4 ms·

Your knowledge of early machine guns needs some work. They weren’t belt fed, but rather spring and crank run, more commonly box magazine fed than belted/linked

Your knowledge of early machine guns needs some work. They weren’t belt fed, but rather spring and crank run, more commonly box magazine fed than belted/linked where the spring mechanism was in the magazine. The early rotory/Gatling style guns were tube fed. Machine guns werent as common during WWI as you may think, and this had nothing to do with “snipers” or obviousness of machine gun placements. The point that no one man builds everything is fine - except people like Samuel Colt, Eugene Stoner and John Moses Browning were amazing inventors who did single handedly change their industries, and I think fit the definition of “single inventors” even if they weren’t smokeless powder chemists.

csours 8y ago
> Your knowledge of early machine guns needs some work. They weren’t belt fed... This is kind of my point. I know there's more to the story than I put in my comment, and you know there's more to the story, but I think that the popular imagination has it that X inventor produced Y invention and that's that. Speaking of Stoner: here's a video I like about one of his 'failures' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SITipIcMFVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SITipIcMFVU (Small Arms Solutions - AR18/180)
- deleted 8y ago
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manfredo 8y ago
I thought the first firearm generally considered a machine gun (as opposed to human powered Gatling guns) was the Maxim gun, which was belt fed. All the major military powers in WWI other than France and Austria used Maxim guns or derivates of it. Austria used what is essentially a delayed blowback operated Maxim gun, and it was belt fed. Early light machine guns were magazine fed (e.g Bren Gun, BAR, Lewis Gun), but these aren't typically what militaries typically refer to as "machine guns". Some called them automatic rifles to distinguish them from machine guns.
- icegreentea2 8y ago
  I think Gatling gun and friends are definately considered "early" machine guns, in that they fulfill what is probably the most important distinctive feature of machine guns - relatively sustained periods of high rate of fire. There are lots of ways to argue about what exactly defines a machine gun, but if we take the perspective of what it's like to be shot at by one, I think we can say that Gatling guns and friends are close enough that I don't really think it matters. This helps highlight juts HOW MUCH BETTER the Maxim gun was compared to everything before it though.

csours 8y ago

> Your knowledge of early machine guns needs some work. They weren’t belt fed... This is kind of my point. I know there's more to the story than I put in my comment, and you know there's more to the story, but I think that the popular imagination has it that X inventor produced Y invention and that's that. Speaking of Stoner: here's a video I like about one of his 'failures' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SITipIcMFVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SITipIcMFVU (Small Arms Solutions - AR18/180)

deleted 8y ago
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manfredo 8y ago

I thought the first firearm generally considered a machine gun (as opposed to human powered Gatling guns) was the Maxim gun, which was belt fed. All the major military powers in WWI other than France and Austria used Maxim guns or derivates of it. Austria used what is essentially a delayed blowback operated Maxim gun, and it was belt fed. Early light machine guns were magazine fed (e.g Bren Gun, BAR, Lewis Gun), but these aren't typically what militaries typically refer to as "machine guns". Some called them automatic rifles to distinguish them from machine guns.

icegreentea2 8y ago
I think Gatling gun and friends are definately considered "early" machine guns, in that they fulfill what is probably the most important distinctive feature of machine guns - relatively sustained periods of high rate of fire. There are lots of ways to argue about what exactly defines a machine gun, but if we take the perspective of what it's like to be shot at by one, I think we can say that Gatling guns and friends are close enough that I don't really think it matters. This helps highlight juts HOW MUCH BETTER the Maxim gun was compared to everything before it though.