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Maxim
The Maxim was the first true self-powered machine gun*, a recoil-operated fully-automatic belt fed weapon produced by Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, an American-born inventor who moved to England at the age of 41.
Maxim's attention was drawn to guns in 1881, when a friend famously advised him "If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable those fool Europeans to cut each other's throats with greater facility." He produced his first gun in 1885, an extremely bulky device with a distinctive bulge at the rear for a rotary crank to reverse the movement of the block, and a unique pointer-operated fire regulator which allowed the weapon to fire at any speed from 1 RPM to 600. Both were eliminated in later designs for simplicity, the crank assembly being replaced with a toggle joint that was the forerunner of that used on the Borchardt C-93 and Luger P08.
Despite some scepticism from early buyers (the Tsar of Russia's officers, when the 1885's mechanism was explained to them, laughed and stated nobody could operate the crank 600 times a minute, while the King of Denmark, on being told how much each round cost, told Maxim one of his guns would bankrupt Denmark in half a day) the gun was an instant success, and was adopted by many national militaries in a variety of variants and calibres. It saw combat from British use in The Gambia in 1888 to the end of the Second World War, eventually being supplanted by lighter and more efficient designs. British use led to a popular saying: "Whatever happens, we have got / The Maxim gun, and they have not." Larger versions of the Maxim were also used as anti-aircraft guns, with the most well-known examples being the British "pom-pom" guns.
Maxim's gun company was established with the help of the Vickers steel company of Great Britain and ultimately absorbed into it, joining with rival Nordenfeldt of Sweden in between; Albert Vickers would later produce his own redesigns of the Maxim, the Maxim-Vickers and later the Vickers Gun.
(*While a Swedish Army Lieutenant, D.H. Friberg, had patented a design for a recoil-operated firearm action using locking lugs similar to those used by many later automatic weapons (such as the Russian DP-28) in 1870, with early drawings for a weapon based on it dating back to 1882, Friberg's design was impractical due to rapid residue buildup from use of black powder, and it is unclear if any firing weapon was produced before Maxim's gun in 1885. Rudolf Henrik Kjellman latter refined Friberg's design to use Swiss 6.5x55mm smokeless powder cartridges in 1907, adding a bipod, water jacket and forward grip and replacing Friberg's hopper feed with a detachable box magazine: this, the "Kjellman Light Machine Gun," was a commercial failure with only ten examples produced.)
The Maxim and variants can be seen in the following films, television series, video games, and anime used by the following actors:
Maxim 1895
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carry on, Sergeant! | Canadian soldiers | 1928 | ||
| North West Frontier | S.M. Asgaralli | Havildar | 1959 | |
| Herbert Lom | Van Layden | |||
| Kenneth More | Capt. Scott | |||
| Wilfrid Hyde-White | Mr Bridie | |||
| 100 Rifles | Mexican soldiers, Indians | 1969 | ||
| Companeros | Franco Nero | Yodlaf Peterson | A mockup | 1970 |
| Breaker Morant | Edward Woodward | Morant | 1980 | |
| Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows | assassins | 2011 | ||
| The Legend of Tarzan | Belgian soldiers | 2016 |
Television
| Show Title / Episode | Actor | Character | Note | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rough Riders | Spanish troops | Argentine Maxim | 1997 | |
| Lock 'n Load With R. Lee Ermey /Episode 1: Machine Gun Educations | R. Lee Ermey | Himself | 2009 |
Maxim MG08
German version of the Maxim gun, adopted in 1908 and classified MG'08 accordingly. Usually seen on its unique four-legged 'sledge' mounting which could be folded up to drag the gun across the ground.
