Best for his time - a machine gun Lewis

The First World War radically changed the views of the military on the methods of conducting military operations. And if in its beginning the "dumb" defense did not need highly mobile means of infantry support, then by the end of the war they became vital. Some of them were machine guns, among which many experts consider Lewis machine gun the best.

History of creation

The technical concept of the new machine gun was developed by Samuel McLean, but it was only with the US Army officer Isaac Lewis that it was brought to a real prototype. He also patented the idea, and the machine gun received his name - a hand-gun Lewis. However, it did not start "hand" immediately, initially it was a machine gun with water cooling, but then Lewis applied the original design of forced air cooling of the barrel, which significantly reduced the weight of the machine gun and made it manual (by the way, this system is nowhere else but the Russian one The "Pecheneg" machine gun was not used). Production of weapons was established at the plants of BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) in the United Kingdom. The first army, which was armed with a Lewis machine gun, was the army of Belgium (1913). She was the first to experience him in battle.

The machine gun proved to be very successful, especially in comparison with the same type of weapon of that time, and was soon adopted by many armies of the world. Moreover, the distribution was received not only by its infantry version, but also by aircraft modification. The latter was distinguished by the lack of a cooling system and a larger cartridge cartridge. In the linear parts of the armies, Lewis's machine gun served until the beginning of the next great war, in which it was also used, but in small quantities. Production was completely stopped in 1942.

Machine Gun Construction

The Lewis machine gun acts through the removal of powder gases. The barrel is locked by turning the bolt, which with its fighting stops enters the grooves, carved on a steel box. The turn itself is carried out due to the curvilinear groove on the gate and the base of the bolt frame. From the machine gun, only automatic fire is allowed. Shooting begins with an open shutter, which adversely affects the accuracy of the weapon. The battle is from the original disc, the cartridges in which are located in several layers.

Depending on the capacity of the store these layers can be two (47 cartridges) or four (97 cartridges). In the store there is no supply spring, which radically differentiates it from other systems. The supply of cartridges is due to the rotation of the disk, in which it leads machine gun automation. The rate of fire can be adjusted by a crane on the gas chamber. The return-fighting spring is of the drum type, which allows you to adjust it using a special key.

Machine gun characteristics

The Lewis machine gun fires 7.62mm bullets with an initial speed of 747 meters per second and a rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. The range of effective shooting is 1800 meters. Weight with a disk filled with cartridges, 17.8 kg.

A role model

The qualities of the new machine gun were appreciated not only by the Entente countries, but also by their opponents. German soldiers nicknamed the machine gun Lewis "rattlesnake." This nickname he received for high mobility, secrecy and a characteristic "voice." Captured machine guns the Germans remade under the Mauser cartridge and actively used. One must assume that the experience of acquaintance with this weapon pushed German designers to create their own version, which we know as the best German MG-42 machine gun.