Machine Guns

Hiram maxim invented the first portable automatic machine gun in 1884. The Maxim gun could fire 400-600 small calibre bullets per minute.

In 1912 the British army adopted the Vickers as its standard machine gun. Produced by the Vickers Company, it was a modified version of the Maxim Machine-Gun. The Vickers could fire over 600 rounds per minute and a distance of 4500 yards. When war was declared in August, 1914, Vickers was manufacturing 12 machine guns a week. Demand from the British Army was so high that Vickers had to find new ways of increasing production. By 1915 Vickers supplied the British armed forces with 2,405 guns.

John Moses Browning created the Browning machine gun. It was inspired by the maxim machine gun. Unlike Maxim Browning used propelling gas as a motive force. In 1895 the Browning machine-gun was purchased by the US Navy. In 1910 browning made a new 0.30 inch machine gun but it was not purchased by the US army until 1917 and over an 18 month span 57,000 were produced for soldiers fighting in the western front.