Poem about Maxim. Interlude (part of 5)
“An interlude is an episode, performance, play or scene. Such an interpretation of this term is given in the "Dictionary of Russian Synonyms". "
And now it makes sense to interrupt our story a little about Kh. Maxim and his machine gun and "wander into that steppe" a little. That is, to see what other inventors were doing at the same time. After all, not only Maxim was an intelligent and educated engineer. There were people who were better educated than he, who graduated from universities, who built bridges and steam locomotives, who developed complex machine tools and equipment for the same armory factories, in a word - people, at least, not inferior to him in intelligence, knowledge and experience. Were there such? Of course, but what they were doing at the same time, we will now see.
The machine gun Salvator-Dormus, the first model.
And it so happened that as soon as the rumors about Maxim’s work fell into the proper circles, very many began work on the machine gun. So, in 1888, Colonel of the Austro-Hungarian Army Georg Ritter von Dormus and Archduke Habsburg Karl Salvator received a patent for their machine gun design, which had a semi-free swinging bolt. This in itself was an out of the ordinary thing. In Russia, it was inconceivable that a nobleman, a military man, and even more so a titled person, should get a patent, invent something and draw drawings there. It was simply indecent. The colonel, in company with the Grand Duke, is busy with patenting ... yes, it's just a scandal. But in Austria-Hungary, this was treated differently. By the way, this was far from their only job. Salvator and Dormus also patented several automatic rifles they designed, and in 1894 (two years after the death of Salvator) already one Dormus received a patent for both of them for a self-loading pistol. But only their machine gun was embodied in metal, and at the same time they did not find much fame. Although many experts of that time liked it. First of all, I liked it for its obvious simplicity, since the Maxim itself in those years was considered an extremely complex weapon. The production of a new machine gun was launched at the Skoda enterprise in Pilsen. Moreover, the Skoda company was already a leader in Austria-Hungary in the field of engineering, but now began to produce small arms for the first time.
The scheme of the device and kinematics of the machine gun Salvator-Dormus.
Technological refinement machine gun conducted engineer Andreas Radovanovic. Already in 1890, they presented the finished design, and in 1891, the machine gun of Salvator and Dormus passed official tests at the shooting range near Pilsen.
The machine gun entered service of the Austro-Hungarian army in 1893 under the name Mitrailleuse M / 93. It was used in navy, and for armament of fortresses, where they were installed in casemates or on parapets on a pin. According to unverified information, in 1900 during the “Boxer Rebellion” in China, M / 93 machine guns seemed to be used in the defense of the Austro-Hungarian embassy in Beijing.
Among the many features of this machine gun, first of all, it is necessary to attribute the device of its automation, which operated by means of recoil of a semi-free shutter, and that in turn swung in a vertical plane like the shutter of the Remington 1867 rifle, the tilt shutter of which was propelled when fired. In the Salvator-Dormus machine gun, the bolt propped up the figured spring-loaded connecting rod, and the position and axes and profiles of the contacting surfaces of the bolt and connecting rod were adjusted so that their friction against each other slowed the bolt's retreat from the barrel, the recoil force of which, just like Maxim, forced move back. Moreover, it slowed down so that this time the bullet was enough to leave the barrel, and the gas pressure would fall to a safe level in it. The connecting rod was connected by a rod with a helical return spring, which was located in a long tube located behind the box. Below was a pendulum regulator, which allowed to change the rate of fire from 280 to 600 rds / min. Cooled the barrel with water, as well as in Maxim's machine guns. The sight is the simplest, rack-mount. All of this was thought out well, but then the designers went on about the military, which tape feed seemed too wasteful, so they equipped their machine gun with a magazine located above, from which cartridges were poured inwards under the influence of gravity. With the bolt was connected with a hinge lever, which sent cartridges in the chamber when the bolt moved forward. The same lever pushed down the spent cartridges. That is, the box of the machine gun from the bottom was opened, which increased the danger of its clogging, but the open pendulum could easily be damaged. In addition to the vertical magazine, a lubricator was also attached to the top of the machine gun. The oiler was simple. It was a container with gun oil and a spring-loaded rod that covered the outlet. Whenever the cartridge pressed on the rod, a drop of oil flowed onto it. On the one hand, this really facilitated the extraction, but in the overheated chamber the oil began to burn and the machine gun was enveloped in a cloud of gray smoke. The oil needed to be changed regularly, as shooting with unlubricated cartridges led to delays. He fired a machine gun with 8xXNNMX mm cartridges.
