Weapons walkaround vol.10: World War I aerial machine guns

Subject: Lewis Twin aerial machine gun:

Musée d'lair et de l'espace, Le Bourget, Paris 2015

Comments: The Lewis gun was invented by U.S. Army colonel Isaac Newton Lewis in 1911, based on initial work by Samuel Maclean. Despite its origins, the Lewis gun was not initially adopted by the U.S. military, most likely because of political differences between Lewis and General William Crozier, the chief of the Ordnance Department. Lewis became frustrated with trying to persuade the U.S. Army to adopt his design, "slapped by rejections from ignorant hacks", in his words, and retired from the army. He left the United States in 1913 and went to Belgium, where he established the Armes Automatique Lewis company in Liège to facilitate commercial production of the gun. Lewis had been working closely with British arms manufacturer the Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) in an effort to overcome some of the production difficulties of the weapon. The Belgians bought a small number of Lewises in 1913, using the .303 British round and, in 1914, BSA purchased a licence to manufacture the Lewis machine gun in England, which resulted in Lewis receiving significant royalty payments and becoming very wealthy. Lewis and his factory moved to England before 1914, away from possible seizure in the event of a German invasion.he Lewis gun has the distinction of being the first machine gun fired from an aeroplane; on 7 June 1912, Captain Charles Chandler of the US Army fired a prototype Lewis gun from the foot-bar of a Wright Model B Flyer.Lewis guns were used extensively on British and French aircraft during the First World War, as either an observer's or gunner's weapon or an additional weapon to the more common Vickers. The Lewis's popularity as an aircraft machine gun was partly due to its low weight, the fact that it was air-cooled and that it used self-contained 97-round drum magazines. Because of this, the Lewis was first mounted on the Vickers F.B.5 "Gunbus", which was probably the world's first purpose-built combat aircraft when it entered service in August 1914, replacing the Vickers machine gun used on earlier experimental versions. It was also fitted on two early production examples of the Bristol Scout C aircraft by Lanoe Hawker in the summer of 1915, mounted on the port side and firing forwards and outwards at a 30° angle to avoid the propeller arc.

Subject: Parabellum aerial machine gun

Musée d'lair et de l'espace, Le Bourget, Paris 2015

Comments:The Parabellum MG14 was a 7.9 mm caliber World War I machine gun built by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken. It was a redesign of the Maschinengewehr 08 machine gun (itself an adaptation of the Maxim gun) system intended for use on aircraft and zeppelins, that used a toggle action that broke upwards rather than downwards opposite the MG 08, making for a much more compact receiver. The fusee spring was dispensed with for an internal spring design, the breech block was completely different and the spent cartridges dropped out the bottom of the receiver, rather than being ejected forward through a hole under the breech from the receiver. There appears to be no action or receiver parts interchangeable with the MG 08. The MG08's belt-style ammunition feed was enclosed in a drum, the recoil casing was lightened and the cooling jacket was modified for air- instead of water-cooling. The rate of fire was 700 rounds/minute. The belt was reduced to 30 mm in width.An MG14 was used in the early development of the German version of the gun synchroniser by Anthony Fokker. The MG14 was used with the first version of the pioneering Fokker Stangensteuerung synchronizer on the five Fokker M.5K/MG pre-production prototypes for the Fokker E.I, but as the limited supplies of the weapon were more urgently needed for observers in reconnaissance aircraft and defensive gunners aboard Zeppelins and heavier-than-air bombers - as well as its temperamental nature as used on the M.5K/MG, as noted by Otto Parschau - it was reserved for flexible mounts where its combination of light weight and high rate of fire were most useful.The MG 14 and following on MG 14/17 did make one important contribution to the fixed forward-firing LMG 08's and LMG's 08/15's in that their 30mm wide cloth ammunition belt was compatible with those weapons as the fixed forward-firing guns used fixed ammunition feed guides and if surviving photographs are to be used as a reference, the belts were used exclusively by the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte for all fixed forward-firing guns. The belts can be readily identified by two grommets (instead of three for the wider MG 08 and MG 08/15 belts used by ground forces) and the lack of extended brass tab (also used by the MG 08 and Mg 08/15 ground guns). This not only reduced weight and bulk but it also allowed for much lighter and smaller empty belt chutes that came out of all LMG 08's and LMG 08/15's and led down into storage bins in the aircraft. At least three versions survive, a water cooled, an air cooled and a 14/17 version with a 3x telescopic sight.

