Talk:Maxim

Additional variants

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LMG 08/15 Air-Cooled - 7.92x57mm Mauser

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Schwarzlose submachine gun (without feed box and front grip) - 9x19mm

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Schwarzlose SMG belonging to Tula State University, Russia, showing feeding box - 9x19mm

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Maxim 1895 Extra-Light - .303 British.

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Argentine Maxim Model 1895. Argentina was one of the first users of the Maxim and started with an order of 50 guns. Despite the fact that most countries in South America adopted the French Hotchkiss machine gun, by 1902, Argentina already had 200 Maxim guns in its inventory.

Topic

There was also a series of books (and movies based on them) called 08/15. 08/15 has entered the German language as a synonym for common, basic, standard, no-frills. The details of the etymology are a bit hazy, but all theories ultimately seem to trace the origin of the term back to the gun, just in slightly different ways. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/08/15_%28Redewendung%29

From this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_MG_08 [1], "The word 08/15 lives on as an idiom in colloquial German, 08/15 (pronounced German: Null-acht-fuffzehn), being used even today as an adjective to denote something totally ordinary and lacking in originality or specialness." Wraith

M1910 and M1910/30 differances

Does anyone know what the differences are between these two guns? As far as I knew, the only difference was that the /30 had a large circular trap door on the top of the jacket so that snow could be used. However, apart from the one in Enemy at the Gates all the guns listed as M1910/30s don't have this, so just wanted to check if anyone knew of any other differences that make make the current IDs correct before I changed stuff around. --commando552 12:42, 2 August 2011 (CDT)

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Maxim 1910/30 - 7.62x54R.

Need opinion on "Maxim" MG in the movie "All quiet on the western front"

The article for the movie All quiet on the western front (1979) describes the German machine gun featured as Maxim M08. I however am not so sure. Look at the original MG08 and a screencap from the movie (dont forget to zoom in:

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Maxim MG08, heavy machine gun

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German soldiers with the Maxim MG08

First: Note the barrel is at the center of the water jacket. Second: Though not visible in the photo (but in the movie), the machine guns rear operating handles are actually identical to the contemporary Schwarzlose machine gun:

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Schwarzlose MG M.07/12

The problem is the movie machine guns barrel which is placed in the center of the water jacket, which no MG's had during WW1 as far as I know. It might be possible the machine gun featured in the movie is a mockup: A modern MG made to look like an old one. Any opinions? Dudester32 (talk) 15:17, 9 July 2013 (EDT)

I think this is the same MG here. Both were filmed in Czechoslovakia in consecutive years. --Funkychinaman (talk) 15:45, 9 July 2013 (EDT)

Sounds reasonable to me! All add the changes to the All Quiet article. Dudester32 (talk) 14:25, 10 July 2013 (EDT)

Caliber

Isn't this gun's caliber .303 British instead of 7.92mm Mauser? As Wikipedia says. TitaniumAlloy (talk) 12:02, 13 August 2013 (EDT)

In various countries Maxim machine guns were of different calibers, including .303 British, 7.92 Mauser, 7.62 Russian and many others. Greg-Z (talk) 14:47, 13 August 2013 (EDT)

Russian “Tractor Cap” or “Snow Cap” Maxim article

Found a good article on the Russian "Tractor cap" maxim. Dudester32 (talk) 11:02, 16 March 2015 (EDT)

Weapon classification

It's pretty clear that some of these old types of rounds such as the 7.92x57mm cannot solely define a machine gun's true classification (this cartridge has been mentioned to be used on light, medium and heavy machine guns). That said, are most variations of the Maxim technically heavy machine guns? And regarding the MG08/15, does it fall under medium machine gun? --Ultimate94ninja (talk) 17:37, 8 April 2017 (EDT)

Machine gun terminology from this era is very woolly, as it can sometimes depend more on the role that the weapon was used in rather than the characteristics of the weapon itself. For example, the Vickers in the exact same configuration was called both an MMG and an HMG by the British Army depending on how they were issued at the time. Generally speaking though, if it is on a heavy bipod or wheel mount like the majority of Maxim variants, it is safe to call it an HMG based on WW1 nomenclature (when we get to WW2 though a lot of these types of gun are reclassified as MMGs though, as HMGs chambered in round like .50 BMG have come along). An MG08/15 fits the definition of an MMG, as it is belt fed still really requiring a crew, but it can be used from a bipod and be carried around the battlefield with comparative ease. Some people say that the MG08/15 is an LMG, but I disagree as it requires a crew of 4 to use effectively, cannot realistically be fired on the move, and is far heavier than other true LMGs weighing in at 42 pounds unloaded (LMGs of the time tended to weigh between 20 and 30 pounds). LMGs tend not to be belt fed using magazines or pans, and can be operated by a single soldier although they often have an assistant working as a loader and ammo bearer. --commando552 (talk) 18:39, 8 April 2017 (EDT)