Specifications
- Weight, Gun Only: 58lb 5oz (26.44kg)
- Weight, On 'Sledge' Mounting: 136lb 11oz (62kg)
- O/A Length: 46.25in (1175mm)
- Barrel length: 28.3 in (719 mm)
- Cartridge: 7.92x57mm Mauser
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wings | German soldiers | 1927 | ||
| Four Sons | German soldiers | 1928 | ||
| Verdun: Visions of History | German soldiers | 1928 | ||
| Carry on, Sergeant! | German soldiers | 1928 | ||
| Journey's End | German soldiers | 1930 | ||
| All Quiet on the Western Front | German soldiers | 1930 | ||
| Heroes for Sale | German soldiers | 1933 | ||
| Shock Troop | German soldiers | 1934 | ||
| The Lives of a Bengal Lancer | 1935 | |||
| The General Died at Dawn | General Yang's troops | 1936 | ||
| The Fighting 69th | German soldiers | 1940 | ||
| Forty Thousand Horsemen | Turkish soldiers | 1940 | ||
| Sergeant York | German soldiers | 1941 | ||
| Sahara | German soldiers | Mounted on a halftrack | 1943 | |
| Native Shores (Rodnye berega) | German soldiers | Fitted with a bipod | 1943 | |
| In the Name of the Fatherland (Vo imya Rodiny) | German soldiers | 1943 | ||
| The Battle of the Rails (La bataille du rail) | German soldiers | 1946 | ||
| Five Gates to Hell | Vietnamesse guerillass | 1959 | ||
| Five Branded Women | German troops | 1960 | ||
| Taxi for Tobruk (Un taxi pour Tobrouk) | Germán Cobos | Jean Ramirez | Mounted on jeep | 1961 |
| The Longest Day | German soldiers | 1962 | ||
| The Train | German soldiers | 1964 | ||
| Is Paris Burning? | German soldiers | 1966 | ||
| Shock Troops (Un homme de trop) | Patrick Préjean | Lecocq | 1967 | |
| Charles Vanel | Passevin | |||
| How I Unleashed World War II | German soldiers | 1970 | ||
| Duck, You Sucker! | Rod Steiger | Juan Miranda | 1971 | |
| The Wind and the Lion | Marc Zuber | Sultan of Morocco | 1975 | |
| March or Die | French Foreign Legionnaires | 1977 | ||
| Rebellious "Orion" (Myatezhnyy "Orion") | German sailors | 1978 | ||
| All Quiet on the Western Front | German soldiers | 1979 | ||
| Gallipoli | Turkish soldiers | 1981 | ||
| The Ace of Aces (L'As des as) | German soldiers | 1982 | ||
| The Living Daylights | 1987 | |||
| The Lighthorsemen | Turkish soldiers | 1987 | ||
| Legends of the Fall | German soldiers | 1994 | ||
| The Lost Battalion | German soldiers | 2001 | ||
| Deathwatch | German soldiers | 2002 | ||
| The Bridge | Alexander Becht | Ernst Scholten | 2008 | |
| German soldiers | ||||
| Guard No. 47 | Austro-Hungarian soldiers | 2008 | ||
| The Red Baron | German soldiers | 2008 | ||
| Passchendaele | German soldiers | 2009 | ||
| Dnieper Line: Love and War | German soldiers | 2009 | ||
| Beneath Hill 60 | German soldiers | 2010 | ||
| Battle of Warsaw 1920 | Natasza Urbanska | Ola Raniewska | 2011 | |
| Polish soldiers | ||||
| Day of the Falcon (Or noir) | Nasib's oilfield guards | 2011 | ||
| War Horse | German troops | 2011 | ||
| Emden Men | German Sailors | 2012 | ||
| Stalingrad | Russian sailors | mounted on a boat | 2013 | |
| The Water Diviner | Greek and Turkish soldiers | 2014 |
Television
| Show Title / Episode | Actor | Character | Note | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anzacs | German and Turkish troops | 1985 | ||
| Anzacs | Mark Hembrow | Dick Baker | 1985 | |
| The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles | Daniel Craig | Captain Schiller | "Daredevils of the Desert" (S2E15) | 1992-1993 |
| The Somme – From Defeat to Victory | German soldiers | 2006 | ||
| 14 - Diaries of the Great War | German soldiers | 2014 | ||
| Gallipoli | Turkish troops | 2015 | ||
| Deadline Gallipoli | Turkish soldiers | Episode 2 | 2015 |
Video Games
| Game Title | Appears as | Mods | Notation | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battlefield: 1918 | 2004 | |||
| Darkest of Days | 2009 | |||
| 7554 | MG 08 | 2011 | ||
| The Great War 1918 | 2013 | |||
| Battle of Empires : 1914-1918 | MG08 | 2014 | ||
| Battlefield 1 | Mounted on A7V Tanks | 2016 |
Anime
| Title | Characters | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Girl Und Panzer | Mounted on German A7V tank | 2012 | |
| Suisei no Gargantia | Pirates | incorrectly equipped with a top-mounted magazine together with a belt box | 2013 |
| Saga of Tanya the Evil | Empire soldiers | with disk-shaped muzzle from Chinese Type 24 Maxim | 2017 |
Maxim MG08/15
A variant of the MG08, designed as a more portable version of the gun to create a weapon faster to manufacture than the Madsen machine gun for the LMG role. By far the most common German machine gun of WW1 with a total production of around 130,000, it was so ubiquitous that "08/15" (pronounced Null-acht-fünfzehn) is still used in German to refer to something mundane.
