A different first US LMG – a different doctrine path?
- Thread starter Driftless
- Start date
McPherson
Banned
Look at the title...
"A different first US LMG – a different doctrine path?"
Emphasis on the word... "Light".
Marlin, Lewis, Benet-Mercie, Madsen or Hotchkiss air-cooled. The water-cooled Vickers or Maxims or even the water cooled later Brownings need not apply. Reason is very obvious.
And yet you included the water-cooled Maxims in your list of available MGs but not the Vickers.
@Rickshaw iirc, the thread is about pre-1910 lmg, meaning that most of that list is invalid.
they're either hmg's, not available att, or both.
the practical options here are the hotchkiss portative and the madsen.
oc, that means that this thread is basically "what if the us adopts the madsen in 1909"
they're either hmg's, not available att, or both.
the practical options here are the hotchkiss portative and the madsen.
oc, that means that this thread is basically "what if the us adopts the madsen in 1909"
The Vickers as we know it was in 1912ish. Since it was actually accepted by the US and only kept from wider spread service by Colt’s ridiculously slow production in this period, it is not unreasonable that this be the main machine gun of the US Army. It is not a light machine gun as we came to know them but the category didn’t really exist at the time, so there is room for argument. For the standards of the day, the Vickers was extremely light. It surpassed both the German MG08 and their own Lightweight Maxim (adopted by the Russsians as the 1910) as the lightest Maxim derivative. Down to 28 lbs from around 40 without losing functionality.
Based on the timeline, if the US is looking for a sustained fire machine gun then either waiting for the Vickers(28 lbs) or adopting the Lightweight Maxim (about 40 lbs) would be an improvement on the M1903 (?) Maxim that they did adopt (IIRC around 56 lbs).
However, that is not the job of the B-M. It was meant to increase firepower of cavalry and frontier units without drastically increasing the load on a supply chain built for small frontier wars. In that role it is probably one of the main contenders. The Lewis would maybe be better but it was not as proven and the whole Crozier/Lewis fight made it unlikely at this point. The Madsen could possibly do it but it is actually designed for fixed fortress positions. I am not sure it was marketed as a mobile weapon, in spite of its comparatively light weight.
However, no matter what is chosen, I doubt it would drastically affect the US Army doctrine. They were finding tools to fit a frontier war, not building doctrine around their tools. When they end up in WW1 they are still likely to be so short on guns that their current stock will be basically irrelevant. If they choose the Vickers they will at least be familiar with some of the guns they will be given by the Entente at the front. Though the same would hold true for the B-M/Hotchkiss Portative or the Lewis.
Ideally, the US would have a doctrine of fire and movement using Lewis Guns and Vickers as support as the British and Canadians ended up figuring out. But that would require a very different outlook, both doctrinally and politically, as well as some way of gaining those lessons while not being at war themselves. Which seems unlikely
Based on the timeline, if the US is looking for a sustained fire machine gun then either waiting for the Vickers(28 lbs) or adopting the Lightweight Maxim (about 40 lbs) would be an improvement on the M1903 (?) Maxim that they did adopt (IIRC around 56 lbs).
However, that is not the job of the B-M. It was meant to increase firepower of cavalry and frontier units without drastically increasing the load on a supply chain built for small frontier wars. In that role it is probably one of the main contenders. The Lewis would maybe be better but it was not as proven and the whole Crozier/Lewis fight made it unlikely at this point. The Madsen could possibly do it but it is actually designed for fixed fortress positions. I am not sure it was marketed as a mobile weapon, in spite of its comparatively light weight.
However, no matter what is chosen, I doubt it would drastically affect the US Army doctrine. They were finding tools to fit a frontier war, not building doctrine around their tools. When they end up in WW1 they are still likely to be so short on guns that their current stock will be basically irrelevant. If they choose the Vickers they will at least be familiar with some of the guns they will be given by the Entente at the front. Though the same would hold true for the B-M/Hotchkiss Portative or the Lewis.
Ideally, the US would have a doctrine of fire and movement using Lewis Guns and Vickers as support as the British and Canadians ended up figuring out. But that would require a very different outlook, both doctrinally and politically, as well as some way of gaining those lessons while not being at war themselves. Which seems unlikely
And yet, MMGs were included in the list... The Vickers was available before WWI. It was a relatively light machine gun, particularly compared to the Maxims. If the US is looking at foreign designed guns, I cannot see the Vickers not being included in the list, unless there is an obvious bias against British guns...
Neither the Lewis or Vickers are available much less available in 30.06 pre WW1. The Lewis which at the time is in no way production ready is not invented until 1911 and the offer to the US is really give me money to develop this and I will sell it to you, which gets Lewis kicked out of office. he then goes to FN and BSA who are willing to turn the concept into a manufacturable gun and give Lewis a licence fee.
The Vickers is only accepted into service in 1912 and the BEF goes into France using Maxims ( and Hotchkiss Portative) and the Belgians field a total of 20 Lewis ( which is not accepted into British Service until October 1915 btw)
As soon as you get WW1 the US does not get a look in with any European manufacturing.
There actually is a strategic choice the US makes in April 1917 as to whether to buy British or French. Now as the French are the biggest most experienced army with most written down in 1916 - its the 1916 manual that the US is choosing it then makes sense to use the 75/105/155 Hotchkiss Chauchat suite, the rifles you can't and even the French are unhappy with theirs.
Also bear in mind that apart from the rifles this means buying them now and making them later ( 1942 as it turns out).
Could they have gone for the 18lb/4,5/60lb Lewis Vickers route, maybe, they are in inches and all the manuals in English anyway. Its feasible but they would be using the MGs in .303 ( as they were using the French weapons in 8mm initially) and given the performance of US arms industry in the period that's what you got.
Does that make a long term difference. well it probably kills off the BAR if you have a Lewis in 30.06 which BSA had told you how to do if people had bothered to read the technical package what do you need the BAR for. But once again does that mean the US has enough combat experience to decide that building a squad around an LMG and ammo carriers with some infantry and grenadiers is a better option than building it around a semi auto rifle and grenadiers. Probably not really.
What you may have is John Browning treading the well worn path to Liege and selling his ideas to FN resulting an a Browning in the 20s/30s with belt feed and interchangeable barrels which then becomes a race between the 30.06 Lewis, the Jonson, and whether the US can rechamber an 8mm FNFM ( fusil-mitrailleur) or Bren to 30.06 or whether they spend money interwar on their own LMG. But dont order any.
The Madsen suffers from looking like a Bren, its not an LMG cant fire enough, its a heavy semi auto rifle with limited burst fire fine for a fixed position useless for carrying around a battlefield until the 20s when they fix the sustained fire but by then its competing with guns designed to do that from the get go.
It appears you and the US Army are mixing up the roles of machine guns. I know this a period when they are formulating them. Machine guns all tend to be heavy and cumbersome initially and as they progress, they become lighter and more handy. You really can't have a true light machine gun unless you accept that it can't do sustained fire and it needs a bipod, rather than tripod on which to mount it. There were no real LMGs before WWI. There were a mix of MMGs and HMGs. Now, 'cause there are no real LMGs you're basically chasing a chimera. You need to accept that the only machine guns worth adopting are what we would call medium ones - the Maxims, the Vickers, etc.
If the Maxim is too heavy and the Madsen incapable of delivering the desired sustained rate of fire then we are left with the Hotchkiss M1909 of OTL
Its not a bad gun or system for that matter - the British made nearly as many as they made Lewis guns in WW1
Its not a bad gun or system for that matter - the British made nearly as many as they made Lewis guns in WW1