The HORRORS of WWI Machine Gunner

The HORRORS of WWI Machine Gunner

This video covers WWI machine gunners and what their job was actually like on the battlefield. We go through the history of how machine guns developed, from the hand-cranked Gatling gun to Hiram Maxim's recoil operated design that became the standard for the Great War.

We explain how the Maxim gun worked, its water cooling system, the belt feeding mechanism, and why it was so much better than anything that came before. Then we get into the specific models each country used during WWI, the German MG08, British Vickers, Russian PM M1910, and the French Hotchkiss with its air cooled system.

There's a section on how machine gun crews operated in the trenches, how the guns were positioned for interlocking fields of fire, and what made them so effective at defense. We also cover the push to develop lighter portable machine guns for offensive use, including the Lewis gun, the Chauchat, and John Browning's BAR. Plus the early submachine guns like the MP18.


Chapters:

0:00 The Crew That Changed Warfare
1:21 Hiram Maxim's Game-Changing Invention
7:58 When Generals Learned the Hard Way
12:39 What the Crews Actually Went Through
16:50 Making the Machine Gun Move