World's longest-serving machine gun still used on Ukraine frontline
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 เม.ย. 2023
- The world's longest-serving machine gun, which was used in the First World War, is being used effectively on the frontline in Ukraine.
Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper at the Royal Armouries Museum explains why the Pulemyot Maxima PM1910 heavy machine gun remains a formidable weapon in the modern era.
More: www.forces.net/technology/wea...
Picture from Vickers Centenary Shoot courtesy of Adam Blackmore-Heal.
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Oh my god it's Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of the royal arms and artillery at the royal armouries museum in the UK that houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons throughout history
Woah cool to see Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of the royal arms and artillery at the royal armouries museum in the UK that houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons throughout history
If King Charles III doesn't give young Johno a knighthood... there's something wrong! For Services to History, Research and the Betterment of the Internet
sheeeesh it's Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of the royal arms and artillery at the royal armouries museum in the UK that houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons throughout history
Er yes🎉
dang it, it's Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of the royal arms and artillery at the royal armouries museum in the UK that houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons throughout history
A bullet can kill , whether fired from a ww1 weapon or a brand new one .
pre WW2 calibers were much more devastating
@@nowhere474 2 gauge?
@@nowhere474 yes and no, I you just had more people firing rifle caliber s tho it was the same thing in ww2, just more smgs
Ignore some of the typos, can’t see what I’m typing because of your name
God made man, Samuel Colt made man equal.
When I was in Iraq in 2004 I remember reading an SoF article about how the M1917 Browning could still be relevant. Water cooled machine guns have one significant advantage they are hard to overheat. The disadvantage is obviously the weight
Same with the M60s, like I mean at least their still usable for engagements.
@@Gutbomber they're*
......
not an issue mounted as base defense.
It kills as the same day it was used decades ago!
It's not just the hardware... It's the user & the motivation to win ..
And these dumbass mfs are tryna make me believe Russia's shovels are 'obsolete' and show that Russia is 'desperate', like bro they just pulled an 'Operation Uranus' on the Ukrainians in Bakhmut, just like their grandfathers did in WW2.
He totally failed to grasp why cast iron for the mount was used instead of steel or tubing. The weight produces a very stable, small platform. The gun isn't going to bounce around, it is going to kill what you shoot at. Virtually no recoil. So instead of springs and slide rods to take up recoil, the force slams the cast iron and just dissipates with tiny vibration.
So this is what the arms dDeliveries to Zeljo look like. Then the Spring Offensive can begin!
If this same weapon was being used by Russians I am sure your this comment would have been much different
@@simulify8726indeed i like the hypocrisy displayed by these comments sometimes i feel TH-cam is filled with Dummies lol
For suppression from a fixed position out this will still work fine.
And water cooling allows you to keep shooting many many times more than newer MG`s before the barrel starts to melt.
The Russian advantage is they did not change their ammunition. In British service the 303 was replaced by 7.62mm NATO and so the 303 weapons became unsustainable. The Russian 7.62×54mmR is a contemporary of the 303 but it is still the standard machine gun round, even the belt is the same.
Germany also stopped using 7.92mm mauser as well.
Charles Phillips, I believe that South Africa rebarreled their Vickers to 7.62x51 years ago.
The Vickers gun can be converted to almost any rimmed or rimless cartridge and can be converted without the need for any material changes requiring an armourers workshop, South Africa converted all of theirs to 7.62x51 for example. The Bren was also converted to 7.62x51 in British and South African service. There was no advantage in retaining 7.62x54R.
@zoiders Yes, now that you mentioned it, I recall the book Devil's Paintbrush having a good list of foreign calibers. Turkey, for example used the Vickers in 8x57.
@@zoiders Conversion to a different round is possible, but it is a significant amount of work. The Russians did not need to do anything.
"Here's why Russia using T-60s is out of pure necesity, desperation and them running out of weapons and ammunition" but also
"Here's why Ukraine using 1890s machine guns is out of pure badassery and sheer force of will, also just how amazing the Maxim was and still is today"
Except the video notes that it is being used, not who is using it. Moreover, both sides are using the Maxim gun.
