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The Machine Gun

 

            There were several inventors who started and improved on the design of the machine-gun, principally Americans - Sam Colt, Richard Gatling (of the Gatling gun) and the inventor of the first truly automatic machine-gun, Hiram Maxim.
             Hiram Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine, in 1840 and followed a career in coach building. Among his other inventions were a hair-curling iron, a gas generator and a locomotive headlight, and in the 1890s he was experimenting with ideas for aeroplanes. Maxim came to live and work in London and developed his machine-gun in 1884. While he was at Paris for a exhibition he met a man who told him: "If you wanted to make a lot of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each other's throats with greater facility." This man was right. After demonstrating the beast to the British army ,they immediately bought the weapon and Maxim's energetic selling in the 1890s (helped by the Prince of Wales) made sure that other armies were also supplied. .
             Maxim was knighted in 1901. He died in 1916 just as the Battle of the Somme was ending. His machine-guns had mown down thousands on both sides. He is buried in West Norwood Cemetery, south London.
             The success of Maxim inspired many other inventors The German Army's Maschinengewehr was based on Maxim's invention. John Moses Browning produced his first machine-gun in 1890 and five years it was adopted by the US Navy.
             In 1861 Richard Jordan Gatling, a trained dentist from North Carolina, produced an effective mechanical gun.
             In 1884 the American inventor, Hiram Maxim, demonstrated the world's first automatic portable machine-gun to the British Army. Maxim used the energy of each bullet's recoil force to eject the spent cartridge and insert the next bullet. The Maxim Machine-Gun would therefore fire until the entire belt of bullets was used up. Trials showed that the machine-gun could fire 500 rounds per minute and therefore had the firepower of about 100 rifles.


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