, Bar and MG34 in its LMG role.

.

Hey EM, I edited my above post and added a web link. This has some very good info on early SAWs.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

To clarify, by SAW I am talking about light machineguns a la the Bren, Bar and MG34 in its LMG role.

I never thought of semi-automatic rifles as being attempts to mix SMG and bolt-action rifle, though I do agree that the Sturmgwehr-44 (sp?) drew more from smgs than from rifles, especially with the lower calibre ammunition. Did the Russians have any preliminary designs or did they just start right out with the AK? If so, it's a hell of a good first effort.

I was speaking more of the M1 carbine, and especially it's fully automatic M2 variant, as an odd mix of the rifle and the SMG - it uses an underpowered, more pistol-like round (slug nose is more round, cartridge is not bottlenecked), but otherwise is designed more like a rifle. the M1 Garand is a no-holds barred semi-auto rifle, and fires a cartridge much more powerful than SMG.

I'm working off of my head there, but IIRC the AK-47 was influenced by the MP43/44. I think the influce was more of a "hey, that's a really good idea" variety - I don't think much, if anything, of the MP44's design made it into the AK-47.

And yes, the AK was one hell of a good first try.

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

I was speaking more of the M1 carbine, and especially it's fully automatic M2 variant, as an odd mix of the rifle and the SMG - it uses an underpowered, more pistol-like round (slug nose is more round, cartridge is not bottlenecked), but otherwise is designed more like a rifle. the M1 Garand is a no-holds barred semi-auto rifle, and fires a cartridge much more powerful than SMG.

I never thought of the M2, was it deployed in large numbers?

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

I'm working off of my head there, but IIRC the AK-47 was influenced by the MP43/44. I think the influce was more of a "hey, that's a really good idea" variety - I don't think much, if anything, of the MP44's design made it into the AK-47.

And yes, the AK was one hell of a good first try.

This would make more sense to me, as the MP44/SG44, from what I know, wasn't nearly as reliable or as durable as the AK47 (Well, nothing was that durable*). If anyone's heard of an earlier Soviet assault rifle, I'd like to hear about it.

* I once saw an AK47 dropped out of the space shuttle, re-enter the atmosphere, land in the Congo and be subsequently fossilized, whereupon it was eaten by an elephent and, when retrieved after the digestive process, still fired accurately using the original clip with no cleaning.**

** Not quite true, but indicative of those hundreds of stories that we've all heard...

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Yes. 6.5 million carbines were made. Most were the semi-automatic M1 carbine, but a lot were the M2 automatic carbine. The weapon was particularly popular in the Pacific, where a lot of front-line marines used it both semi-automatic and full automatic for slogging through the jungle. It only weighed about 5 lbs.

[Hamstersss]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought after the grease gun (Cheapie Tommie Gun knockoff that it was), the US didn't look into further smgs. Why go with the M2? What was it's effectiveness? How many were M2s and how many were just M1 carbines?

6.5 million???

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought after the grease gun (Cheapie Tommie Gun knockoff that it was), the US didn't look into further smgs. Why go with the M2? What was it's effectiveness? How many were M2s and how many were just M1 carbines?

6.5 million???

I did a quick check through some references, but I could not find anything with a hard number of M1 Carbines vs. M2 Carbines. Such a number might be near impossible to find, though, as I think it was just the substition of a couple of parts to make an M1 into an M2, so the modification could be done in the field. This is also probably why the M2 came about; it was really just a simple modification of the M1, so it cost very little to engineer, and the ammo and clips and so on were already in the pipeline.

(Sidenote: Most Gas-operated semi-auto weapons can be relatively easily modified to fire full auto, including the M1 Garand. In the case of the Garand, there's little point, though - that .306 round would have a hell of a kick firing full auto, and you'd burn of the 8-round clip VERY quickly)

It is interesting to speculate as to whether CMBO slightly undermodels the close range firepower of some US infantry units due to the lack of the M2 Carbine (this would especially effect US airborne squads). I have read several anecdotal stories of the M2 being used in Normandy Bocage fighting, but this of course proves nothing about how widespread its use was. It does seem to have been much more common with the marines in the PTO,.

