Maxim (6.5 mm)

Description

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Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• IJN Settsu

General info

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Available ammunition

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Comparison with analogues

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Usage in battles

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Pros and cons

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History

The Imperial Japanese Army of the Meiji Era (1968-1914) were always keeping an eye eastward to Europe with new arms development carefully tracked to keep their forces armed with the most modern equipment. For example in 1895 the IJA purchased machine guns for use in combat including the venerable Maxim gun.

The Maxim gun was developed and named for Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, an American inventor who claimed to have gotten the idea to produce weapons after a trip to Vienna where he was told "If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility." Being familiar with a rifle's recoil he decided to harness its energy to make a repeating automatic action that would eject an empty shell casing and replace it with a new round. The result became the world's first machine gun. Maxim's first patents for the design were filed in 1883 and a year later he demonstrated his first prototype. Maxim found that a problem with automatic fire was that it heated up a barrel and it would eventually break under sustained fire. His solution was to add a water jacket which would cool the barrel and for sustaining the rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute, the guns were fed by fabric belts.

Maxim was knighted in 1900 for his invention that was given credit for its role in the "Scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century. The gun's first use was part of the 1886-1890 Ermin Pasha Relief Expedition to Equatoria (present-day South Sudan) as a publicity stunt. Later the Germans and British would adopt the design and use it to colonize the continent. The Hilaire Belloc poem "The Modern Traveler" immortalized the Maxim's role and effectiveness with the verse "Whatever happens, we have got, The Maxim gun, and they have not".

When the IJA adopted the Maxim gun, it was chambered in 6.5 Arisaka. It was used experimentally as a heavy machine during the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. It was used alongside the French Hotchkiss Mle.1900 which they would standardize after the war ended leading to licensed production as the Type 38 pattern 1907.

In 1896, the Vickers company absorbed Maxim's manufacturing company which was a subsidiary and they improved the design into the Vickers gun which became the replacement in British service and phased out the Maxim in British Army service by the time of World War I. The Maxim would, however, see action during World War I in the Allied Powers with the Russian Pulemyot Maxim and the Central Powers with the German GM08 pattern 1908.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

• Maxim's (7.62 mm) - Soviet variant
• Vickers (7.7 mm) - Improved British analog
• GM08 pattern 1908 (7.92 mm) - German variant

External links

References

Naval machine guns
USA
7.62 mm	M73
12.7 mm	AN-M2
Germany
7.62 mm	MG-3
7.92 mm	MG08 pattern 1908 · MG15 · MG34
13.2 mm	Hotchkiss
15 mm	MG M38(t)
USSR
7.62 mm	Maxim
12.7 mm	DShK
14.5 mm	KPV
Britain
7.62 mm	FN MAG
7.7 mm	Lewis 1916 · Vickers GO No.5
12.7 mm	Vickers Mk.V
Japan
6.5 mm	Maxim · Type 38 pattern 1907
7.7 mm	Type 89 · Type 92
13.2 mm	Type 93
Italy
6.5 mm	Breda Mod.30 · Fiat Model 26
12.7 mm	Breda-SAFAT
13.2 mm	Breda Model 31
France
7.7 mm	Darne M1922
7.92 mm	Hotchkiss pattern 1914
13.2 mm	Browning · Model 1929 Hotchkiss