And frankly it’s a much better idea to use it than to use the T-62 or its ilk. Slug throwers are slug throwers. We haven’t really come up with any armor that will reliably save you from a direct gunshot to the vitals, let alone several ones in quick succession from automatic fire. The Maxim is a heavy, clunky, cumbersome beast but it is immensely reliable and quite powerful, even if not quite as much as some of the larger caliber MGs. Slap some modern thermals and vision control and you have a fine weapon for the modern battlefield, albeit probably not one you want to be relying on for mobile warfare.
In contrast the T-62 is at least three tank design revolutions behind the times and can only be upgraded so much. To be fair there have been truly heroic efforts to do so and they are effective as second or third line vehicles, but all it really takes is a somewhat more modern vehicle or some modern AT weapons and it is gone. At best it is a light tank or - more likely - third hand Self Propelled Artillery, but even then it doesn’t excel in those roles any more.
@@vandeheyeric T-60 can easily fill the purpose of IFV in modern combat, obviously it wouldn't be able to go toe to toe with MBTs but infantry support roles would work fine
The Maxim hasn't seen war since the Great one, and the only reason it's being pulled out of storage now is both sides have a stupidly large abundance of ammunition for it, not because it's good or stands up to modern machine guns. I just find it interesting that both sides can use the same equipment and propaganda will find ways to justify why each is the best thing ever or the most desperate mistake depending which propagandist you ask and which side they're talking about.
@@vandeheyeric He´s talking abt the T-60 WW2-era light tank. It is ofc very obsolete, but it has tracks, sloped armour, a gun and a MG. Better than walking around in your bulletproof vest :) I believe both fractions in the UKR-RUS war would be delighted to have several hundreds of them mothballed somewhere...
@@SharkoonBln "He´s talking abt the T-60 WW2-era light tank. It is ofc very obsolete, but it has tracks, sloped armour, a gun and a MG. Better than walking around in your bulletproof vest :)"
Of course. For you, personally.
But for the country recruiting you, you getting blown up in your bulletproof vest is not that great a loss. Losing 3-5 trained crew and the equipment and time invested in them.
There's also a much greater gulf in performance between the latest and greatest in "Man with bulletproof vest and machine gun" technology on one hand and "Light Tank tech" on the other, meaning while the Maxim has many problems it is closer to peak performance for its niche than the T-60.
" I believe both fractions in the UKR-RUS war would be delighted to have several hundreds of them mothballed somewhere..."
Maybe. If nothing else they'd be useful for scrap and maybe - maybe - training purposes.
I remember in 1982, the Australian Army were using their Vickers Guns for training at the Land Warfare Centre, Canungra, Queensland, when I was on a training course up there.
It is being used because the war has descended into trench warfare... and sustained fire is what is needed to protect a position.
It scared me, because during wartime conditions in Canungra, soldiers were expected to to slide under the live firing Vickers machine gun that was on fixed lines so it could traverse left and right, but not up and down… during operation Hydra Despised we could hear it firing kilometres away…when we got it. .. we used it in conjunction with M60 and section gun group firing at targets… at the time in 1982… the Australian Army still had a lot of ammunition for left over from WW2…..
@@hypercomms2001Was still done mid 80s. Was discontinued after a burst fell short and hit a few troops...the cause was crappy ammunition purchased from a certain subcontinent nation.
I suspect that the army still has a number of them in storage. Fine weapon of you can support it.
@@Gungho1a Still a lot of .303s in the Army stocks for drill etc but they all still fire.
@@hypercomms2001 Did you see combat
@@Adonnus100 Mate... I was a weekend warrior in 1982....I missed out on "the working holidays overseas" that was on offer by the Australian Government in Sunny, exotic, exciting Vietnam from 1964 until 1972 , and so the only "packaged holidays" that the Australian Government was to places like the Land Warfare Centre... so no...
The extremely high continous rate of fire and the good mechanical reliability don't only guarantee the Maxim a forever life in fortified positions. The fast growing drone warfare just recently gave it a second life as a low altitude air defence gun, a job that it originally had lost to bigger caliber guns in the 1940s.
It’s beautiful. It finally got the recognition it always deserved.