Subject: Vickers aerial machine gun
Musée d'lair et de l'espace, Le Bourget, Paris 2015
Comments: 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: one fired, one fed the ammunition, the rest helped to carry the weapon, its ammunition, and spare parts. It was in service from before the First World War until the 1960s, with air-cooled versions of it on many Allied World War I fighter aircraft. In 1913, a Vickers machine gun was mounted on the experimental Vickers E.F.B.1 biplane, which was probably the world's first purpose-built combat aeroplane. However, by the time the production version, the Vickers F.B.5, had entered service the following year, the armament had been changed to a Lewis gun. During World War I, the Vickers gun became a standard weapon on British and French military aircraft, especially after 1916. Although heavier than the Lewis, its closed bolt firing cycle made it much easier to synchronize to allow it to fire through aircraft propellers. The belt feed was enclosed right up to the gun's feed-way to inhibit effects from wind. Steel disintegrating-link ammunition belts were perfected in the UK by William de Courcy Prideaux in mid-war and became standard for aircraft guns thereafter. By 1917 it had been determined that standard rifle calibre cartridges were less satisfactory for shooting down observation balloons than larger calibres carrying incendiary or tracer bullets, the Vickers machine gun was chambered in the 11mm Vickers round, known as the Vickers aircraft machine gun and sometimes the "Balloon Buster", was adopted by the allies as a standard anti-balloon armament and used by both the British and French in this role until the end of the war.The famous Sopwith Camel and the SPAD XIII types used twin synchronized Vickers, as did most British and French fighters between 1918 and the mid-1930s. In the air, the weighty water cooling system was rendered redundant by the chilly temperatures at high altitude and the constant stream of air passing over the gun as the plane flew; but because the weapon relied on barrel recoil, the (empty) water-holding barrel jacket or casing needed to be retained. Several sets of louvred slots were cut into the barrel jacket to aid air cooling, a better solution than what had initially been attempted with the 1915-vintage lMG 08 German aircraft ordnance.

Weapons walkaround vol.9: IRBM PGM-17 Thor

Subject: PGM-17 Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile

Location: USAF Museum, Dayton, Ohio, USA, 2014

Comments: Thor was the first operational ballistic missile deployed by the U.S. Air Force (USAF). Named after the Norse god of thunder, it was deployed in the United Kingdom between 1959 and September 1963 as an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with thermonuclear warheads. Thor was 65 feet (20 m) in height and 8 feet (2.4 m) in diameter. It was later augmented in the U.S. IRBM arsenal by the Jupiter. A large family of space launch vehicles—the Thor and Delta rockets—were derived from the Thor design. The Delta II is still in active service as of 2014 and with the retirement of Atlas and Titan in the mid-2000s is the last surviving "heritage" launch vehicle in the US fleet, being derived from a Cold War-era missile system. Fearful that the Soviet Union would deploy a long-range ballistic missile before the U.S., in January 1956 the USAF began developing the Thor, a 1,500 miles (2,400 km) intermediate-range ballistic missile. The program proceeded quickly, and within three years of inception the first of 20 Royal Air Force Thor squadrons became operational in the UK. The UK deployment carried the codename 'Project Emily'. One of the advantages of the design was that, unlike the Jupiter IRBM, the Thor could be carried by the USAF's cargo aircraft of the time, which made its deployment more rapid. The launch facilities were not transportable, and had to be built on site. The Thor was a stop-gap measure, and once the first generation of ICBMs based in the US became operational, Thor missiles were quickly retired. The last of the missiles was withdrawn from operational alert in 1963.A small number of Thors, converted to "Thrust Augmented Delta" launchers, remained operational in the anti-satellite missile role as Program 437 until April 1975. These missiles were based on Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean and had the ability to destroy satellites in low Earth orbit. With prior warning of an impending launch, they could destroy a Soviet spy satellite soon after orbital insertion. These missiles remain in storage, and could be reactivated, though the W-49 Mod 6 warheads were all dismantled by June 1976

Thor-Agena A Rocket

Thor-Agena A Rocket

Weapons walkaround vol.8: V2

Subjecy: V2

Location: Deutches Museum, Munich, Germany, 2012; Museum of science and technology, London, Great Britain, 2013; RAF Museum, London, Great Britain, 2013; USAF Museum, Dayton, Ohio, USA 2014,