The rare MG08/18 was an experimental heavy-barrel aircooled version under testing at the very end of the WW1.
Specifications
- Weight: 31lb (14.06kg) empty, 46lb (20.8kg) with water jacket filled
- O/A Length: 57.0in (1448mm)
- Barrel length: 28.3 in (719 mm)
- Cartridge: 7.92x57mm Mauser
- Magazine: 100- or 250-round cloth belt carried in an ammo chest or 100-round cloth belt loaded in a metal patronenkaster belt carrier drum. It feeds from the right and ejects the spent brass from the left.
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wings | MG08/15 aircraft version | 1927 | ||
| Westfront 1918 | German soldiers | 1930 | ||
| Shock Troop | German soldiers | 1934 | ||
| Hell's Angels | Ben Lyon | Monte Rutledge | MG08/15 aircraft version | 1930 |
| La Bandera | Jean Gabin | Pierre Gilieth | 1935 | |
| The General Died at Dawn | General Yang's troops | 1936 | ||
| The Fighting 69th | German soldiers | 1940 | ||
| Forty Thousand Horsemen | German and Turkish soldiers | 1940 | ||
| A Walk In The Sun | German soldiers | MG08/15 modified with water jacket removed | 1945 | |
| Signum Laudis | Vítezslav Jandák | Pvt. Müller | 1980 | |
| Zdenek Dusek | Pvt. Kostka | |||
| High Road To China | Chinese Warlord's soldiers | 1983 | ||
| Biggles: Adventures in Time | MG08/15 air cooled | 1986 | ||
| The Lighthorsemen | German troops | MG08/15 aircraft version | 1987 | |
| Flyboys | German pilot | MG08/15 aircraft version | 2006 | |
| The Red Baron | German soldiers | 2008 | ||
| Battle of Warsaw 1920 | Polish pilot | MG08/15 aircraft version | 2011 | |
| Rear-gunner | MG08/15 air-cooled | |||
| Day of the Falcon (Or noir) | Nasib's pilot | MG08/15 aircraft version | 2011 | |
| Wilson City | Hungarian solders | Fitted with drum magazine | 2015 | |
| Wonder Woman | German solders | Fitted with drum magazine | 2017 |
Television
| Show Title / Episode | Actor | Character | Note | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anzacs | German and Australian troops | 1985 | ||
| Journey's End | German soldiers | 1988 | ||
| The Somme – From Defeat to Victory | German soldiers | 2006 |
Anime
| Title | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Mystic Archives of Dantalian | Mounted on aircraft | 2011 |
Video Games
| Game Title | Appears as | Notation | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi | Machine Gun | 2003 | |
| Battlefield: 1918 | 2004 | ||
| NecroVisioN | 2009 | ||
| NecroVisioN: Lost Company | 2010 | ||
| The Great War 1918 | 2013 | ||
| Call of Duty: Black Ops II | Included in the Apocalypse DLC | 2013 | |
| Battle of Empires : 1914-1918 | 2014 | ||
| Verdun | Maschinengewehr '08/15 | 2015 | |
| Battlefield 1 | 2016 | ||
| Call of Duty: Black Ops III | Included in the Zombies Chronicles DLC | 2017 |
Maxim M1910
Russian-adopted version of the Maxim, adopted originally in 1905 with a bronze water-jacket but modified and standardized to a corrugated-type jacket in 1910. A simplified version with smooth water jacket was adopted in October 1914 and manufactured until late 1920s. Usually seen on the 'Sokolov' mounting which was wheeled with a small turntable.