I don't know of an SMG in wide use in the US armed forces since the M3 "Grease Gun" and the Thompson. Of course, spec ops teams have made use of a variety of pistol-caliber automatic weapons when the need arises, but this is really a special case. I'm nowhere near having every post-WWII TO&E memorized, though, so I could be wrong.

Cheers,

YD

[Gyrene]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought after the grease gun (Cheapie Tommie Gun knockoff that it was), the US didn't look into further smgs. Why go with the M2? What was it's effectiveness? How many were M2s and how many were just M1 carbines?

6.5 million???

It was a pretty straight forward operation to convert the M1 carbine into the full auto M2, and by most accounts the M2 was favored over the Grease Gun as it was better built, easier to shoot and more accurate. The M3 was always meant as a crewman's emergency weapon and saw very little front line use in the ETO. Anyone who needed a SMG would be much better served by the Thompson.

The M2 saw quite a bit of service in Korea (Where incidently both it and the M1 Carbine proved to be terrible in sub-zero weather) and was around in very large numbers in Vietnam with South Vietnamese forces and early war American Advisors. The South Vietnamese liked it for its small size and weight as they mostly didn't enjoy the notion of having to hump around with a M14

Once the plastic rifle made it to the scene the M2 started to fade away.

Gyrene

[JasonC]

The M-1 carbine round is actually quite similar to the 7.62x39 used in the MP44 and the AK47. It has only 10% less muzzle energy (1350J vs. 1500J). They are all really carbines, meaning far less than true rifle ammo (3500-4000J) but far more than mere pistol ammo (400-500J).

The US had scads of M-1 carbines during WW II, limited numbers converted to M-2 full auto, particularly common in the airborne, and available from late 1944 on. The M-2 full auto version was much more common in Korea, where it basically replaced SMGs. As for the grease gun, it was cheaper than a Thompson by a factor of 4-5, that was the only real attraction. They were still used by special ops as late as Nam, however. These days, carbine versions of the M-16, or German H&K MPs, are used as SMGs.

As for mag and squad level LMGs, the Lewis was the first. It was actually designed by an American colonel but offered to the British army, just before WW I. The war office turned it down, because they were trying to standardize types and wanted only the Vickers (the newer replacement-upgrade for the original Maxim). The Lewis was accepted however as an aircraft weapon (!). That is how it made it into British service.

By 1915, the Brits were fielding sections of Lewis guns alongside Vickers. By 1916, a division between them had been formalized - brigades had companies of Vickers while battalions had platoons of Lewis guns. The number of Lewis guns in the force mix went on increasing, reaching 30 per battalion by the end of the war, enough to function practically as SAWs.

The BAR was also a WW I weapon. It is a 1918 model and saw limited service at the end of WW I. The A2 model was WW II only, appearing in 1940. The Tommy gun, incidentally, was indeed designed with trench fighting in mind but only after WW I, in the interwar years. The US did not have an SMG in WW I. They also used the French Chauchat magazine fed LMG, akin to the BAR.

The Bren was an interwar replacement for the Lewis, based on a Czech LMG design. The Russians also developed their "pan fed" DP series LMGs in the interwar period.

Air cooled MGs were in use from the begining of WW I - the French Hotchkiss for example. The Germans also brought one out at the end of the war - the MG 08/18, but in limited numbers, and still too heavy to act as an LMG. Their real wartime improvement was the MG 08/15, which was still water cooled and based on the Maxim, but stripped down considerably and bipod mounted. It weighed 33 lbs (MMG weight, not LMG weight), and was common by 1917.

