Maxim Heavy Machine Gun-American engineer hiram Stevens Ma Keqin was born in poverty and became a famous inventor through diligent self-study. 1882, when Ma Keqin visited Britain, he found that soldiers' shoulders were often beaten black and blue due to the recoil of old rifles. This shows that the recoil of the gun has considerable energy, which comes from the propellant gas produced when the bullet is fired. It is from the phenomenon of recoil that people are accustomed to and turn a blind eye to that Ma Keqin has found the ideal power of automatic and continuous firing of weapons. Ma Keqin first carried out a refit test on an old Winchester rifle, and made the gun complete a series of actions, such as unlocking, shelling, delivering bullets and re-locking. Using the explosive gas emitted by the bullet during shooting, the automatic continuous shooting of single-barrel gun is realized, and the recoil of the gun is reduced. Ma Keqin successfully developed the world's first automatic rifle for the first time in 1883. Later, on the basis of rifle experience, he further developed and perfected the principle of automatic shooting with short recoil of barrel. He also changed the traditional way of ammunition supply and made a 6-meter-long canvas chain. Oil the machine gun continuously. In order to cool the barrel heated by continuous high-speed shooting, Ma Keqin also adopted water cooling method. 1884, Ma Keqin made the world's first machine gun capable of automatic continuous shooting, with the firing rate exceeding 600 rounds per minute.
The first practical application of Maxim's heavy machine gun was in the war of 1893- 1894 between the British army in Rhodesia, South Africa and the local Mai Tabili-Sulu scholar. In a battle, a British army of more than 50 people repelled dozens of charges of more than 5,000 Mai Tabili people with only four Maxim heavy machine guns, killing more than 3,000 people.
After the success of Maxim heavy machine guns, many countries copied them one after another. Some inventors and designers improved and developed the principle and structure of Maxim heavy machine gun. 1892, the famous American mechanical designer browning and Austrian army captain von oder Collec invented the earliest machine gun with the gas energy of gunpowder, and this automatic principle has been adopted by most machine gun years today. The 18 14 machine gun designed by American gun designer B·B· Hotchkiss is the earliest air-cooled machine gun. This machine gun eliminates the heavy water injection sleeve on the water-cooled machine gun, making the machine gun lighter.
Light machine gun-the earliest machine gun was very heavy, only suitable for positional warfare and defensive operations, and inconvenient to use in sports operations and attacks. The armies of various countries urgently need a portable machine gun that can follow the infantry to carry out fire support in March.
Shortly after Ma Keqin invented the heavy machine gun, Danish artillery captain U.O.H. Madsen began to develop the light machine gun. In the 1990s of 18, Madsen designed and manufactured a machine gun that can use ordinary rifle bullets, and named it Medellin light machine gun. The machine gun is equipped with a bipod, which can shoot at the shoulder, and the total weight is less than 10. Medellin machine gun has reliable performance, changeable caliber and structure, which can meet the needs of different users and is a hot commodity in the arms market at that time.
190 1 year, Italian Pelino company also developed a light machine gun with excellent performance, which is in a leading position in the world. The Italian authorities decided to keep this strictly confidential. In order not to leak the news, they ordered not to produce Pelino machine guns, but ordered a large number of heavy machine guns from abroad that were not as good as Pelino machine guns to equip the Italian army. It was not until 19 16 that the Italian army suffered from the lack of light machine guns in World War I that Pelino machine guns were hastily put into production and equipment.
Light and heavy machine guns-light and heavy machine guns, also called general machine guns, can be turned into light machine guns, so they are flexible and follow the infantry for fire support when marching; It can also be turned into a heavy machine gun, exerting the power of long range and long continuous shooting time.
Germany was defeated in the First World War. In this war, water-cooled heavy machine guns showed great power. Therefore, in 19 19, the Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany by the victorious countries such as the United States, Britain and France explicitly prohibited Germany from developing any water-cooled heavy machine guns. In the early days when Hitler established the Nazi regime in Germany, he not only had to rearm and develop new weapons, but also concealed people's eyes and ears and avoided sanctions from foreign powers. Therefore, Germany developed a new type of machine gun under the guise of developing light machine guns. This kind of gun is changed from water cooling to air cooling, and the barrel is very easy to assemble and disassemble. Replacing the barrel solved the problem of barrel overheating caused by continuous shooting. Ammunition can be supplied by chains or drums with bipeds or tripods. This MG-34 machine gun is a light machine gun (weight 12kg), which is mounted on a bipod and equipped with a drum. Mounted on a tripod with a bullet chain, it is a heavy machine gun; If it is on an anti-aircraft gun rack, it can also be used as an anti-aircraft gun. It can also be installed on tanks and armored vehicles. This is the first light and heavy machine gun in the world. Later, it was improved and developed into MG-43 light and heavy machine gun.
Automatic gun with bipod, gun rack or gun base, which can be used for continuous shooting. Machine guns mainly kill living targets, and can also shoot thin-walled armored targets on the ground, water or air, or suppress enemy bunkers. Usually divided into light machine guns, heavy machine guns, general machine guns and large caliber machine guns. According to the equipment object, it is divided into field machine guns (including anti-aircraft machine guns), vehicle machine guns (including tank machine guns), aviation machine guns and ship machine guns. The light machine gun is equipped with a bipod, which is light and easy to carry. The rate of fire is generally 80 ~ 150 rounds per minute, and the effective range is 500 ~ 800 meters. The heavy machine gun is equipped with a stable gun rack, which has good shooting accuracy and can shoot continuously for a long time. The combat firing rate is 200 ~ 300 rounds per minute, the effective range is 800 ~ 1000 meters, and aerial shooting is 500 meters. General machine guns, also known as dual-purpose machine guns, can be used as both light machine guns supported by two feet and heavy machine guns mounted on gun racks. Large-caliber machine guns, the caliber of which is generally above12mm, can shoot air targets, ground thin-walled armored targets and bunkers within 2000m.
The MG-34 machine gun was successfully developed in 1934. It showed its superiority in the Second World War, which made other countries follow suit and developed a variety of dual-purpose machine guns after the Second World War. Now light and heavy machine guns have basically replaced the position of heavy machine guns.