Specifications
- Weight, Gun Only: 52lb 8oz (23.8kg)
- Weight, On 'Sokolov' Mounting: 99lb 11oz (45.22kg) (Including Shield)
- O/A Length: 43.6in (1107mm)
- Barrel length: 28.4 in (721 mm)
- Cartridge: 7.62x54mm-R, early prototypes chambered for Berdan 10.14 mm
Film
Television
| Show Title / Episode | Actor | Character | Note | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born by Revolution: Hard Autumn (Rozhdyonnaya revolyutsiey: Trudnaya osen) | Red soldiers and sailors | Seen in documentary footage | 1974 | |
| Born by Revolution: On the Night of the 20th (Rozhdyonnaya revolyutsiey: V noch na 20-e) | Moscow People's Militia | 1976 | ||
| The Strogovs (Strogovy) | White troops and Red partisans | Ep.7,8 | 1976 | |
| Eternal Call (Vechnyy zov) - Season 1 | Ivan Lapikov | Pankrat Nazarov | Ep.4 | 1976 |
| Red Guards, White Army soldiers | Ep.4,5 | |||
| The State Border: Film 1 | Red Army soldiers | 1980 | ||
| German soldiers | modified to resemble German Maxim MG08 | |||
| The State Border: Film 2 | Russian Border guards | 1980 | ||
| The State Border: Film 3 | Russian Border guards | 1982 | ||
| The State Border: Film 4 | Russian Border guards and Turkestan Communist fighters | 1984 | ||
| The State Border: Film 5 | Russian Border guards | on wheel mount and M-4 AA quad mount | 1986 | |
| The White Guard (Belaya gvardiya) | White Guard soldiers | 2012 |
Anime
| Film Title | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood | Ishvalan resistance fighter | 2009 - 2010 | |
| Suisei no Gargantia | Sailors | 2013 |
Maxim M1910/30
Film
Television
| Show Title | Actor | Character | Note / Episode | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stawka wieksza niz zycie | Polish troops | 15/ "Oblezenie" | 1966-1968 | |
| Czterej pancerni i pies | Soviet and Polish troops | 1966-1970 | ||
| Shadows Disappear at Noon (Teni ischezayut v polden) | Red partisans, brigands | Ep.1 | 1972 | |
| Born by Revolution: On the Night of the 20th (Rozhdyonnaya revolyutsiey: V noch na 20-e) | Moscow People's Militia, soldiers | 1976 | ||
| The Strogovs (Strogovy) | Anatoliy Semenov | Commissar Krayukhin | Ep.8 | 1976 |
| White troops and Red partisans | Ep.7,8 | |||
| Syndicate-2 (Sindikat-2) | White Army soldiers | 1981 | ||
| Long Road in the Dunes (Ilgais cels kapas) | Red Army soldier | Ep.4 | 1982 | |
| Eternal Call (Vechnyy zov) - Season 2 | Soviet troops | 1983 | ||
| M-4 AA quad mounting; Seen in documentary footage | ||||
| Ultimate Force | Serbian paramilitaries | Something to Do with Justice | 2002 | |
| Liquidation (Likvidatsiya) | Soviet soldiers | 2007 | ||
| The White Guard (Belaya gvardiya) | Aleksey Serebryakov | Col. Feliks Nay-Turs | Visually modified to resemble MG08 | 2012 |
| The White Guard (Belaya gvardiya) | Mounted on armoured car | 2012 | ||
| Red Mountains (Krasnye gory) | Brigand | 2013 | ||
| Our Mothers, Our Fathers | Soviet soldiers | 2013 |
Video games
| Game Title | Appears as | Mods | Notation | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commandos: Strike Force | It has unlimited ammo | 2006 | ||
| Heroes & Generals | M-4 Quad AA (Stationary and GAZ-AAA truck) | 2016 |
Anime
| Title | Character | Note | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Dream Hunter Rem: Massacre in the Phantasmic Labyrinth | is seen in the Geppetto base | 1992 |
Maxim-Tokarev
Maxim-Tokarev (MT or sometimes M-T) is a Soviet light machine gun, based on Maxim M1910. It was designed by Fedor Tokarev in early 1920s and put into service in 1925. MT has a perforated barrel cover instead of water jacket of original Maxim; the barrel itself was shortened. A rifle stock and a folding bipod with tubular legs replaced the spade grips and wheeled carriage. The canvas belt capacity was reduced to 100 rounds. Maxim-Tokarev satisfied Red Army only marginally so it was manufactured only in small numbers (according to various sources, about 2,400 or about 3,500). When DP-27 was produced in large numbers, MT was dismissed from service. Most of MTs was sold to Republican Spain and China.
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sniper | German troops | Stands for some German machine gun | 1931 | |
| Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre | Japanese troops | Captured from Chinese troops | 1995 |
PV-1
PV-1 (Pulemyot Vozdushny, airborne machine gun) is a Soviet aircraft mounted version of Maxim M1910. It was designed in mid-1920s by Alexander Nadashkevich and put into service 1928. Unlike the base Maxim, PV-1 was air-cooled and had ROF increased to 750 rpm. About 18,000 PV-1s was manufactured in 1927-1939. PV-1 was the main weapon of many Soviet fighter planes, lile Polikarpov I-5 and I-15, and Tupolev I-4, and also mounted on reconnaissance planes Polikarpov R-5/R-Z and its ground attack variant R-5Sh. In August 1941 large stocks of PV-1s, removed from obsolete planes, were converted to triple anti-aircraft mountings, designed by Fedor Tokarev. In 1942, about 3,000 PV-1 guns were converted to infantry weapons by mounting them on the Sokolov 1910 carriage.
