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Show S I i;. Its Origin and Its Efficiency Both I On Land and In Airplanes llj, ) Copyright, 191S, Tbo International Syndicate. yjV jr ALL THE weapons U3cd In tho tt II present war tho machine sun II has unquestionably proved Itself H X the most efficient." says a promts prom-ts i ir.cnt military expert in his review of ii t e capons used In the present war. 5S-i When the casualties arc summed up fL jjjjj is found to be true, as statistics dj I oVO that the greatest proportion of Mi ' Jo'scs. e5pecially during: tho past few .1 weeks', have been caused by machine m I runs. Any typo of this weapon In the '( hinds of a skilled operator has tho ij ' sanio effect upon men moving- In mass HI formation that a keen edged scythe ias In a field of ripened wheat. It b CU(5 broad swaths; nothing can stand against It r The machine gun Is a man saver In Gti n-arcfarc, not, perhaps against tho JB men's own death but ono man can do A '(he work of many men, as ono of J these weapons can do the same work Stsonc hundred men armed with rifles, ti That Is, H can bring the samo amount 3 of Are to bear as one hundred rlfie- men and will take up considerably less K 'room. Consequently, It Is possible to brinp a tremendous fire to bear from a very restricted space. Imagine a machine gun which Is capable of doing do-ing tho work of ono hundred men and requires a frontage of only about a yard as reserve power. To brjng one hundred men across communication lrcnchc3 takes time and causes some confusion. Tho machine gun mounted on a tripod remains Inanimate during the excitement of the men In action. Machine gunsmen arc trained specialists special-ists for their work and keep their weapons concealed a3 far as possible They .arc known as -weapons of'oppor-tunity of'oppor-tunity and surprise and their hitting qualities under skilled men are very remarkable and are fired to the front only when a favorable target offers. I A volley from a machine gun will hit j i man several times whilst he is fall-!ng. fall-!ng. In the case of a gun catching men obliquely. "Recently special training ' has been riven to men who compose machine gun companies,, for only cool reliablo soldiers can bo trusted with these weapons to get results. A man must know his gun just as a bird man must know his aircraft. When and how to shoot means much and this old Idea that you must wait for your opponent to open fire Is now rcgardd as obsolete. Many kinds of machine guns are used in the present war'and It is necessary nec-essary to go back through centuries to find their origin. A Chinese gun taken as a prize in 1SC0 was found to have been mado In 1300 and consisted of four barrels fired simultaneously. The "matrallleusc' twenty-live bar-rcls bar-rcls (hand operated) was kept as a great secret by the French until the Franco-Prussian War, when It was enlarged en-larged and used as a piece of artillery. Kaiser Has A Maxim Patent Sir Hiram Maxim traveled over Europe Eu-rope showing his gun to officials of various governments and when the Kaiser saw the gun fired on the field outside of Berlin he at onco exclaimed, "This is the only gun." but all his military men did not agree with him and the machine gun used by the Germans Ger-mans is only part Maxim. Ma'xlm patents arc now being used on the Vlckci's guns by the Allies. As early nc 1891 England began to uso Gatlings, Nordcnfcidts and Gardners. Gard-ners. Even before this time Gatllng guns Invented by Dr. R. J. Gatllng. of Indianapolis wore used by tho Peruvians Peru-vians in the War with Chill. There was a battery of four Gatllng guns with General Shatter's Army during tho Cuban campaign of 1S9S. They were Improvised after landing and the gunners had only a few days training. Nevertheless the guns did somo effective ef-fective work. At a critical moment of tho battle befdre Santiago the guns wero pushed Into tho firing line and opened fire on the Spaniards on San Juan Hill. Three guns fired G.000 rounds pach and (he officer who com- A manded the battery claims that It was this heavy machine gun firo which made it possible for the assault on tho hill to be carried through successfully In a few minutes. ' The records of the South African War show that comparatively small numbers of machlno guns were used. The armored train which took part In the defense of Mafeklng, tho first sortie against tho Boers, was armed with two machlno guns, a Maxim and a Hotchkiss. but only a few other times were machlno guns mentioned. Machine Guns In Present War The Japanosc-Russo War was the first conflict In