A ton of math and engineering probably went into the design. But simple and appears to have been good enough design for most allied air forces to take it up and keep in use after the war. Today it's 100,000 lines of code and probably not able to do a field repair.
I don't know about the aircraft variant, but I saved the strip that showed Snoopy as a guard dog---sitting on his doghouse with a belt-fed water-cooled heavy machine gun.
I recall reading about a pilot whose aircraft managed to flip upside down while he was Changing the Lewis magazine. He managed to hold on to the drum, pull himself back up into the cockpit, and recover the a/c. His life literally hanging by the strength of the magazine locking mechanism. Never heard of the ‘wind vane’ sight before, always learning from FW! (Edited for spelling)
I was thinking of High Road to China. Tom Selleck had the biplane mounted Lewis gun. I'm pretty sure it's the first film I ever saw a Lewis gun outside of Star Wars. It's at least the first one I ever heard them referred to by name.
In Argentina they used to be mounted on the glass nose of the Beechcraft AT-11 in 7.65x53 Mauser caliber. My father (Air Force Mechanic) used it and said that if it was set correctly, the sight was very accurate.
I love that movie! I thought of that too, I always loved how they "rescued" it from the crashed plane haha. Oh cool, I just looked up the scene, and the one in the movie actually has the fancy front sight on it! :O
It's such an elegantly simple little gadget. Just a parallelogram linkage with a wind vane on one side and a front sight post on the other. Magnificent piece of engineering.
I can't see how it would work - the sight's tip would be pointing into the windstream by the three vanes on the rear, so the barrel would be aimed the wrong way when the sights are aligned? To allow for windage it should point the barrel more into the wind, no? What am I missing ?
@@criggie As far as I can tell, it's not compensating for windage, it's compensating for the bullets inheriting the velocity of the aircraft. It just uses wind direction to judge how the aircraft is moving.
@@c0gnus Or in the Irish Airforce, Paddy ! I've shot the proppelor off! Ah, that means we'll be up here eel day! As told to me by an Irish AirForce Officer :-)
Someone should really make a VR game where you play as an aerial observer and get to use one of these in a simulation. I just really wonder what it was like using that sight post.
I have now checked, the only allied 2 seater in the new Flying Circus is the Bristol, and it just has a simple post. Will have to see what happens in Circus II.
The comment on the difficulty of changing the magazines reminded me of Louis Strange's experience trying to change a magazine of the Lewis mounted to his top wing - the plane flipped over and he was left dangling from the magazine which moments before he had been cursing as too stiff to come off.
You seem to be quite the surplus and war historian guy MrGunsngear...you should add some of that to your channel in addition to the modern stuff you already do.
That was also the first thing that came to my mind... we must be from the same generation of pop culture. “You can fly a plane?!” “Fly, yes... Land, no.”
Sorry. Not a Lewis gun in that scene. Ian has a video of the Villar Perosa which is the gun in the scene you are referring to. Just found out that it was a Beretta made to look like the Villar Perosa.
One of the guns that got King Kong! Your mention of the ground tripod adapter reminds me that in the 1943 "Guadalcanal Diary" there are scenes of these as "Japanese" machine guns being fired from a ground tripod. The movies liked the aircraft Lewis; see "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", "The Mummy" (Brendon Fraser version) and "High Road To China", among others.
The Lewis gun was the premier Japanese naval aircraft pintle gun of WW2. They adopted it in 1932 in 7.7mm calibre (a direct copy of .303 British). I have seen a picture of it mounted on a tripod for ground use so the scene from 'Guadalcanal Diary' is accurate. EDIT: I just checked, it was used in the ground role by the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces.
I remember that gun from "The Mummy" from 1999, towards the end of the movie when the main characters crashes a biplane, and the character 'Ardeth Bay' removes a Lewis gun just like this one from that biplane. Just a minor and barely interesting detail, but nonetheless!
@@spamwaffles1419 Wow. Good catch! I remembered the Lewis gun with the muzzle device, but completely missed the wind-vane sight. I do hope that it survived the film. I think that they used John Milius (directed "The Wind and the Lion") as a technical consultant on "The Mummy", so a lot of the firearms were both interesting and historically plausible.
@@gyrene_asea4133 Well per IMFDB, the M1911 that appears is actually the original M1911 and not an A1, which is period correct detail most movies miss. :)
@@BleedingUranium For the "you just got promoted" part (1923?), yes. The movie as it starts in Cairo is 1926 or 27. 1911A1 began production in 1924 I think. So it would have been correct if depicted in the later part of the movie. Milius did pay attention. Loved the Marlin/Colt machine gun on the trolley in TheWindandtheLion.
@@K3end0 they are hog hunts but from the sides of moving helicopters, with machineguns. It's the closest thing to the original intention of the gun that we can legally get to.
These aircraft mounted guns used by ground units did some scary stuff. Read some memoirs from the Long range desert group. They had Vickers Ks in dual mounts, with some 1800 rpm. There was an instance, where they had followed an Italian convoy, and started firing at a truck with those machineguns. Literal ground meat was what was left of most corpses found.