In 1902, a modification of the M / 02 was created for the army, which had a tripod machine with an armor shield and a seat for the shooter. On the shield it was possible to fix a canister with water to increase the efficiency of cooling the barrel. There were two variants of the machine: a light infantry tripod, and a cavalry one, with a single-sided carriage on wheels, with shield fastening and stowage for cartridge boxes, as well as a front end. The relatively cheap and “lightweight” Skoda machine gun aroused interest in Romania, which acquired several such machine guns for study, as well as in Japan and Holland. But even in their own army the number of these machine guns was small.
M / 02 (left), M / 09 (right)
And here, the Schwarzlose machine gun was adopted for everything else, and the Škoda firm had to compete with it. For this purpose, two 1909 and 1913 samples were developed. (M / 09 and M / 13), which already had tape power, but decided to remove the rate of fire control. The canvas cartridge tape was tucked into the receiver on the left-bottom of the box, and left it on the left-on top. On the return spring tube came up to fix the shoulder rest. Moreover, the machine gun even got an optical sight. But still, the Schwarzlose machine gun (there was a large article on it in the VO pages) turned out to be more preferable than the Salvator-Dormus machine gun.
And now let's go to northern Sweden, the home of "Swedish matches" and, strange as it sounds, the machine gun proposed and even patented back in 1870, that is, long before the first patents on Maxim's machine gun! It was received by the lieutenant of the Swedish army D.H. Friberg, but he could not translate it into metal. Rather, the first prototypes appeared only in the 1882 year, and it turned out that his system does not work with black powder cartridges! But Maxim worked for her, so everyone immediately safely forgot about the Friberg machine gun.
Here it is - this unusual half-tank, Kjelman semi-manual machine gun! (Army Museum in Stockholm)
Most importantly, he came up with ... an unusual for that time locking system with the help of a drummer. In the final phase of the movement, the drummer pushed the bolt lugs into the notches in the side walls of the receiver, thereby locking the bolt at the very moment of the shot. A similar locking system stood on the most famous Soviet light machine gun DP, so that its performance was confirmed in practice.
And then it happened that the Friberg patents in 1907, caught the eye of a certain Rudolf Henrik Kjelman and he, having bought them, and then finalized the design under the 6.5 × 55 mm cartridge with smokeless powder, got a fully functional machine gun. And not just a machine gun, but very light, despite the use of water cooling, with a vertical magazine - i.e. something like a light or heavy machine gun with a bipod.
The author himself is firing from him.
It just turned out that the mechanism of dilution of the locking elements by a drummer requires very precise manufacturing and high-grade steels. And any, even the smallest inaccuracy in the manufacture can lead to unreliable operation, accelerated wear of machine gun parts and its failure.
Therefore, although the Swedes adopted the Kjelman machine gun, called Kulsprutegevär m / 1914, they were able to manufacture 10 units of them all. Too complicated and expensive was the dressing, even for them, this seemingly simple and uncomplicated mechanism.
Another unusual machine gun, although outwardly similar to the "Maxim", appeared in Italy. Its development began in 1901, when Italian army officer Giuseppe Perino patented the design of a machine gun with an unusual power system. Cartridges for it were located in 20-charging cartridges (as, for example, on the Hotchkiss machine gun), but instead of throwing the spent cartridges out, the machine gun mechanism inserted them back into the cassette! When all the 20 cartridges were used up, the cassette fell out on the right side of the box, and it could be immediately packaged and sent along with cartridges for reloading. The idea was to prevent the hot sleeves from falling under the feet of the soldiers and clogging the position, and in addition, the non-ferrous metal was thus saved.
Perino M1908 machine gun. Caliber 6.5 mm.