The US also made the move to air cooled MMGs at the end of and after the war, with the M1919. Air cooling means lower sustained ROF and greater barrel wear. But light weight is too valuable to pass up, so that became the trend. Magazine feed, on the other hand, did produce MGs weighing ~20 lbs rather than ~35 lbs in the WW I and interwar era, and that was the attraction.

By the time belt fed air cooled LMGs could be brought down to ~25 lbs, though, there was little point in the low ammo supply. The M-60 weighs 23 lbs, the MG 34 and 42 weigh 25-26. Previous air cooled, belt fed MGs weighed more like 30-40 lbs, some needing tripods. You really need the weight down to 20-25 lbs to act as a SAW.

[Jarmo]

Gatling -> Maxim

The big idea to use the power of the cartridge to power the weapon. Lead to lighter weapon as the extra barrels in the Gatling could be dispensed with. Also safer, with gatling a jammed or round could blow up the whole gun as the user forced the crank.

Air cooled -> water cooled -> air cooled

With gatlings multi barrel approach, you could fire a good while before overheating the barrels.

In maxim, the problem was solved with water cooling.

Later with quick change barrel designs, it was discovered that you could let the barrel overheat, and then simply swap in a new cool one. Another approach, used in modern assault rifles and the like, is simply to not shoot as much...

BTW, before AK47, the russians had good SMG and LMG to start from, and then there was the Simonov carbine (looked more like a traditional rifle) using the same 7,62x39 ammo as the AK47 would. So the leap wasn't quite leaping straight into Kalashnikov from a bolt lock rifle..

[Slapdragon]

Ezell 12th Edition lists about 1.5 million M2s being issued compared to more than 4 million M1 Carbines. The Carbine as propsed was a replacement for the pistol as the primary weapon for second line troops. The large magazine capacity (15 rounds) easy to change magazine, and in the M2, relatively effective automatic fire, meant that more and more infantryman carried it by wars end. Originally, only officers were suppose to carry it, but Engineers, Marines, and Paratroopers started taking to the automatic version, and only some tough love from the higher ranks kept more of these weapns from the front lines. Still, in actually combat photographs of ETO, you can see more and more soldiers armed with Carbines the later you go.

The M1 Carbine was not an unreliable weapon during Bulge, and performed reliably in all weather, but in Korea there was a complaint that it froze. This was tracked to the weapon being lighter than the M1 Rifle and its parts freezing more rapidly with condensation, along with the issue of weapons stored for 5 years in warehouses in Japan after having been "recovered" in the Phillipines. Likely the design was not at fault (since it was seen as reliable in WW2 in many accounts) but the condition of the weapon when issued.

As for Machineguns, the first two major improvements over the gatling were the Colt (Browning designed) potato digger, and the Maxim. The Colt was made famous during the Boxer rebellion, while the Maxim became famous in the Spanish American War when it beat up on US Gatling units.

The concept of a squad automatic weapon comes from many directions. In literature, Browning was proposing a portable automatic rifle to anyone who would listen in 1893, finally changing the design to his famous automatic shotgun for FN, which Colt turned down. A mexican rifle, the Mondragon, attempted to follow up on the Browning ideas, as did numerous other designs before and during WW1, invluding a unique 6.5mm Russian AR which would have been the first major Assault Rifle had it been more widely used.

Brownings concepts, if not his designs, were very important in WW1, as several French designers began to look for a weapon that could provide MG support during advances under fire.

[ August 14, 2002, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]

[RobVarak]

Saw this on a History Channel show, and knowing their reliability I am seeking confirmation.

They mentioned that the BAR was available for U.S. forces in Europe in the Great War, but that the decision was made to restrict their distribution as a means of limiting the liklihood of the Germans obtaining one and copying it.

Thus, they were stuck with that awful French Chauchat.

If this is true, it has to be one of the most hilarious examples of bass-ackward military thinking I've ever heard!

[MikeyD]

Well, they weren't too far off the mark. After WWII the Belgians got hold of the BAR and eventually came up with the FN GPMG, possible the best machinegun in the world!