Bit like the Stinger in WW2, an aircraft Browning M2 from the rear turret of a TBF/SBD that was used by a few troops on Iwo Jima. Had nearly twice the rate of fire of the infantry version of the M2 hackaday.com/2020/02/03/stinger-the-hacked-machine-gun-of-iwo-jima/
In Thomas Lawrence (of Arabia)'s memoirs,he describes being invited to man the rear gun of a plane. He takes a look at the aiming system and declines.Now I understand.
I would love a video with you and someone like Military Aviation History doing an inside the cockpit style video looking at the defensive gun mounts in the airplane. Great video as always!
Just about every model biplane I ever had or put together had one of these guns sticking out on the top wing, always thought what a ridiculous place to put a gun, now it makes sense.
I remember learning it was my great grandfather's job to make sure the timing was right on these so pilots didnt shoot their own propeller off. No pressure though lol
Fantastic video. Never underestimate the value of the little "obvious" design notes at the beginning. Lighter gun, bigger magazine - seems obvious. But then your open / closed bolt synchronisation explainer was one of the simplest, and the first one I've truly understood. Every learning day is a good day. I also think the wndvane foresight is the absolute star of the show. I reckon myself a bit of a military kit buff, and I've never seen one before. A tiny work of crafted genius amid the inhuman slaughter of 1914-18.
Savage arms is now in Westfield, MA, I know this because my dad used to ride past there on his bike and even bought blemish rifle stocks for $.50 a piece in the 70's to make lamps out of when he was in high school.
That front sight is freaking brilliant. Having airspeed adjustment while in flight (maybe tied to the engine or, if they had any sort of airspeed sensors, then that would be even better) would be a nice to have, but just having it take the plane's airspeed and angle relative to the gun barrel into account automatically is pretty dang nice.
FYI What little was left of the Utica Savage plant that these were made in burnt last year. It had been built for Savage in 1920 and was used until after WW2 when they moved to Massachusetts.
I know Ian never asks, but if you've watched/are watching this video and enjoying it, see this post and still haven't yet, then leave a Like. I personally found the wind vane sights, and the extremely simply, yet ingenious fix to reloading to be my favorite parts of this video.
Massively cool gun!!! When looking at WWI equipment it always amazes me at the ingenuity and often genius employed by men trying to kill their enemies as effectively as possible. Had never seen that type of front sight and have to say I'm blown away by it....just brilliant! Thanks again for another awesome video Ian.
The sheer ingenuity in the sighting that they came up with to deal with so many mechanical and mathematical problems in firing from and at moving aircraft, with such minimal technology needed for an effective solution, is amazing.
The barrel casing/shroud was certainly fitted to the RAF Lewis, as I have a copy of an original F.S. 114, 'Handbook on the Lewis Gun', showing this. I have an original air-cooled Vickers Handbook too, would like to see a vid on that one too, someday. Very informative vid on the M1918, as always! Cheers!
SE 5 and Nieuport 11 are famous WW 1 fighters that have Lewis on the top of the wing. SE had one synchronised Vickers gun as well. The British also used a twin mounting in angled position with BE 2c to attack on German Zeppelin raiders underneath, sort of precursor to German WW 2 "Schräge Music" cannon installment.
IIRC the RAF liked the Lewis in the top wing mount on the S.E.5 combined with a fixed Vickers on a synchronized mount. The pilot could pivot the Lewis back and down so he could reload it in the air.
In WW2, the British Long Range Desert Group scrounged some old Lewis aircraft guns to mount on trucks and jeeps, for 'beating up' enemy airfields, often mounted in pairs, too. The high rate of fire was a factor in this.
Always loved the ending shootout scene in “The High Road to China” when Tom Selleck pulled off the Louis Gun from the crashed fighter to use against the Chinese cavalry.
We need a semi auto variant of both the ground and aircraft versions, with reproduction tripod and tripod mounts. 97 rounds in semi auto wouldn't even overheat the aircraft version, let around the ground version with that cooling shroud
The British mounted the Lewis gun in a variety of aircraft installations. Before they settled on the over wing mounting Lewis guns were sometimes mounted on the lower wing, next to the cockpit. The guns were mounted angling forward, outside the propeller arc. Late in the war, aircraft adapted to strafing trenches mounted one or two guns in the cockpit, angling down about 45 degrees. The breeches protruded into the cockpit, allowing the pilot to change drums. Some Sopwith Camels were used to intercept night intruding bombers and Zeppelins. The Camel normally was armed with two Vickers guns mounted in front of the cockpit. Firing these guns at night would blind the pilot, so night flying Camels mounted two Lewis guns firing upwards over the upper wing center section. The ammunition drums were within relatively easy reach of the pilot. Lewis guns were used by the British well into WWII. The US Used Lewis guns in aircraft into the 1920’s, shifting over to Brownings in the 30’s. Another reason for removing the barrel shroud on aircraft guns was to reduce air resistance. Imagine trying to swing a gun around in a 100+MPH slipstream. The sights weren’t fitted to guns fired by the pilot. He just pointed the aircraft wherever he wanted shoot. Were the Vickers guns fitted to Army Air Corps aircraft in WWI also chambered for 30.06? Or was the adoption of 30.06 a postwar modification? I hope I haven’t said anything ridiculously stupid, I had to get rid of my aircraft library, so I’m working from memory. Let’s be careful out there.
