Maxim Guns not invented

Someone else invents it. Plenty of people were driving along the same concept. Great Man Theory does not work very well in technology.
 
What if Hiram Maxim never emigrated to Europe and never invented the guns?
I'm not real clear on the details, so it's bad you didn't ask this a month ago when i had easy access to some relevant books, but... Maxim's son was head of automobile manufacturing for Pope. That became the Columbia brand of automobile. Columbia was bought by the EVC which owned the Selden patent. Repercussions could be big. Or not.

Same with his machine guns. Most probably differences in some colonial conflicts, but there will be (but fewer) machine guns in use for WW1. I have some question about what those'll look like. Pre-Maxim machine guns were mechanically operated, but his were recoil-operated. Would lack of that innovation change later designs? Browning had a gas-operated gun in 1895, so i'm apt to think that there'll be few differences. My biggest question is how much influence did Maxim have on Borchardt? We could have really retarded develop of automatic pistols and SMGs.
 
So, is this about Mexicans or machine guns or Mexican machine guns?

220px-Colt_Potato_Digger.jpg
 
Both Schwarzlose and Madsen were developed independently of the Maxim, AFAIK, so there you have other weapons to take over the role of the Maxim.
 
Without the Lewis gun or the Schwarzlose, fighter aircraft would be without air combat weapons, a real drawback. Men on the battlefield would still die from artillery fire and massed rifle fire.
 
So, is this about Mexicans or machine guns or Mexican machine guns?

Except that that is a M1895 Colt-Browning Machine gun. It came out a year after the Maxim gun and has completely different internals.

Machine guns might develop along the M1895's automatice lever action rather than Maxim's recoil system.
At least for a time, anyways.
 
I agree with whats allready been said really, the gun will just be invented by someone else.

If you have a POD that puts weapon developement back a generation then you wont see any scramble for Africa as the Maxim gun was what made that possible
 
Did anyone read my previous post?

Ahem, I have a revised premise: what if Maxim guns or any other analogues are not invented until after WWI?

Or is this too unlikely?
IMHO, yes. You'd have to have a PoD, at the latest, in the late 1850s to have machineguns not invented. That's not to say they'd have to become reliable, portable, or widely adopted.

ANYWAY, Maxim wasn't the only guy inventing these things. There was also the Gatling, Gardner, and all these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Early_machine_guns

In short, no difference, except someone else gets the revenue from the patent.
I agree with your specifics, but not your conclusion. The Maxim was more portable and/or reliable than Gardner, Gatling, Nordenfeldt, et. al. This affects the colonial wars, but IMO not as drastically as bobbis14 states.

Except that that is a M1895 Colt-Browning Machine gun. It came out a year after the Maxim gun and has completely different internals.

Machine guns might develop along the M1895's automatice lever action rather than Maxim's recoil system.
At least for a time, anyways.
Make that eleven years after.
 
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