I was the first man in the world to make an automatic gun,” Maxim wrote“It is astonishing to note how quickly this invention put me on the very pinnacle of fame. Had it been anything else but a killing machine, very little would have been said of it.
TRUE! When there is war there's new inventions.
Hiram Maxim's genius still working effectively more than 130 years!!.
I thought the last application was the use of a Vickers in 1965 by the Gurkha Rifles in Sarawak.
No they were used as late as 68 in Aden. South Africa kept using them as well, all converted to 7.62.
That gun can fire very long periods of time continuesly, because it has water cooling on the barrel. Thats why it`s still very good weapon in some places, like fortifications etc.
Light guns for assault, heavy guns for accurate defensive fire.
Good to see a definitive breakdown by JF at Royal Armouries, interesting history, staggering connection with now. Depressing in a way. But we are where we are I guess.
Not the least bit depressing. Dunzoid failed completely to grasp it is a deliberately made cast iron mount to soak up recoil and produce a very effective and accurate defense gun. It is not rat-a-tat-tat, now pick it off the trench floor and put it back or slide it back to aim in the fire direction, when done shooting you are still aiming exactly at your target.
With some modern rethinking the Maxim or Vickers design could very easily live again with a battery driven water cooling system. It's like when GE developed the modern Vulcan rotary cannon - first they borrowed an old Gatling from the Smithsonian museum and hooked it up to a motor as a proof of concept.
As a gunsmith, Its a common myth that old guns are unsafe, that the metal weakens. But the reality is that old guns are just as strong as when they were new. The problem comes from ammunition, modern ammunition is much more powerful than old ammunition.
However, 7.62x54R is a unique exception being still loaded with the same pressure and load data as it was back in 1890. So a Maxim gun chambered in 7.62x54R can fire just as well today as it did a hundred years ago so long as its been well maintained.
The Maxim's flaw in modern warfare is its size and weight, making it almost useless for infantry in modern war, however, it still is capable of serving in a sentry or turret position. In a fortified machinegun position where the weight isnt an issue, mobility isnt a concern, and sustained fire is more important, then the Maxim is plenty capable of filling that niche. Now, for logistics purposes, Ukraine would definitely dump the Maxim for a modern gun if it had the supplies, but with Ukraine's position, they're just not able to do that, and so it continues to serve.
Now why Russians have been seen giving them to DNR and LNR troops is baffling, like youd think an RPD or PKM would be more avaliable considering the Russian Army officially uses the PKP
We used the Swedish Ksp36 until around the new millennium. It was used in the coastal fortifications, but we also had it on some armoured cars into the 1990-s. It was a mechanical wonder.
Sounds about right, they where very practical peeps back in the day
Should also mention that the Russian Maxim, sg43, and the PK series of weapons not only use the same ammunition (7.62 x 54r) but also use the same belts.
Yeah we know. Several people keep mentioning it. Their military is still garbage😂
@@KingNoTail their commanders and structure may be a disaster, but their hardware is remarkable in one way or another, usually. Basic, but durable.
Good idea for logistics I guess
"If it is stupid but it works. It aint stupid. "
Murphy's 2nd Law of Combat.
in a trench line its still a great machine gun, maybe we should have kept more Vickers guns just in case we ever have to fight in trenches again
With the advent of unbelievable anti tank missiles war will probably become more static again. A newly developed lighter fixed water cooled machine gun should be developed. Maybe a hybrid that can be air cooled normally but somehow fixed with a water jacket for defensive fighting
The reason Ukraine are using these in fixed positions is because they don't have the more modern weapons to hand out. Even if maxims excel at fixed position warfare, it's still fixed; lighter and more manoeuvrable LMGs are far preferable even at the cost of some sustained fire. Not least because you can easily relocate it if the enemy looks like they're gonna overwhelm you.
Wouldn't surprise me if most of the Maxims in use in Ukraine are in backline areas or more peaceful bits of the front.
@@Deiwos0 No. The Maxims have appeared in front line area's where fighting had become static. That's what they are designed for. You are also confusing LMGs with GPMGs.
No mention of the heavy machine gun's use as an indirect fire weapon in a shallow arc fired over a hill at targets a couple of miles away. Deadly.
Wrong sights and tripod for map predicted indirect fire.