The movie from the 80 with Tom Seleck, high road to china, has a nice cameo in the final shootout scenes. His plane is shot down and he removes the lewis from the upper wing and uses it from the ground.
A lot of these ended up on British colliers along with Marlins and various Hotchkiss patterns in 1939 (.303). They would set them up anywhere where there was a bit of space and an arch of fire, usually the bridge. They were supposed to deal with German air attacks and E-Boats. Eventually, ie 1943/4, they were replaced with oerlikons and/or Browning 30s and 50s. Some old pre great war LA cannon was stuck n the poop deck in the early war and f’csle later (this was because fitting at the front was ‘offensive’ and made the ship a war ship and changed the RoEs).
Also issued to the British Home Guard in WWII, used in the ground, and anti-aircraft role. 303 and I presume 30.06 (US aid after Dunkirk) variants have been seen in photos.
Read an interview with a WWI pilot,who had this on the top wing.To change mags,he had to stand/crouch on the seat,with the stick between his knees. Guess he appreciated the improved mag release system.
Interesting. I believe the soviets used a similar wind vane solution on the Pe2 rear gunner position to allow easier rotation of the turret at higher speeds. Neat stuff.
as a note, since the lewis was not synchronized, it was more reliable. because it was not susceptible to the synchronization gear failing. this was a huge issue when they were first introduced into british aircraft, this is the reason the S.E.5 and more famously, the S.E.5a aircraft had a lewis mounted over the wing, so the aircraft could still engage in combat even after the failure of the main vickers firing through the prop. (which happened CONSTANTLY in early aircraft)
Slight correction on the use of the aircraft sight. You line up the front post inside the center ring of the rear sight to ensure the gun is shooting straight. You place your target on the outer ring, or relative to it for judging lead.
Do you remember when Savage got military contracts and you could buy machine guns by mail to support local New York businesses? Forgotten Weapons remembers.
Neat! That front sight is an absolutely wonderful contraption. :D I would really love to see you cover a Vickers K machine gun. They were used in a similar role on aircraft like the famous Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber - flexible mount for observers and defensive gunners. Similar layout with a big pan mag, and a ludicrously high rate of fire. They were also used by the fledgling SAS, particularly the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa, mounted to keeps and trucks.
You should talk about lathes and milling machines and tools used in the 18th century, after all its part of the industry. BTW love the milling marks on the gun and magazine
@@heneagedundasThe Vickers K was developed as a direct replacement for the Lewis as an observers gun. Hence the resemblance, it was meant to fit into the same aircraft mountings.
No Ian I think you've misunderstood how a ring sight of the type featured in the video works. You don't align your front bead with the outside of the rear ring sight when correcting for deflection. The bead always remains aligned in the middle of the center ring. However, the outer ring (or rings) is oriented on one or other side of the target depending on range, estimated speed and direction. In some situations the angle -off will amount to multiples of one full ring of deflection. ,
A word on the weight saving issue on WW1 fighters. Several famous fighters/armed scouts like the Sopwith Pup, Fokker DrI (Richthofen's mount), and Nieuport 17 all were light enough to qualify as Light Sport Aircraft according to FAA rules.
The ring on the rear sight was used more to estimate range, not speed. Not sure offhand what it would be calibrated to, but likely something like 'enemy plane fills entire ring' = 100m. That swiveled front sight is a marvel of mechanical simplicity that was commonplace a century ago but has since been lost to computerization.
There's a sequence in the movie "High Road to China" starring Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong. Selleck is a WW1 fighter pilot and Armstrong has hired him in the middle 1920s to take her (in a pair of airplanes) from where they start (East Africa if I remember right) to China to find her father. Anyway, when they start out Selleck tells his sidekick/mechanic to "Get out the Lewis guns" or something to that effect, and there are dogfights and many crazy adventures in between (there's a marvelous scene in Afghanistan, for instance). Anyway, they get to China, and through a set of contrivances and plot twists Selleck winds up having to rescue Armstrong on the ground, and he doesn't have a gun, not even a pistol. He grabs a rag, detaches the Lewis gun from his plane, and uses it as a light machinegun, holding the barrel (which presumably gets very hot) with the rag protecting his hand. I've always wondered if that would work...probably not feasible in the days of safety (the movie was made back in the era when John Landis had a helicopter flying over explosions, just to reference what safety meant back then) but I've always been curious.
For single-seat fighters this type of Lewis gun was mounted on a Foster Mount. This was a sort of curved slide which enabled the pilot to pull it down from a horizontal position down to a vertical position for easier reloading. Some aces even used this Foster Mount to fire into the underside of the enemy aircraft, although this was a difficult technique which required a sneak attack and the enemy not spotting you before it's too late. The ace Albert Ball reportedly used the Lewis in this way to down several German Albatross fighters. Another benefit with the Lewis was that pilots could slide them down the Foster Mount and clear gun jams. With the belt fed Vickers guns this obviously was impossible. Pilots forced to do an emergency landing in enemy held territory could also detach the Lewis and use it as a portable light machine gun, which obviously wan't possible with the Vickers machine guns. That being said, reloading a Lewis in the middle of a dogfight was ill-advised and difficult. While replacing the empty drum the pilot had to hold the control stick of the aircraft between his legs and use his free hands to replace the drum. On the positive side the 97 round drum meant a pilot had pretty much 10 seconds of continuous firing - and skilled pilots only needed 2 second bursts to down an enemy. On heavy bombers like the Handley Page, the observers aft and forth usually had double-Lewises which arguably was adequate when dealing with fighters which used the same caliber ammo - i.e. roughly the same range.