Comments: The V-2 (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, "Retribution Weapon 2"), technical name Aggregat-4 (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile with liquid-propellant rocket engine was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a "vengeance weapon", designed to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The V-2 rocket was also the first man-made object to cross the boundary of space. Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, firstly London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a 2011 BBC documentary, the attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while 12,000 forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing the weapons. As Germany collapsed, teams from the Allied forces—the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union—raced to capture key German manufacturing sites and examples of German guided missiles, rocket and jet powered aircraft. Wernher von Braun and over 100 key V-2 personnel surrendered to the Americans. Through a lengthy sequence of events, a significant portion of the original V-2 team ended up working for theUS Army at the Redstone Arsenal. The US also captured enough V-2 hardware to build approximately 80 of the missiles. The Soviets gained possession of the V-2 manufacturing facilities after the war and proceeded to re-establish V-2 production and move it to the Soviet Union. The Redstone team, led by von Braun, was transferred to NASA on its formation in October 1958. For NASA this new Marshall Spaceflight Center (MSFC) helped design a series of booster rockets in the Saturn family. (ref: wikipedia)

Weapons Walkaround vol.7: Rheinmetal Borsig Rheintochter R-1

Subject: Rheinmetal Borsig Rheintochter R-1

Location: Deutches museum, Munich, Germany 2012.

Comments: Rheintochter was a German surface-to-air missile developed by Rheinmetall-Börsig during World War II. Its name comes from the mythical Rheintöchter (Rhinemaidens) of Richard Wagner's opera series Der Ring des Nibelungen.The missile was a multi-stage solid fuelled rocket. It had four small control surfaces, resembling paddles, in the nose, six fins at the after end of the top stage, and four at the end of the main stage. It stood 6.3 m (20 ft 8 in) tall, with a diameter of 54 cm (1 ft 9 in). The sustainer motor, located ahead of the 136 kg (300 lb) warhead (rather than the more usual behind), exhausted through six venturis between the first stage fins.The initial R1 variant was powered by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket.The proposed R2 did not offer any improvement over the R1, and was dropped in December 1944.The R3 model was developed, which had a liquid fuel engine with solid-fuel boosters ("strap-ons"). Only six trial missiles were fired.

Weapons walkaround vol.5: British Ordnance QF 25 Pounder Field Gun

Subject: British Ordnance QF 25 Pounder Field Gun

Location: London an Edinburgh, UK, 2013.

Comments:The 25-pounder was the main field artillery weapon used by British Commonwealth and colonial infantry and armoured divisions of all types during the Second World War. Throughout the war each British-pattern infantry division was established with 72 25-pounders, in three field artillery regiments (battalions). Armoured divisions eventually were standardised with two field artillery regiments, one of which was self-propelled (see below). Before mid-1940 each regiment had two batteries (companies) of twelve guns; after that date regiments changed to batteries of eight guns and added a third battery, a process that was not completed until early 1943. In the late 1950s, the British Army reverted to batteries of six guns. Field artillery regiments had two batteries of 25-pounders and one of 5.5 inch guns. The early 18- and 25-pounders had been towed in the field by the Light Dragon, a tracked vehicle derived from a light tank, and the Morris CDSW. Throughout most of the Second World War the 25-pounder was normally towed, with its limber, behind a 4x4 Field Artillery Tractor called a "Quad". These were manufactured by Morris, Guy and Karrier in England, and, in greater numbers, by Ford and Chevrolet in Canada. In the 1950s, the British Army replaced the various "Quads" with a new Bedford 3-ton gun tower fitted with a specialist body. In 1941, the British Army improvised a self-propelled 25-pounder named the Bishop, on the chassis of the Valentine tank. This mount was unsatisfactory and was replaced in 1942 by the American M7 Priest. However, this complicated the supply of ammunition in the field, and was replaced in 1944 by the Sexton, which was designed and mostly manufactured in Canada (some 2/3 of ordnances and mountings were imported from the UK due to limited Canadian production capacity) and mounted the 25-pounder on a Ram or Grizzly tank chassis. By World War II standards, the 25-pounder had a smaller calibre and lower shell-weight than many other field-artillery weapons, although it had longer range than most. (Most forces had entered the war with even smaller 75 mm (3.0 in) designs but had quickly moved to 105 mm (4.1 in) and larger weapons.) It was designed for the British practice of suppressive (neutralising) fire, not destructive fire that had proved illusory in the early years of World War I. Nevertheless the 25-pounder was considered by all to be one of the best artillery pieces in use. The effects caused by the gun (and the speed at which the British artillery control system could respond) in the North-West Europe Campaign of 1944–1945 made many German soldiers believe that the British had secretly deployed an automatic 25-pounder. In UK service most guns were replaced by the 105mm Abbot and some by the Oto Melara 105mm Pack Howitzer and the remainder by the 105mm L118 Light Gun. The last British military unit to fire the 25-pounder in its field role (as opposed to ceremonial use) was the Gun Troop of the Honourable Artillery Company on Salisbury Plain in 1992.