It's not a heavy machine gun
@Hey baby, come to Butthead in European terms it is, the US uses many different definitions. Rest of the world not so much
Maxims are lite artillery, on the proper mount, they are the perfect area denial weapon, in WW1 they were used to control areas well behind the lines, by saturating them with fire. The pity is that no one has taken the design, and put multiple units on a computer controlled mounts, that can elevate, and traverse, as independent units so you could saturate an area with fire.
It was more British Vickers teams that used map predicted indirect fire. It is still practiced today with the MAG58/L7 using buffered tripods fitted with clinometer sights. Simple ballistic computers work out the range just like you do with a mortar and a machine gun platoon can easily seal off a valley or junction. It's much quicker than setting up anything autonomous.
They were used in a 'deny ground' role in several WW1 battles firing for several HOURS at a time. Apparently there was a problem with the columns of steam rising from the cooling systems being visible to German artillery spotters.
“It’s big,it’s bulky and it’s heavy” and it kills just as well today as it ever did, perfect!!!
7,62x54mm rimmed ammunition is still being manufactured in massive quantities and it's available the world over, so it's no surprise a weapon chambered for it is in use, even if the weapon is a 1930s variant of a 1900s gun and the cartridge itself was designed in the 1880s.
Man, I just love watching that duracell looking belt ammo
I have always said that no matter how many modern bells and whistles a weapon has, the bullet will have exactly the same result in the receiving end than it had 100 over years ago. Firearms have not really changed much over that period.
The main take away from this war is that you should stockpile shells like your a doomsday prepper, non of these advanced weapons are of any use if they are to advanced and expensive to send into a proxy war.
@@colin8696908 Spot on!
Thats not exactly true. Old weapons are easily outclassed by new ones. The accuracy of a maxim is inferior to the PKM despite using the same ammunition. The PKM is 1/8th the weight and fits into multiple roles where the Maxim has 1.
Firearms technology has changed a great deal. Its just you dont see it. And those modern bells and wistles you talk about? Optics. Optics have proven to increase the effectiveness of riflemen by 200% in Afghanistan. machinegunners with optics can lay effective grazing fire at twice the distance as they can with irons.
@colin8696908 except we did send advanced weapons. Theres a difference between sending weapons, and supplying a quarter million man army in less than a year based on what we had in storage alone. I think the Ukrainians dropping javelins on russian tanks, and using American GPS guided munitions has proved that advanced weapons win every time against older obsolete junk.
Junk is better than nothing, but if the option for better presents itself, only a fool would stay with the out dated when their life is on the line.
@@theduke7539 who need ping point accuracy for supression fire from trenches? This one can fire forever, cheap ammunition and very easy to replace. In the end, still take only 1 bullet to kill a soldier. What WW2 taught us, sometimes a state of the art Tiger II or Panther are not as practical as a swarm of cheap T34/85
Hah i never thought i'd see Johnathan Ferguson, keeper of the royal arms and artillery at the royal armouries museum in the UK that houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons throughout history, on this channel
Perfect weapon for a technical or light armored vehicle
The Tachanka was the original technical.. and it was Russian invention.
Muskets will come out of museums soon
Once Russia runs out of T-90, T-72, T-62, T-55 and T-34, these will be used as battle tanks with a crew of 4: commander, gunner, loader and a guy pushing it west and making engine noises…
Would love to see this as a sketch ROFL
Yes dont forget the shovels
@@bolianpinch-sj1mc Funny to be founded by a guy with SS tattoo's (Dmitry Utkin), being named after Hitler's favorite composer, and still pretending to fight nazis. Smh
@@8fledermaus8 show us this ss tattoo
Its gone like dmitry utkin, unlike ukraine they take the ss flag to the frontline with them. Wich is good then they have something to clean theyr hands with after they spike them.
A weapon is still a weapon , even arrows can kill
They also use the same ammo and belt links as the PK/PKM.
Yeah...sometimes new isnt better. Its 100% functional and well understood.
Perfect meatwave antidote. Don't see much footage of hoses and water cans indicating that particular feature isn't being used at present.
i wouldnt make such a huge leap to assume that, out of the entire many hundreds of kilometer front line, you dont have adequate proof to jump to such conclusions.