It's fascinating how you see similar Lewis guns in Home Guard service in Britain - stripped down as much as possible. Not the strangest firearms in LDV/HG service (you find the very rare odd MP18 bring backs from WWI, for example) but certainly quite curious.
Go look up early attemps at it. Before they had syncronizers figgered out there were all sorts of attempts to put armor plating and deflectors on the back of the props, so you could hit them atleast a few times before the prop fell off. There were some pretty wild and very dubious looking contraptions that came out of that. Interesting stuff.
That wind vane sight steals the video for me, what an ingenious little contraption! Suprised I've never seen one before.
A ton of math and engineering probably went into the design. But simple and appears to have been good enough design for most allied air forces to take it up and keep in use after the war.
Today it's 100,000 lines of code and probably not able to do a field repair.
Yeah, I've seen the gun portried in games and movies but never the sight.
One of the coolest things I've EVER seen on a gun
It's amazing how inventive people are to improve killing people.
@@foamer443 - 50 lines of code to do the math. 99,950 lines to make it look pretty. zero lines for error exceptions.
“It’s a downside if you shoot your own propellor off.”
Ah, the things I learn from this channel.
That why we dont advocate appendix carrying.
which is why it was mounted not behind the propeller, it was mounted on the upper wing on the Nieuport 12, 17 and the Se5a.
I hear it's also bad to shoot off your own rudder
"I'm shorry junior, they gawt ush."
@@bradymenting5120 At 11 o'clock?
Is it possible one of these was mounted to a dog house that bore an unconvincing resemblance to a Sopwith Camel?
I don't know about the aircraft variant, but I saved the strip that showed Snoopy as a guard dog---sitting on his doghouse with a belt-fed water-cooled heavy machine gun.
"Curse you, Red Baron!";)
There was a Camel variant armed with Lewis guns for night fighting against Zeppelins. Strangely enough it was nicknamed Sopwith Comic.
The SE5 had one on the top wing., but I certainly hope Snoopy had at least one.
The Sopwith Camel would have had (synchronized) Vickers guns.
I recall reading about a pilot whose aircraft managed to flip upside down while he was Changing the Lewis magazine. He managed to hold on to the drum, pull himself back up into the cockpit, and recover the a/c. His life literally hanging by the strength of the magazine locking mechanism.
Never heard of the ‘wind vane’ sight before, always learning from FW!
(Edited for spelling)
The one time being “sticky” is better than “slick”.
That's Louis Strange.
Lieutenant Louis Strange.
Always cracks me up how they chastised him for damaging the flight controls with his feet. 🤣
@@heneagedundas thanks!
@@jimmyrustler8983 thanks! I was just reading about the reprimand 😂😂
I'll just pretend it was in the Last Crusade, "Son, I'm sorry... They got us"
it was actually a Beretta Model 38/42 (mocked up as a Villar Perosa M1915) but i know waht you mean :D
Funny it was the first thing that comes to mind.
Not synchronized to avoid the tail fin either lol
@@Martinlegend I'd always wondered what it was supposed to be. Then I saw Ian's video. Then I wondered why they tried making it look like that.
I was thinking of High Road to China. Tom Selleck had the biplane mounted Lewis gun. I'm pretty sure it's the first film I ever saw a Lewis gun outside of Star Wars. It's at least the first one I ever heard them referred to by name.
In Argentina they used to be mounted on the glass nose of the Beechcraft AT-11 in 7.65x53 Mauser caliber. My father (Air Force Mechanic) used it and said that if it was set correctly, the sight was very accurate.
I just rewatched the 1999 version of The Mummy, and saw this in it.
I love that movie! I thought of that too, I always loved how they "rescued" it from the crashed plane haha. Oh cool, I just looked up the scene, and the one in the movie actually has the fancy front sight on it! :O
I was thinking of that too too bad the character using that did not have an extra mag would have been useful against all attacking mummies
@@BleedingUranium I was thinking that as well
@@omartorres5688 It has no cooler, on earth it's not so well to overheating it.
That vane front sight is truly fascinating and ingenious
I wonder of the Japanese used it on early World War II aircraft, such as the Nakajima B5N or Aichi D1A?
It's such an elegantly simple little gadget. Just a parallelogram linkage with a wind vane on one side and a front sight post on the other. Magnificent piece of engineering.
I can't see how it would work - the sight's tip would be pointing into the windstream by the three vanes on the rear, so the barrel would be aimed the wrong way when the sights are aligned? To allow for windage it should point the barrel more into the wind, no? What am I missing ?
@@criggie yeah it seems backwards to me as well?
@@criggie As far as I can tell, it's not compensating for windage, it's compensating for the bullets inheriting the velocity of the aircraft. It just uses wind direction to judge how the aircraft is moving.
"There's a down side if you shoot your own propeller off though..." :D
Yeah , down ,down, dow.....OOOH SHI>>>>>
quite an inconvenience
Should that count as a kill??