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nail in the Boot (Gvozd v sapoge) | Mounted on R-3 reconnaissance plane | 1932 | ||
| Squadron No. 5 (Eskadrilya No. 5) | Mounted on I-15bis fighter planes | 1939 |
Video games
| Game Title | Appears as | Note | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heroes & Generals | Mounted on R-Z reconnaissance plane | 2016 |
Maxim M/32-33
Maxim M/32-33 is a Finnish machine gun, based on Russian Maxim M1910. It was developed by Aimo Lahti and put into service in 1932. The rate of fire was increased to 850 rpm. A distinctive feature of M/32-33 is a snow filling cap to the water jacket that was later copied on 1941 version of Soviet Maxim M1910/30.
Specifications
- Weight: 24 kg
- Weight of tripod: 30 kg
- Length: 1180 mm
- Barrel length: 720 mm
- Rate of Fire: 600 or 850 rpm
- Cartridge: 7.62x54mm R
- Ammunition: 200 round continious metallic belt
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| We Will Come Back (Sekretar raykoma) | German troops, Soviet partisans | 1942 | ||
| Kotovsky | Imperial German soldiers | 1942 | ||
| Tali-Ihantala 1944 | Finnish troops | 2007 |
Type 24 Heavy Machine Gun
The Type 24 Heavy Machine Gun is the Chinese variant of the Maxim, and can be identified by the muzzle disk mounted on the barrel just ahead of the water jacket. Originally adopted in 1935 chambered for the 7.92x57mm Mauser, after the Chinese Civil War a variant chambered for the 7.62x54mmR Russian cartridge was developed.
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Notation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Red Detachment of Women (Hong se niang zi jun) | Kuomintang troops | 1961 | ||
| Assembly (Ji jie hao) | Gu's company | Barrel is in the center of the water jacket, which appears to be incorrect | 2007 | |
| Lu | ||||
| Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen | Japanese, French and German troops | 2010 | ||
| Death and Glory in Changde | Chinese soldiers | Tripod mounted | 2010 | |
| Shaolin | 2011 |
Maxim-Nordenfelt QF 1-pounder "Pom-Pom" gun
This gigantic 410-pound variant of the Maxim was originally designed in the late 1880s by Hiram Maxim himself, originally as a direct-fire infantry weapon and later as a naval quick-firing gun for attacking torpedo boats and a light antiaircraft gun. It was the first autocannon to enter service and the first AA gun to be used by many of the powers that purchased it: about 450 were produced for various clients. Due to rules regarding minimum weight for explosive ammunition designed for use against infantry, the gun had to fire a projectile weighing not less than 400 grams (0.88 pounds): the final 37mm design fired a 1-pound projectile, hence the name: the nickname of "pom-pom" gun was originated by South Africans due to the slow, drumbeat-like rate of fire. Earlier versions were marked Maxim-Nordenfelt, while later British production versions were instead marked as Vickers, Sons & Maxim (VSM) after Vickers bought out Maxim-Nordenfelt in 1897.
These weapons could penetrate an inch of cast iron plate at 100 yards in the ground role, and proved extremely effective against early aircraft: however, they were practically useless against Zeppelins, since the rounds they fired were delay-impact-detonated and so would have to hit the steel frame of the airship or they would simply pass straight through it. Towards the end of WW1 they started to be replaced in British service by even more scaled-up Maxims, first by the 37mm QF 1.5 pounder and then by the much more powerful 40mm 2-pounder.
In German use it was known as the Maxim Flak M14 and produced locally by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken, while the US Navy adopted it as the 1-pounder Mark 6.
Specifications
(1890s-1918)
- Type: Autocannon
- Caliber(s): 37x94mmR (1.457in) 1-pound Common Shell
- Weight: 410 lbs (186 kg) (gun + mount, empty with water jacket and hydraulic buffer filled), 97 lbs (44 kg) (gun alone, naval variant with no bottom plate)
- Length: 6ft 1in (1.85m)
- Barrel length(s): 3ft 7in (1.09m)
- Capacity: Various feeding mechanisms
- Fire Modes: Auto, 300rpm
Video games
| Game Title | Appears as | Note | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battlefield: 1918 | 2004 | ||
| Assassin's Creed Syndicate | 2015 | ||
| Battlefield 1 | 2016 |