They've likely started using another liquid coolant other than water that is commonly available.😉🧪🚘
My God its Johnathan Ferguson, the one person keeping Gamespot alive
My grandfather was a Maxim gunner during the Winter and Continuation War.
Unfortunately he passed on before I was born 😢
"If it aint broke, don't fix it" applies here. The other WW1 weapons that are proving necessary, not just valid, are hand to hand trench warfare and good old artillery to capture and hold ground. Apparently, the Wagner troops have found hundreds of Maxims and thousands of Thompson sub machine guns along with other small arms in pristine condition, still wrapped in grease, stored in the Soledar salt mines.
Good reminder that old doesn't necessarily mean ineffective
Don’t forget the added benefit/drawbacks of that plate shield/blast shield on the front, I think that’s a noteworthy characteristic of this specific one.
I saw a vickers water cooled machine gun too.
Practically the same gun
Slow rate of fire and heavy but, in a fixed position, its a perfectly good weapon.
Old Gramp's soul is gonna bless the troops using his gun
If its a t 62 used by Russia is a desperate measure, but if its an obsolete machinegun by ukraine is wonderful
A very well made and reliable gun that can shoot forever if properly watered.
It also has oly just slightly lower rate of fire than for example PK, what can also be an advenatageus, since it is still enough to be suppresive weapin, but at the same time consume slightly less ammunition, so it will be operational a little bit longer with the same ammo supply.
I humped an M-60 machine gun around. My assistant gunner carried extra ammo and a spare barrel for when the one on the gun heated up. The water cooleld weapon doesn't have that problem.
Imagine some of those mounted on vehicles doing a thunder run.
The last maxim gun in service with the British army was taken to the firing range set up and fired 7 million rounds until there was no more ammo 7 million rounds
🤗🎖️⭐🏆🙏🇺🇲
Thank you for sharing
Один интересный факт. Я могу по виду сказатб что жтот пулемет сделан после 1941 года. Дело в том, что пробка для заливки воды в кожух охлаждения с появления этого пулемета в Российской Империи и до зимы 1941была размером с обычную пробку на пластиковой бутылке. Потом сделали огромную крышку как на пулемете на этом видео. Сделано это было для того чтобы можно было в кожух засовывать снег.
Finns makes this Even better from 1910 version, The modified version IS Called M32/33 and they increase The firerate from normal 600rounds to 850 rounds per minute...
Why is it still being used you ask? Because it works and works very well.
When attacked you fight with the weapons you have no matter how old they are, if they work you use them
In a properly prepared trench with overhead cover and some degree of concealment, it is exactly what you need to stop the movement of enemy infantry. That’s what it was built for and used for over 100 years ago and it is still perfect for that role. Reportedly there were some Vickers that would go through as many as 10 barrels in a day on the western front. How they kept that thing supplied with ammunition is nothing short of a logistical miracle.
How many bullets per barrel do you think?
@@robison87 I've read reports that barrel life was supposed to be 10,000 rounds per barrel and that there were some Allied Machine guns on the western front that were going through 10 barrels per day, so 100,000 rounds per gun per day. Given the length of the entrenchments, the British must have been going through millions of rounds of .303 British rounds per day. The job of those machine guns was to keep anyone from raising their head out of the trenches by subjecting no man's land to a constant barrage of small arms fire. Frightening industrialization of death.
@Richard Highsmith That is astounding, but I can totally see that especially at their rate of fire and constant attacks. Thank you.
Well in a fixed position it's probably the best MG you can have, especially with the armor plate.
Yeah, ppl just underestimate the value of that shield, small arm fire incoming, with a modern MG you duck&cover, Maxim gunners just murmur "come at me, bro" ;)
@@SharkoonBln I would have very little faith on the plate stopping bullets but it is better than nothing.
I'm no firearms expert, but the rate of fire works for me.
@@Gutbomber it does stop small arms, even a 7.92×57
If it can throw lead, we can use it. Quote Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Think we might need to put the maxim back into production.
It just won't stop shooting.
more WWI era guns are in use than folks realize: Browning M2 machine guns and other derivatives of the Browning are from that era, as are multiple rifles and handgun…hell, artillery tech for the smaller artillery is right out of the era!