@@petesheppard1709 Depends wether you have a parachute or not :-)
@@c0gnus Or in the Irish Airforce, Paddy ! I've shot the proppelor off! Ah, that means we'll be up here eel day! As told to me by an Irish AirForce Officer :-)
Savage Air Lewis sounds like a professional skateboarder
Someone should really make a VR game where you play as an aerial observer and get to use one of these in a simulation. I just really wonder what it was like using that sight post.
Interesting Idea!
I wonder if they put them in Flying Circus (Il-2 Great Battle people). That's VR compatible, will have to load it and check at some point.
Somebody needs to mount one of these on a really fast car, find a place big open range, and trying shooting targets with the vane sight at 120mph
I have now checked, the only allied 2 seater in the new Flying Circus is the Bristol, and it just has a simple post. Will have to see what happens in Circus II.
The comment on the difficulty of changing the magazines reminded me of Louis Strange's experience trying to change a magazine of the Lewis mounted to his top wing - the plane flipped over and he was left dangling from the magazine which moments before he had been cursing as too stiff to come off.
You have to love that deadpan "there's a downside if you shoot your own propeller off, though".
Ian's very good at that British-style deadpan understatement, and I love it. :D
That's a very cool design
You seem to be quite the surplus and war historian guy MrGunsngear...you should add some of that to your channel in addition to the modern stuff you already do.
Well if they go on sale I'm sure you'll let us know....
Freedom ain't not free!
"Dad 6' oclock!" "Son What's happening at six o'clock.."
... 6 o'clock tea
That was also the first thing that came to my mind... we must be from the same generation of pop culture.
“You can fly a plane?!”
“Fly, yes... Land, no.”
I'm sorry son... they got us.
@@bigernmccracken5736 Indeed, good ole Indy films.
Sorry. Not a Lewis gun in that scene. Ian has a video of the Villar Perosa which is the gun in the scene you are referring to. Just found out that it was a Beretta made to look like the Villar Perosa.
One of the guns that got King Kong! Your mention of the ground tripod adapter reminds me that in the 1943 "Guadalcanal Diary" there are scenes of these as "Japanese" machine guns being fired from a ground tripod. The movies liked the aircraft Lewis; see "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", "The Mummy" (Brendon Fraser version) and "High Road To China", among others.
The Lewis gun was the premier Japanese naval aircraft pintle gun of WW2. They adopted it in 1932 in 7.7mm calibre (a direct copy of .303 British). I have seen a picture of it mounted on a tripod for ground use so the scene from 'Guadalcanal Diary' is accurate.
EDIT: I just checked, it was used in the ground role by the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces.
I was waiting for Ian to do his best Ardeth Bay impression
HA! I understood that reference!
Same.
Thanks for reminding me that I have to rewatch these movies.
I thought he preferred the Thompson...
That's exactly what I was thinking.
I remember that gun from "The Mummy" from 1999, towards the end of the movie when the main characters crashes a biplane, and the character 'Ardeth Bay' removes a Lewis gun just like this one from that biplane. Just a minor and barely interesting detail, but nonetheless!
I was going to comment the same thing, beat me too it.
A the good days when nobody was
@@spamwaffles1419 Wow. Good catch! I remembered the Lewis gun with the muzzle device, but completely missed the wind-vane sight. I do hope that it survived the film. I think that they used John Milius (directed "The Wind and the Lion") as a technical consultant on "The Mummy", so a lot of the firearms were both interesting and historically plausible.
@@gyrene_asea4133 Well per IMFDB, the M1911 that appears is actually the original M1911 and not an A1, which is period correct detail most movies miss. :)
@@BleedingUranium For the "you just got promoted" part (1923?), yes. The movie as it starts in Cairo is 1926 or 27. 1911A1 began production in 1924 I think. So it would have been correct if depicted in the later part of the movie. Milius did pay attention. Loved the Marlin/Colt machine gun on the trolley in TheWindandtheLion.
Whoever buys that gun should take it to one of those Texas helicopter hog hunts and bring Ian so we can see that gunsight in action.
@@K3end0 Maybe Ted Nugent will buy it.
@@K3end0 they are hog hunts but from the sides of moving helicopters, with machineguns.
It's the closest thing to the original intention of the gun that we can legally get to.
@@lordhefman what in the hell is up with texans
@@aumann0452 Having too many feral hogs for one
@@aumann0452 the hogs are actually a pest
Oh how I'd love to see this gun mounted to something that would allow us to see that sight in action! Love the Lewis gun.
Cue gun Jesus mounting this thing on the back of a Toyota truck, going 80mph in the desert, shooting aliens left and right.
Wish they would make a semi auto replica
I like to think it's not named Savage and Ian just called it that to be more hip
Also manufactured in .303 by the ‘mad lad’ arms co.
25 years ago here in ireland we used to say something was savage if it was cool.
No, it is really made by Savage Arms.
yooo holy shit kag its really you i thought u were dead
@@johnm3907 that was a thing up until fairly recent here in the US
Ian. @ 2:39. It's called "lock time". From the moment you squeeze the trigger to the moment the bullet exits the barrel is known as the lock time.
Ian is always so professional but in a warm, friendly way.