[Hamstersss]

So with the M2, were they still using a 15 round clip?

Slapdragon mentions a 6.5mm Soviet assault rifle and Jarmo talks about the Simonov carbine, are these the same guns?

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by RobVarak:

Saw this on a History Channel show, and knowing their reliability I am seeking confirmation.

They mentioned that the BAR was available for U.S. forces in Europe in the Great War, but that the decision was made to restrict their distribution as a means of limiting the liklihood of the Germans obtaining one and copying it.

Thus, they were stuck with that awful French Chauchat.

If this is true, it has to be one of the most hilarious examples of bass-ackward military thinking I've ever heard!

I am not sure about this, because my Arms of the Great War says that several hundred thousand made it over by 1919 and they were used in US units.

EM, I am not sure if Siminov designed this weapon, but it used an unusual 6.5mm Japanese round with low power to fire from an internal magazine. I was not carrief through with though, but some were made.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

EM, I am not sure if Siminov designed this weapon, but it used an unusual 6.5mm Japanese round with low power to fire from an internal magazine. I was not carrief through with though, but some were made.

The weapon you're thinking of must surely be the Avtomat Federov, some of which were used during the Russian Civil War. The 6.5mm round is not all that unusual, being the same round as used in the Arisaka, and also seeing limited service as the .256" British. A shame more was not made of it, as it is more or less the ideal intermediate round for rifle and LMG applications. See the article "The .256" British: A missed opportunity"

on Tony Wiliams' excellent web-site at

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/

All the best,

John.

[ August 14, 2002, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]

[sturner]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

I never thought of semi-automatic rifles as being attempts to mix SMG and bolt-action rifle, though I do agree that the Sturmgwehr-44 (sp?) drew more from smgs than from rifles, especially with the lower calibre ammunition. Did the Russians have any preliminary designs or did they just start right out with the AK? If so, it's a hell of a good first effort.

The Russians had the PPsh SMG during WWII. A nice little weapon designed for the rigors of the Eastern Front and the slovenly habits of the Soviet Soldier and his supply system. It would actually increase its rate of fire as it became dirty. The tolerances in the weapon tightening up with the accumulation of dirt. Until it got so crudded up that it stopped.

The SKS and AK-47 are not developed from the PPsh, but from the German MP43/44.

[Gyrene]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

[QB]So with the M2, were they still using a 15 round clip?

/QB]

Nope, 30 round clip.

Don't forget about the M3 - Basically an M1 with an Infrared Night Vision scope. About 2100 were made.

Gyrene

[Kuma of Finland]

Originally posted by sturner:

The Russians had the PPsh SMG during WWII. A nice little weapon designed for the rigors of the Eastern Front and the slovenly habits of the Soviet Soldier and his supply system. It would actually increase its rate of fire as it became dirty. The tolerances in the weapon tightening up with the accumulation of dirt. Until it got so crudded up that it stopped.

This reminds me of a story which I heard from my friend. It might be a little bit exaggerated, but has some truth in it at least.

During my friend's army service in early 90's he and his team were participating a "fighter's test" - a test where soldier's skills are tested. There were multiple spots where teams have to find their ways and perform the tasks in the spot.

In one spot there was a Russian LMG Degtjarev m/27 which is called Emma at least by Finnish. It was disassembled. Task was to assemble the gun and then try to shoot the target with it. Emma is known for it's poor accuracy and tendency of jamming all the time.

After assembling the gun my friend did something non-orthodoxical with the gun: he scraped it to the ground forcing sand and dust to enter the gun interiors. This hint he had heard from his older army friends.

After this sanding the gun actually worked perfectly and my friend's team was able to even hit the bullseye with the gun.

Officer who was in charge of that task spot was completely surprised. According to my friend their team was the only one who completed this task succesfully.

Stories, oh, stories

/kuma