Was unusual and power supply cartridges. If in the Hotchkis machine gun, cartridges with cartridges were inserted one by one on the left, Perino decided to install a box for five magazines on the left, of which only the lowest one was automatically fed to the bottom of the machine gun for firing. Assistant shooter was just enough to put on top of the new stores, so that the machine gun could fire continuously. Even in the "maxim" it was necessary to periodically change the tape, but from the "perino", charging only once, you could theoretically shoot continuously.
Perino machine gun. It is clearly visible device power supply cartridges.
Unfortunately, for Perino his machine gun was recognized by the government as “Top Secret”. He was slowly tested and, because of his secrecy, had never participated in large-scale shows. Therefore, when the First World War broke out in 1914, Perino lost to the Fiat-Revelli machine gun, as he was ready for mass production, but Perino’s design needed only to be prepared for it!
Mount machine gun "Maxim" on a tripod. Auckland Museum. New Zealand.
In some countries, they "creatively" approached the improvement not of the Maxim machine gun itself, but of the machine tool to it. Different systems were created here: both tripod and sled, and Sokolov’s wheeled machine, but for all their external dissimilarity they are very close in design, since the machine gun was attached to the machine on all these machines almost identically and was carried out by an eye at the bottom of the box.
Mount machine gun on the machine Sokolov.
But in Switzerland for some reason decided to create a fundamentally your machine. They did not like the English tripod and the German “sleigh”, and they invented a “fixture” in which the fastening of their 7.5-mm 1894 machine gun to the machine was carried out ... at the end of the barrel casing! A certain logic in this, it seems, was. The machine turned out to be record-breakingly light, and most importantly the barrel, fixed on it practically at the very muzzle, did not experience such shaking as machine-gun barrels on “ordinary” machine tools.
Machine gun M1894 caliber 7,5-mm.
That is, theoretically, shooting from it was more accurate. However, in the end it turned out that the whole body weight of the machine gun now fell on the hands of the shooter. He had to lie down or sit and ... shoot, holding the machine gun on the weight. Agree that "pleasure" is below average. But since Switzerland did not fight, then ... "it got away and so."
Fastening machine gun on a Swiss machine.
Another original development was the transportation of machine guns Maxim using dog sleds. And in fact: to carry a machine gun on the battlefield or to him? The horse is too big for this, and the machine gun for it is small. Of course, you can use a pack, but then before shooting the machine must be unloaded and assembled, and this takes time.
Belgian machine-gun harness of the early twentieth century.
Meanwhile, in Belgium, dog sleds have long transported milk to the cities. And the size of the machine gun with the machine was a little bigger and heavier than a cart with milk cans. So in the Belgian army a similar system of transportation of machine guns and caught on!
For the transportation of machine guns used machines of several types and different breeds of dogs.
Finally, banal story "Returning to normal". Well, this is when the story makes one turn and very often, albeit in completely new conditions, tries to return to its beginning, to where it left off. And the history of machine guns from ... mitralese, in which the drive mechanism was carried out, so to speak, "manual drive." Machine gun X. Maxim solved this problem once and for all. Now the shooter did not have to take aim at the same time, and think about turning the mitraleza handle at a constant speed and in no case accelerating it.
But this experience was either forgotten or it was simply ignored, but whatever it was, there was a man, an Australian Thomas F. Caldwell from Melbourne, who in 1915 got a patent for a machine gun ... with a manual drive, with which he went to England, to offer it to the british army. The machine gun was similar to the Maxim pistol, but had two barrels capable of firing simultaneously or separately, ensuring the rate of fire of the 500 vyst. / min Food - shop from disk shops on the cartridge 104. In his opinion, their use was preferable to tape, which was prone to jamming.
Caldwell managed to sell his invention for 5 000 pounds sterling in cash and bargain 1 pounds sterling for every machine gun made in the UK and another ten percent of the reward received from selling his machine gun or licenses to foreigners.
Schemes device Caldwell machine gun.
The machine gun was designed for the standard British cartridge .303 and had water cooling. The inventor himself believed that the manual drive, with which he had equipped his offspring, is very convenient, as it allows you to adjust the rate of fire by turning the handle. In addition, the accuracy of manufacturing parts has not played such a role, as in Maxim's machine gun. That is, it was easier and therefore cheaper. But no wonder it is said that "another simplicity is worse than theft!" Caldwell's machine gun was never adopted for armament in any army in the world!