As is often asked, why use such on old weapon today? Because it works!👍
Now put these on dune buggies and Humvees where the weight doesn't matter and do some Mad Max as soon as you break through the Russian lines en route to Crimea. Shoot up their logistics like ghost divisions.
That water jacket means you can shoot it all week. You'll run out of bullets before the barrel gets too hot.
The Maxim!
that's a trench radiator and would have loved one in training lol
Watercooling just works.
Machine gun better than no machine gun 👍
It is outdated yes but anyone saying it is completely ineffective would most likely change their tune if they were attempting to assault a fortified position that had a couple of these guns defending it.
Its not just the oldest.its actually the first.
I guess this is what 280 Billion gets you !
Its there, it takes a common ammo, it works, its neigh indestructible. Thats why its there.
When you order an 80% m249 saw kit on wish...
The Ukraine and russian are fighting. A trench war fair . It shoot faster than the modern field rifle. Open landscape it's perfect for this war
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But, near perfect for a lot of circumstances in UAF vs RF.
The c. 1919 US .30/06 Browning was a VAST improvement over the Maxim.
But it was not ready for our involvement in WWI...
But helped the allies WIN WWII....
Air or water cooled...
Guadalcanal on <
J.C.
In the game Company of Heroes 2, a German unit has a joke quote that goes something like "Have you ever seen the Maxim? Stone age! Stone age!"
Even a stone can kill when used by the right hands.
you can laugh all you want, until you're on the receiving end.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
The Canadians in WW1 sometimes used the Vickers in as an indirect fire weapon by plotting the range of a German area behind the lines and at the right moment unleashing sustained fire. The target was showered with .303 bullets.
Everyone did it. It was very common practice. Hell, the British & Commonwealth forces were still using the tactic in the Korean war in the 1950's.
Broń jeśli jest sprawna i jest do niej dostępna amunicja to zawsze broń której można używać do obrony lub ataku.
Obviously great for a fortified position.
Also I will wager it was long ago worked out how to minimize the problem of steam rising from the gun in combat.
The Vickers had a steam condenser which reduced the amount of water used. Amazing machine.
Slava Ukraine. 🇺🇦🇬🇧
Using a bleeder, not a problem
War.. war never changes
reliable, ubiquotous calibre, can sustain fire for a long time cause its watercooled
but than you fix it its a beast. while other mgs, will overheat and will need to change barrels etc
ww1 weapon and tactics are being use in 2023 ukraine
It's not that uncommon. Browning .50 cal or MG3/42/34 pattern MGs are around the 100 year mark too. Kalashnikov patterns only slightly younger. M14 is still commonly used and it's basically an updated Garand.
The M16 was first developed in 1957 and you can swap a lot of the parts out with an M4 or a civilian AR-15 produced today without any machining or difficulty. Most American soldiers are essentially carrying rifles that qualify for social security and medicare.
Comparing a 60 year old weapon to a nearly 150 year old weapon is a certified American moment.
My hometown in Indiana has a museum that has one from ww1. They don't even know they are supposed to have it registered. It was a bring back from ww1 and was used by the Germans.. Great guns really and the first real machine gun!
Isn't another advantage that it has a nifty metal shield for the gunner? I mean, if weight isn't a consideration..
Because it works.......next question
Makes you wonder where the billions of dollars and countless firearm shipments are going...
Grandpa’s still got it!
I mean I guess the water cooling allows you to keep firing forever.
I read that the gunners would sometimes fire the gun to heat the water to make a hot drink for themselvevs
AS LONG AS I DON'T HAVE TO RUN WITH IT
Hard Chrome and/or nitride internal parts . Use a tungsten lined barrel and a recirculating water system for cooling. Should shoot for a long time.
Because it's available and they need weapons.
Ill take one!
Old does not mean not lethal or useful....if you can not get top shelf then use what you have
If you're going to talk about a gun, the least you can do is mention the cartridge(s) it uses. It's useless without it.
Wasn't the last time the British Military used the Vickers, During the Malaya campaign in the 50s by the Royal Marines? Then replaced it with GPMG and a Mortar for indirect fire.