One fired one fed the ammunition the rest helped to carry the weapon its ammunition and spare parts.
Water cooled machine gun ww1.
The vickers machine gun or vickers gun is a name primarily used to refer to the water cooled 303 british 7 7 mm machine gun produced by vickers limited originally for the british army the machine gun typically required a six to eight man team to operate.
The m1917a1 became the us army s standard battalion level machine gun up until the middle of the 1950s to which it was then replaced by the m60 general purpose machine gun of 7 62mm caliber itself having origins in the fine german mg42 machine gun series.
That canister is a healthy indication that the barrel of the machine gun in question is being cooled by water in the canister and that the water will soon be as hot as the barrel.
It was a common sight in world war i the image of a machine gun spewing bullets from a barrel protruding from what looks like a giant canister.
Water cooled machine guns would still overheat relatively quickly sometimes within two minutes with the consequence that large supplies of water would need to be on hand in the heat of a battle and when these ran out it was not unknown for a machine gun crew to solve the problem by urinating into the jacket.
The maxim gun design was provided with water cooling giving it the ability to maintain its rate of fire for far longer than air cooled guns.
There are a total of 21 world war i machine guns 1914 1918 entries in the military factory.
The m1917a1 saw service in both world war 2 and the korean war.
The m1917 browning machine gun is a heavy machine gun used by the united states armed forces in world war i world war ii and the korean war.
The machine gun of the great war made an already bloody war that much more bloodier setting the stage for the second world war to follow.