To be continued ...
And now it makes sense to interrupt our story a little about Kh. Maxim and his machine gun and "wander into that steppe" a little. That is, to see what other inventors were doing at the same time. After all, not only Maxim was an intelligent and educated engineer. There were people who were better educated than he, who graduated from universities, who built bridges and steam locomotives, who developed complex machine tools and equipment for the same armory factories, in a word - people, at least, not inferior to him in intelligence, knowledge and experience. Were there such? Of course, but what they were doing at the same time, we will now see.
The machine gun Salvator-Dormus, the first model.
And it so happened that as soon as the rumors about Maxim’s work fell into the proper circles, very many began work on the machine gun. So, in 1888, Colonel of the Austro-Hungarian Army Georg Ritter von Dormus and Archduke Habsburg Karl Salvator received a patent for their machine gun design, which had a semi-free swinging bolt. This in itself was an out of the ordinary thing. In Russia, it was inconceivable that a nobleman, a military man, and even more so a titled person, should get a patent, invent something and draw drawings there. It was simply indecent. The colonel, in company with the Grand Duke, is busy with patenting ... yes, it's just a scandal. But in Austria-Hungary, this was treated differently. By the way, this was far from their only job. Salvator and Dormus also patented several automatic rifles they designed, and in 1894 (two years after the death of Salvator) already one Dormus received a patent for both of them for a self-loading pistol. But only their machine gun was embodied in metal, and at the same time they did not find much fame. Although many experts of that time liked it. First of all, I liked it for its obvious simplicity, since the Maxim itself in those years was considered an extremely complex weapon. The production of a new machine gun was launched at the Skoda enterprise in Pilsen. Moreover, the Skoda company was already a leader in Austria-Hungary in the field of engineering, but now began to produce small arms for the first time.
The scheme of the device and kinematics of the machine gun Salvator-Dormus.
Technological refinement machine gun conducted engineer Andreas Radovanovic. Already in 1890, they presented the finished design, and in 1891, the machine gun of Salvator and Dormus passed official tests at the shooting range near Pilsen.
The machine gun entered service of the Austro-Hungarian army in 1893 under the name Mitrailleuse M / 93. It was used in navy, and for armament of fortresses, where they were installed in casemates or on parapets on a pin. According to unverified information, in 1900 during the “Boxer Rebellion” in China, M / 93 machine guns seemed to be used in the defense of the Austro-Hungarian embassy in Beijing.
Among the many features of this machine gun, first of all, it is necessary to attribute the device of its automation, which operated by means of recoil of a semi-free shutter, and that in turn swung in a vertical plane like the shutter of the Remington 1867 rifle, the tilt shutter of which was propelled when fired. In the Salvator-Dormus machine gun, the bolt propped up the figured spring-loaded connecting rod, and the position and axes and profiles of the contacting surfaces of the bolt and connecting rod were adjusted so that their friction against each other slowed the bolt's retreat from the barrel, the recoil force of which, just like Maxim, forced move back. Moreover, it slowed down so that this time the bullet was enough to leave the barrel, and the gas pressure would fall to a safe level in it. The connecting rod was connected by a rod with a helical return spring, which was located in a long tube located behind the box. Below was a pendulum regulator, which allowed to change the rate of fire from 280 to 600 rds / min. Cooled the barrel with water, as well as in Maxim's machine guns. The sight is the simplest, rack-mount. All of this was thought out well, but then the designers went on about the military, which tape feed seemed too wasteful, so they equipped their machine gun with a magazine located above, from which cartridges were poured inwards under the influence of gravity. With the bolt was connected with a hinge lever, which sent cartridges in the chamber when the bolt moved forward. The same lever pushed down the spent cartridges. That is, the box of the machine gun from the bottom was opened, which increased the danger of its clogging, but the open pendulum could easily be damaged. In addition to the vertical magazine, a lubricator was also attached to the top of the machine gun. The oiler was simple. It was a container with gun oil and a spring-loaded rod that covered the outlet. Whenever the cartridge pressed on the rod, a drop of oil flowed onto it. On the one hand, this really facilitated the extraction, but in the overheated chamber the oil began to burn and the machine gun was enveloped in a cloud of gray smoke. The oil needed to be changed regularly, as shooting with unlubricated cartridges led to delays. He fired a machine gun with 8xXNNMX mm cartridges.