Thanks for the clarification. --Ultimate94ninja (talk) 18:49, 8 April 2017 (EDT)

It's more that the definition has changed: in modern use, HMG requires a calibre of at least .50 / 12.7mm and less than about 20mm (after that it becomes an autocannon). So we could say of the HMG versions, "classified as an HMG at the time, but in modern use it would be considered an extremely unwieldy medium machine gun" (rather like I've done on the pages for the Japanese Hotchkiss clones). It's a bit like how some pre-Dreadnoughts were so light that in WW2 they probably wouldn't even have been considered battleships (eg the first USS Texas which weighed less than a modern cruiser and only had two main guns) or that an early destroyer wouldn't be considered a destroyer at all in modern terms because it had no ability to attack submarines.

The Chinese one has the qualifier that "Type 24 Heavy Machine Gun" is, I believe, the weapon's actual name. Evil Tim (talk) 04:01, 9 April 2017 (EDT)

Yeah exactly, the introduction of heavy rounds like the .50 BMG did help in this change. And on this topic, I don't think that some modern 7.62mm Miniguns (such as the M134 and the Hua Qing) could be under any of these specific classifications, right? I mean, not HMG because it doesn't use .50 cal, and not MMG for obvious reasons. So it's simply Gatling-type machine gun or something? --Ultimate94ninja (talk) 06:01, 9 April 2017 (EDT)

Yeah, rotary guns are just rotary guns, they tend to be treated as distinct from the light / medium / heavy, mostly because they're not weapons that are ever issued to infantry anyway. They're also in a technical sense not machine guns because aside from I think one Russian gas-operated design, they're actually a rack of bolt-action mechanisms driven by an electric motor. Evil Tim (talk) 07:22, 9 April 2017 (EDT)

You do still need to bear in mind that once .50 came in this doesn't necessarily make all .30 cal guns MMGs. For example the M1917 was an HMG, became an MMG after the M2 was introduced, but then it went back to being an HMG after the infantry version of the M1919 came around in the 40s. The thing with Miniguns is that they tend to be though of more as weapon systems fitted to vehicles rather than machine guns in the traditional sense (although I would still argue that pedantically Miniguns are still machine guns, they are just externally powered machine guns). If the XM-214 Microgun had come about I have no idea how that would be classified as it is in 5.56 but can only really fire from a heavy tripod, so I think that you could rather bizarrely classify it as a HMG chambered in 5.56x45mm. --commando552 (talk) 08:54, 9 April 2017 (EDT)

But isn't "self powered" one of the prerequisites for being a machine gun? Either an M134 isn't technically a machine gun, or a hand-cranked Gatling is one (because it's externally powered), and most definitions lean towards that not being the case. Evil Tim (talk) 09:22, 9 April 2017 (EDT)

I don't think there is any part of the definition of a machine gun that precludes it relying on battery power, it is just a distinction between being self powered or externally powered. It fires multiple rounds with one push of the trigger, and keeps firing until the trigger is released. This is distinct from a Gatling gun, where you are essentially repeating the firing action again and again for each round fired by turning the crank. This is why in America you can legally own a Gatling gun with no trouble but a Minigun is classed as a machine gun and hence there are only about a dozen that are legally registered and they cost about $250,000. The way I see it is that the motor of a Minigun is a part of the gun, the electricity is just a consumable like ammo. Similarly if you take a gas operated machine gun and fit it with a solenoid trigger it needs an electrical supply to fire, but it still meets the definition of a machine gun. This conversation has got me thinking, I wonder if anybody has ever made a hand cranked clone of an M134 Minigun? --commando552 (talk) 10:02, 9 April 2017 (EDT)

Yeah, but you can also hook up an electric motor to a crank operated Gatling (which Gatling himself did, as I'm sure you know) so it gets pretty hazy as to whether that counts as self-powered or manually operated by something other than you. I mean I'm not arguing to remove the M134 from machine guns or anything, just that in the very strictest sense it's a manually operated mechanism hooked up to another mechanism that operates it, rather than a self-powered mechanism. A solenoid trigger is a little different since the mechanism of the gun is still cycling without anything else acting on it.

I'd define "self-powered" as meaning it uses the forces created by firing to operate itself, and that was the important distinction that made the Maxim the first true machine gun, or the first one that worked if you count DH Friberg's one.

The important thing here is whether we're considering the internal mechanism of the gun, or the internal mechanism plus anything that might be attached to it. If you made a little automated trigger-pulling machine with an on-off switch and attached it to an M1911, the entire apparatus would be a fully automatic weapon, but the gun inside it would still be a semi-auto. Evil Tim (talk) 11:00, 9 April 2017 (EDT)