These aircraft mounted guns used by ground units did some scary stuff. Read some memoirs from the Long range desert group. They had Vickers Ks in dual mounts, with some 1800 rpm. There was an instance, where they had followed an Italian convoy, and started firing at a truck with those machineguns. Literal ground meat was what was left of most corpses found.
Bit like the Stinger in WW2, an aircraft Browning M2 from the rear turret of a TBF/SBD that was used by a few troops on Iwo Jima. Had nearly twice the rate of fire of the infantry version of the M2
hackaday.com/2020/02/03/stinger-the-hacked-machine-gun-of-iwo-jima/
This is one of the guns they used to kill King kong in the 2006 empire state scene
That wind vane sight is ingenious, and I'm jealous of who ever worked out the math to make it work.
In Thomas Lawrence (of Arabia)'s memoirs,he describes being invited to man the rear gun of a plane.
He takes a look at the aiming system and declines.Now I understand.
Those sights are pretty cool! The whole gun is actually totally awesome.
I would love a video with you and someone like Military Aviation History doing an inside the cockpit style video looking at the defensive gun mounts in the airplane. Great video as always!
That front sight is a really clever design.
Just about every model biplane I ever had or put together had one of these guns sticking out on the top wing, always thought what a ridiculous place to put a gun, now it makes sense.
I remember learning it was my great grandfather's job to make sure the timing was right on these so pilots didnt shoot their own propeller off. No pressure though lol
That'd be on Vickers machine guns, not these. Cool job though!
Pilots never came back to complain....
Fantastic video.
Never underestimate the value of the little "obvious" design notes at the beginning.
Lighter gun, bigger magazine - seems obvious.
But then your open / closed bolt synchronisation explainer was one of the simplest, and the first one I've truly understood.
Every learning day is a good day.
I also think the wndvane foresight is the absolute star of the show.
I reckon myself a bit of a military kit buff, and I've never seen one before.
A tiny work of crafted genius amid the inhuman slaughter of 1914-18.
The aircraft Lewis Gun was also prominently featured in the Tom Selleck 1980s movie High Road to China.
It was very interesting to learn why so many changes are necessary in an plane mounted gun. Great explanation and history!
Even by Forgotten Weapons excellent standards, this was a cracking video!
Thank you, I really enjoy how you dig into the modifications, engineering, and design aspects of them.
Savage arms is now in Westfield, MA, I know this because my dad used to ride past there on his bike and even bought blemish rifle stocks for $.50 a piece in the 70's to make lamps out of when he was in high school.
Savage Arms also has a plant in Lakefield Ontario, near Peterborough Ontario. It used to be Lakefield Arms, but has been Savage for quite some time.
@@minuteman4199 yep which used to be Cooey.
That front sight is freaking brilliant. Having airspeed adjustment while in flight (maybe tied to the engine or, if they had any sort of airspeed sensors, then that would be even better) would be a nice to have, but just having it take the plane's airspeed and angle relative to the gun barrel into account automatically is pretty dang nice.
That sight is just ABSURDLY clever.
Fricken Awesome video!... The 'wind vane' sight is something new to me.. totally genius design.
Fascinating - I always assumed that rounds were double stacked in a Lewis gun magazine but that's the first time I've seen the inside.
FYI What little was left of the Utica Savage plant that these were made in burnt last year. It had been built for Savage in 1920 and was used until after WW2 when they moved to Massachusetts.
30-06 aircraft mounted barn roof wind vane slide projector
I know Ian never asks, but if you've watched/are watching this video and enjoying it, see this post and still haven't yet, then leave a Like. I personally found the wind vane sights, and the extremely simply, yet ingenious fix to reloading to be my favorite parts of this video.
Interesting explanation regarding open and closed bolt mechanisms vs synchronisation
I think those Lewis guns are really neat and were ahead of their time. It sort of reminds me of the fg42.
That sight is just genius though!!
Massively cool gun!!! When looking at WWI equipment it always amazes me at the ingenuity and often genius employed by men trying to kill their enemies as effectively as possible. Had never seen that type of front sight and have to say I'm blown away by it....just brilliant! Thanks again for another awesome video Ian.
Tremendous video Ian 🙌🏻🙌🏻... That sight is classic, reminds me of playing video games growing up.
The sheer ingenuity in the sighting that they came up with to deal with so many mechanical and mathematical problems in firing from and at moving aircraft, with such minimal technology needed for an effective solution, is amazing.
The barrel casing/shroud was certainly fitted to the RAF Lewis, as I have a copy of an original F.S. 114, 'Handbook on the Lewis Gun', showing this.
I have an original air-cooled Vickers Handbook too, would like to see a vid on that one too, someday.
Very informative vid on the M1918, as always!
Cheers!
That winged front sight is just awesome!
That wind vane sight actually makes an appearance in The Mummy as well
SE 5 and Nieuport 11 are famous WW 1 fighters that have Lewis on the top of the wing. SE had one synchronised Vickers gun as well. The British also used a twin mounting in angled position with BE 2c to attack on German Zeppelin raiders underneath, sort of precursor to German WW 2 "Schräge Music" cannon installment.
IIRC the RAF liked the Lewis in the top wing mount on the S.E.5 combined with a fixed Vickers on a synchronized mount.
