Maxim Guns not invented

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.

My point is that there were so many different lines of machine guns out there that something as good as the Maxim was inevitable. Historically, there was no need for anyone to do this because Maxim did. Nordenfelt, for example, ended up merging with Maxim. You're talking about a delay in something Maxim-like for months or years at most.
 
Ugh I'm not talking about no machine guns in time for WWI, I'm talking about no machine gun as effective and efficient as the Maxim gun by WWI.
 
Well, one way to keep the infantry-deployed (instead of artillery deployed, like the Gatling) MG out of ww1 is to delay the invention and/or adoption of smokeless powder. Single-barrel MGs firing balck powder usually jammed due to residue in the barrel and could even becme dangerous to the operator of the weapon (barrel explosion) after a while.

That way regular armies will most likely not adopt MGs as infantry weapons before ww1.
 
Gatling's Electric Gun

With no Maxim gun or close analogue, perhaps someone will take Gatling's electric version of his gun, and perfect it. He electrified it in the late19th century, and it worked, although a trifle unreliable. There were only the one or two prototypes--but anything can be improved. It had the drawback of using black powder, so it QUICKLY generated its own smoke screen. 3000 rounds per minute or so will do that.

Now the machine gun is less portable--and needs a generator of some sort--but is extremely deadly.

With the machine gun needing power, might there be machine-gun automobiles sooner--or perhaps more likely, machine-gun trucks-it wasn't small. Certainly, no aircraft could lift one, except perhaps the big bombers of the late Great War era.
 
The question is ASB, with all the industrialized nations spending five years looking at high priority for a way to make machine guns more portable, cheap and reliable there is no way in hell they're not inventing everything there is to invent with the existing tech base.
 
My point is that there were so many different lines of machine guns out there that something as good as the Maxim was inevitable. Historically, there was no need for anyone to do this because Maxim did. Nordenfelt, for example, ended up merging with Maxim. You're talking about a delay in something Maxim-like for months or years at most.
Months, no. Years, i agree. I just think there'd be some differences in those few years, but i guess nothing that would interest Stratego.

Ugh I'm not talking about no machine guns in time for WWI, I'm talking about no machine gun as effective and efficient as the Maxim gun by WWI.
IMO, any reduced effectiveness wouldn't be enough to be noticable. Reliability could maybe be an issue. Still, at the worst they had about 20 years to improve the Gardner gun.

With no Maxim gun or close analogue, perhaps someone will take Gatling's electric version of his gun, and perfect it. He electrified it in the late19th century, and it worked, although a trifle unreliable. There were only the one or two prototypes--but anything can be improved. It had the drawback of using black powder, so it QUICKLY generated its own smoke screen. 3000 rounds per minute or so will do that.

Now the machine gun is less portable--and needs a generator of some sort--but is extremely deadly.

With the machine gun needing power, might there be machine-gun automobiles sooner--or perhaps more likely, machine-gun trucks-it wasn't small. Certainly, no aircraft could lift one, except perhaps the big bombers of the late Great War era.
While i really love the machine gun truck idea, it'd be super-expensive and not nearly as tactically flexible as a regular MG.
 
Ergonomic determinism. You can attempt to delete the Maxim gun, but that simply means that other designs will be improved to be within the range of use for the Maxim. Reminds me of a discussion I watched here that talked about numerous unwieldy control schemes for cars....

Now, as for the mitrailleuse, its use as an artillery piece was primarily due to the French Command's thoughts on its utility. It could be used as a light machine-gun without much of a problem IIRC.

EDIT: I am talking about some of the later models.
 
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