In 1902, a modification of the M / 02 was created for the army, which had a tripod machine with an armor shield and a seat for the shooter. On the shield it was possible to fix a canister with water to increase the efficiency of cooling the barrel. There were two variants of the machine: a light infantry tripod, and a cavalry one, with a single-sided carriage on wheels, with shield fastening and stowage for cartridge boxes, as well as a front end. The relatively cheap and “lightweight” Skoda machine gun aroused interest in Romania, which acquired several such machine guns for study, as well as in Japan and Holland. But even in their own army the number of these machine guns was small.
M / 02 (left), M / 09 (right)
And here, the Schwarzlose machine gun was adopted for everything else, and the Škoda firm had to compete with it. For this purpose, two 1909 and 1913 samples were developed. (M / 09 and M / 13), which already had tape power, but decided to remove the rate of fire control. The canvas cartridge tape was tucked into the receiver on the left-bottom of the box, and left it on the left-on top. On the return spring tube came up to fix the shoulder rest. Moreover, the machine gun even got an optical sight. But still, the Schwarzlose machine gun (there was a large article on it in the VO pages) turned out to be more preferable than the Salvator-Dormus machine gun.
And now let's go to northern Sweden, the home of "Swedish matches" and, strange as it sounds, the machine gun proposed and even patented back in 1870, that is, long before the first patents on Maxim's machine gun! It was received by the lieutenant of the Swedish army D.H. Friberg, but he could not translate it into metal. Rather, the first prototypes appeared only in the 1882 year, and it turned out that his system does not work with black powder cartridges! But Maxim worked for her, so everyone immediately safely forgot about the Friberg machine gun.
Here it is - this unusual half-tank, Kjelman semi-manual machine gun! (Army Museum in Stockholm)
Most importantly, he came up with ... an unusual for that time locking system with the help of a drummer. In the final phase of the movement, the drummer pushed the bolt lugs into the notches in the side walls of the receiver, thereby locking the bolt at the very moment of the shot. A similar locking system stood on the most famous Soviet light machine gun DP, so that its performance was confirmed in practice.
And then it happened that the Friberg patents in 1907, caught the eye of a certain Rudolf Henrik Kjelman and he, having bought them, and then finalized the design under the 6.5 × 55 mm cartridge with smokeless powder, got a fully functional machine gun. And not just a machine gun, but very light, despite the use of water cooling, with a vertical magazine - i.e. something like a light or heavy machine gun with a bipod.
The author himself is firing from him.
It just turned out that the mechanism of dilution of the locking elements by a drummer requires very precise manufacturing and high-grade steels. And any, even the smallest inaccuracy in the manufacture can lead to unreliable operation, accelerated wear of machine gun parts and its failure.
Therefore, although the Swedes adopted the Kjelman machine gun, called Kulsprutegevär m / 1914, they were able to manufacture 10 units of them all. Too complicated and expensive was the dressing, even for them, this seemingly simple and uncomplicated mechanism.
Another unusual machine gun, although outwardly similar to the "Maxim", appeared in Italy. Its development began in 1901, when Italian army officer Giuseppe Perino patented the design of a machine gun with an unusual power system. Cartridges for it were located in 20-charging cartridges (as, for example, on the Hotchkiss machine gun), but instead of throwing the spent cartridges out, the machine gun mechanism inserted them back into the cassette! When all the 20 cartridges were used up, the cassette fell out on the right side of the box, and it could be immediately packaged and sent along with cartridges for reloading. The idea was to prevent the hot sleeves from falling under the feet of the soldiers and clogging the position, and in addition, the non-ferrous metal was thus saved.
Perino M1908 machine gun. Caliber 6.5 mm.
Was unusual and power supply cartridges. If in the Hotchkis machine gun, cartridges with cartridges were inserted one by one on the left, Perino decided to install a box for five magazines on the left, of which only the lowest one was automatically fed to the bottom of the machine gun for firing. Assistant shooter was just enough to put on top of the new stores, so that the machine gun could fire continuously. Even in the "maxim" it was necessary to periodically change the tape, but from the "perino", charging only once, you could theoretically shoot continuously.