The pilot could pivot the Lewis back and down so he could reload it in the air.
In WW2, the British Long Range Desert Group scrounged some old Lewis aircraft guns to mount on trucks and jeeps, for 'beating up' enemy airfields, often mounted in pairs, too. The high rate of fire was a factor in this.
LRDG generally used Vickers K guns, visually very similar. Not to say they didn't use Lewis guns, you take what you can get.
Always loved the ending shootout scene in “The High Road to China” when Tom Selleck pulled off the Louis Gun from the crashed fighter to use against the Chinese cavalry.
Now that is sweet. It'd look good over the fireplace...
We need a semi auto variant of both the ground and aircraft versions, with reproduction tripod and tripod mounts. 97 rounds in semi auto wouldn't even overheat the aircraft version, let around the ground version with that cooling shroud
The British mounted the Lewis gun in a variety of aircraft installations.
Before they settled on the over wing mounting Lewis guns were sometimes mounted on the lower wing, next to the cockpit. The guns were mounted angling forward, outside the propeller arc.
Late in the war, aircraft adapted to strafing trenches mounted one or two guns in the cockpit, angling down about 45 degrees. The breeches protruded into the cockpit, allowing the pilot to change drums.
Some Sopwith Camels were used to intercept night intruding bombers and Zeppelins.
The Camel normally was armed with two Vickers guns mounted in front of the cockpit. Firing these guns at night would blind the pilot, so night flying Camels mounted two Lewis guns firing upwards over the upper wing center section.
The ammunition drums were within relatively easy reach of the pilot.
Lewis guns were used by the British well into WWII.
The US Used Lewis guns in aircraft into the 1920’s, shifting over to Brownings in the 30’s.
Another reason for removing the barrel shroud on aircraft guns was to reduce air resistance. Imagine trying to swing a gun around in a 100+MPH slipstream.
The sights weren’t fitted to guns fired by the pilot. He just pointed the aircraft wherever he wanted shoot.
Were the Vickers guns fitted to Army Air Corps aircraft in WWI also chambered for 30.06?
Or was the adoption of 30.06 a postwar modification?
I hope I haven’t said anything ridiculously stupid, I had to get rid of my aircraft library, so I’m working from memory.
Let’s be careful out there.
That front sight design is fantastic.
The movie from the 80 with Tom Seleck, high road to china, has a nice cameo in the final shootout scenes. His plane is shot down and he removes the lewis from the upper wing and uses it from the ground.
"speak"
@@BoomerZ.artist look at my dorothy!!!
That's the best looking Lewis gun I've ever seen.
A lot of these ended up on British colliers along with Marlins and various Hotchkiss patterns in 1939 (.303). They would set them up anywhere where there was a bit of space and an arch of fire, usually the bridge. They were supposed to deal with German air attacks and E-Boats. Eventually, ie 1943/4, they were replaced with oerlikons and/or Browning 30s and 50s. Some old pre great war LA cannon was stuck n the poop deck in the early war and f’csle later (this was because fitting at the front was ‘offensive’ and made the ship a war ship and changed the RoEs).
I love these spans of videos of the auction houses they are the best thanks again ian
That wind vane sight is really cool. A fantastically elegant solution to a rather complex problem.
An elegant weapon...for a more civilized age...
"Air Lewis" sounds like a Nike Sneaker.
Biggles' favorite flying shoe.
Biggles... my favorite books from 25 years ago... if that's what you are referring to... thanks for the throwback...
@@w.callens1629 I still have a few Biggles books back at my parents house in the attic, may have to dig them out. 🤙
Old timer technology never ceases to amaze! Great video thanks Ian!!
You always do a great job on these firearm reviews. Thanks and keep them coming!
"Does the sight know where it is" sounds like the 1916 version of "Does the missile know where it is"
Pretty much!
These Sights are super interessting. I could watch an entire series devoted to sights, and how they´re used.
Also issued to the British Home Guard in WWII, used in the ground, and anti-aircraft role. 303 and I presume 30.06 (US aid after Dunkirk) variants have been seen in photos.
Read an interview with a WWI pilot,who had this on the top wing.To change mags,he had to stand/crouch on the seat,with the stick between his knees.
Guess he appreciated the improved mag release system.
Interesting. I believe the soviets used a similar wind vane solution on the Pe2 rear gunner position to allow easier rotation of the turret at higher speeds. Neat stuff.
as a note, since the lewis was not synchronized, it was more reliable. because it was not susceptible to the synchronization gear failing. this was a huge issue when they were first introduced into british aircraft, this is the reason the S.E.5 and more famously, the S.E.5a aircraft had a lewis mounted over the wing, so the aircraft could still engage in combat even after the failure of the main vickers firing through the prop. (which happened CONSTANTLY in early aircraft)
That front sight is a lovely peace of design.
The front sight is brilliant!
I am not a firearms or aviation expert, so I was glad to learn shooting through your own propeller had a down side
Slight correction on the use of the aircraft sight. You line up the front post inside the center ring of the rear sight to ensure the gun is shooting straight. You place your target on the outer ring, or relative to it for judging lead.
The windvane front sight is ingenious.
Do you remember when Savage got military contracts and you could buy machine guns by mail to support local New York businesses?