Perino machine gun. It is clearly visible device power supply cartridges.
Unfortunately, for Perino his machine gun was recognized by the government as “Top Secret”. He was slowly tested and, because of his secrecy, had never participated in large-scale shows. Therefore, when the First World War broke out in 1914, Perino lost to the Fiat-Revelli machine gun, as he was ready for mass production, but Perino’s design needed only to be prepared for it!
Mount machine gun "Maxim" on a tripod. Auckland Museum. New Zealand.
In some countries, they "creatively" approached the improvement not of the Maxim machine gun itself, but of the machine tool to it. Different systems were created here: both tripod and sled, and Sokolov’s wheeled machine, but for all their external dissimilarity they are very close in design, since the machine gun was attached to the machine on all these machines almost identically and was carried out by an eye at the bottom of the box.
Mount machine gun on the machine Sokolov.
But in Switzerland for some reason decided to create a fundamentally your machine. They did not like the English tripod and the German “sleigh”, and they invented a “fixture” in which the fastening of their 7.5-mm 1894 machine gun to the machine was carried out ... at the end of the barrel casing! A certain logic in this, it seems, was. The machine turned out to be record-breakingly light, and most importantly the barrel, fixed on it practically at the very muzzle, did not experience such shaking as machine-gun barrels on “ordinary” machine tools.
Machine gun M1894 caliber 7,5-mm.
That is, theoretically, shooting from it was more accurate. However, in the end it turned out that the whole body weight of the machine gun now fell on the hands of the shooter. He had to lie down or sit and ... shoot, holding the machine gun on the weight. Agree that "pleasure" is below average. But since Switzerland did not fight, then ... "it got away and so."
Fastening machine gun on a Swiss machine.
Another original development was the transportation of machine guns Maxim using dog sleds. And in fact: to carry a machine gun on the battlefield or to him? The horse is too big for this, and the machine gun for it is small. Of course, you can use a pack, but then before shooting the machine must be unloaded and assembled, and this takes time.
Belgian machine-gun harness of the early twentieth century.
Meanwhile, in Belgium, dog sleds have long transported milk to the cities. And the size of the machine gun with the machine was a little bigger and heavier than a cart with milk cans. So in the Belgian army a similar system of transportation of machine guns and caught on!
For the transportation of machine guns used machines of several types and different breeds of dogs.
Finally, banal story "Returning to normal". Well, this is when the story makes one turn and very often, albeit in completely new conditions, tries to return to its beginning, to where it left off. And the history of machine guns from ... mitralese, in which the drive mechanism was carried out, so to speak, "manual drive." Machine gun X. Maxim solved this problem once and for all. Now the shooter did not have to take aim at the same time, and think about turning the mitraleza handle at a constant speed and in no case accelerating it.
But this experience was either forgotten or it was simply ignored, but whatever it was, there was a man, an Australian Thomas F. Caldwell from Melbourne, who in 1915 got a patent for a machine gun ... with a manual drive, with which he went to England, to offer it to the british army. The machine gun was similar to the Maxim pistol, but had two barrels capable of firing simultaneously or separately, ensuring the rate of fire of the 500 vyst. / min Food - shop from disk shops on the cartridge 104. In his opinion, their use was preferable to tape, which was prone to jamming.
Caldwell managed to sell his invention for 5 000 pounds sterling in cash and bargain 1 pounds sterling for every machine gun made in the UK and another ten percent of the reward received from selling his machine gun or licenses to foreigners.
Schemes device Caldwell machine gun.
The machine gun was designed for the standard British cartridge .303 and had water cooling. The inventor himself believed that the manual drive, with which he had equipped his offspring, is very convenient, as it allows you to adjust the rate of fire by turning the handle. In addition, the accuracy of manufacturing parts has not played such a role, as in Maxim's machine gun. That is, it was easier and therefore cheaper. But no wonder it is said that "another simplicity is worse than theft!" Caldwell's machine gun was never adopted for armament in any army in the world!
To be continued ...
Information