Forgotten Weapons remembers.
Thank you , Ian .
Neat! That front sight is an absolutely wonderful contraption. :D
I would really love to see you cover a Vickers K machine gun. They were used in a similar role on aircraft like the famous Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber - flexible mount for observers and defensive gunners. Similar layout with a big pan mag, and a ludicrously high rate of fire. They were also used by the fledgling SAS, particularly the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa, mounted to keeps and trucks.
Remember a book I read as a kid about Lanoe Hawker having his Lewis offset to the left of the propeller.
the sight is actually AWSOME.
I believe one of these was used in the 1999 film, The Mummy.
Complete with weathervane sight!
You should talk about lathes and milling machines and tools used in the 18th century, after all its part of the industry. BTW love the milling marks on the gun and magazine
Wind vane site is very cool to see. Thank you
In WW2 the British Special Air Service would use the Lewis gun mounted in pairs on their jeeps. They would use them when attacking airfields.
I believe those were Vickers K guns. They look similar to the Lewis as the ammo is in a pan.
@@heneagedundasThe Vickers K was developed as a direct replacement for the Lewis as an observers gun.
Hence the resemblance, it was meant to fit into the same aircraft mountings.
No Ian I think you've misunderstood how a ring sight of the type featured in the video works. You don't align your front bead with the outside of the rear ring sight when correcting for deflection. The bead always remains aligned in the middle of the center ring. However, the outer ring (or rings) is oriented on one or other side of the target depending on range, estimated speed and direction. In some situations the angle -off will amount to multiples of one full ring of deflection.
,
Those are some savage tool marks!
A word on the weight saving issue on WW1 fighters. Several famous fighters/armed scouts like the Sopwith Pup, Fokker DrI (Richthofen's mount), and Nieuport 17 all were light enough to qualify as Light Sport Aircraft according to FAA rules.
Never seen that front sight up close, it's really clever.
The ring on the rear sight was used more to estimate range, not speed. Not sure offhand what it would be calibrated to, but likely something like 'enemy plane fills entire ring' = 100m. That swiveled front sight is a marvel of mechanical simplicity that was commonplace a century ago but has since been lost to computerization.
Cheered me up even though I work this morning, thank you
just saw this very gun in the movie "Lost Patrol" . Was removed from bi-plane after landing in the desert for ground use .
There's a sequence in the movie "High Road to China" starring Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong. Selleck is a WW1 fighter pilot and Armstrong has hired him in the middle 1920s to take her (in a pair of airplanes) from where they start (East Africa if I remember right) to China to find her father. Anyway, when they start out Selleck tells his sidekick/mechanic to "Get out the Lewis guns" or something to that effect, and there are dogfights and many crazy adventures in between (there's a marvelous scene in Afghanistan, for instance). Anyway, they get to China, and through a set of contrivances and plot twists Selleck winds up having to rescue Armstrong on the ground, and he doesn't have a gun, not even a pistol. He grabs a rag, detaches the Lewis gun from his plane, and uses it as a light machinegun, holding the barrel (which presumably gets very hot) with the rag protecting his hand. I've always wondered if that would work...probably not feasible in the days of safety (the movie was made back in the era when John Landis had a helicopter flying over explosions, just to reference what safety meant back then) but I've always been curious.
That booster reminds me of a Dushka. Oboy! A shooty video!!
For single-seat fighters this type of Lewis gun was mounted on a Foster Mount. This was a sort of curved slide which enabled the pilot to pull it down from a horizontal position down to a vertical position for easier reloading. Some aces even used this Foster Mount to fire into the underside of the enemy aircraft, although this was a difficult technique which required a sneak attack and the enemy not spotting you before it's too late. The ace Albert Ball reportedly used the Lewis in this way to down several German Albatross fighters.
Another benefit with the Lewis was that pilots could slide them down the Foster Mount and clear gun jams. With the belt fed Vickers guns this obviously was impossible. Pilots forced to do an emergency landing in enemy held territory could also detach the Lewis and use it as a portable light machine gun, which obviously wan't possible with the Vickers machine guns.
That being said, reloading a Lewis in the middle of a dogfight was ill-advised and difficult. While replacing the empty drum the pilot had to hold the control stick of the aircraft between his legs and use his free hands to replace the drum. On the positive side the 97 round drum meant a pilot had pretty much 10 seconds of continuous firing - and skilled pilots only needed 2 second bursts to down an enemy.
On heavy bombers like the Handley Page, the observers aft and forth usually had double-Lewises which arguably was adequate when dealing with fighters which used the same caliber ammo - i.e. roughly the same range.
It's fascinating how you see similar Lewis guns in Home Guard service in Britain - stripped down as much as possible. Not the strangest firearms in LDV/HG service (you find the very rare odd MP18 bring backs from WWI, for example) but certainly quite curious.
I still think that the way they shot through their own propellers is the coolest thing ever.
Go look up early attemps at it. Before they had syncronizers figgered out there were all sorts of attempts to put armor plating and deflectors on the back of the props, so you could hit them atleast a few times before the prop fell off. There were some pretty wild and very dubious looking contraptions that came out of that. Interesting stuff.
@@Grobut81 Thanks, I look into it. :)