which machine guns played a large part for tho Russians had Maxim guns, while the Japanese had the HotchklS3 guns, of much the samo type aa are now used by the French Army. It, however, remained for the present war to bring out tho real value of the weapon. Most of the guns are water cooled by means of the metal jacket surrounding sur-rounding the greater part of the gun barrel being kept full of water. So much heat Is developed In the rapid fire of the gun that its inventors have found the greatest difficulty In keeping keep-ing tho water about tho parts from boiling. Tho air cooling system was adopted by some, but with all' Its difficulties diffi-culties the water cooled system appears ap-pears moat satisfactory. Lewis Gun Tho famous Lowis gun Is the Invention Inven-tion of Colonel Lewis, who served In the United States Coast Artillery, and 5s, perhaps, tho most popular gun now in uso in Europe. It Is tho most mobile of all weapons of this class. It was refused for a time by tho United States Government, but after both England and Franco , began to uso them in great numbers our own government gov-ernment then put them In operation on the Mexican border and in our Army. The gun weighs only 2" pounds. It has an extraordinary air cooling arrangement for securing the continuous application of an air current cur-rent to the cooling surfaces of tho barrel. Its air cooling device Is the most notable part of the whole design and might bo regarded as a soparato Invention. It Is a gas piston gun; tho gas is taken from the barrel near tho muzzle and actuates a piston In a tube lying close beneath and parallel to It, and the wholo action Is very simple. It Is a light load for ono man and can bo handled from the shoulder. Tho air cooling device Is an arrangomcnt for continually and rapidly changing tho air inside of it. An aluminum casing is slipped over the barrel carrying carry-ing seventeen plates radiating from it about two Inches across and running I the full length of the barrel. The whole Is encased In a light steel outer casing. The firing of the gun produces a continuous stream of air from rear to muzzle of the gun through the channel of the cooling arrangements. The Lewis gun Is much used In aeroplane aero-plane work. Bcnlt-Mcrclc The Bcnlt-Merclc. an automatic machlno ma-chlno gun or rlflo used in the United' States Army and Navy, is ono of the general types of gas operative guns And tho maximum rate of firo is about 400 shots per minute. It la effective at about 1,500 yards. The gun Is air cooled. It weights twenty -seven pounds and with a tripod about fifty pounds. It Is usually carried on pack mules, being especially popular with the Italians In their mountain fighting. fight-ing. Browning's Great Work Tho Browning gun, recently tried out, Is expected to prove tho greatest of all machine guns and Is tho work of John M. Browning, whose patents are on nearly every machlno gun already al-ready In use. Two machine guns of the Browning invention wero recently tried out at the various cantonments and proved such a success that the manufacturers cannot turn them out fast enough The Browning guns to be used by the United States Army arc two different types. One Is known as heavy, weighing thirty-four and one-half pounds, including the water for Its cooling system. It can bo usod both on tho ground and In aeroplanos, whore the high speed keeps It so cool that the air jacket can be discarded as well as reducing Its weight to only twenty-two pounds. Ono of tho things which makes it effective Is its simplicity sim-plicity and the number of shots per mlnuto which aro six hundred. Its construction Is so simple that any set of workmen can mako three of these guns to any one of other types. Browning also has a light weight rapid fire gun, which weighs only fifteen fif-teen pounds and can bo shot from the shoulder like an ordinary rifle. By Elmply pressing a button ono magazine can bo detached and substituted for another. Each magazine carries twenty rounds. The Inventor Is known to his friends as "old J. M.," and was borri In Utah where ordnance making Is not one oi tho greatest Industries, yet ho has 'B been working on gun inventions since H he was a boy, and many of these are JM -found on guns turned out by various fff firms. Browning was honored with a title on the day his one-millionth H pistol was made in Belgium, where thcro was a factory turning out his U work. He became a Chevalier do 1 ;H Order dc Leopold, which entitled him M to call himself Sir John M. Browning, iJH but the wizard gun man forgot all about It and wont on making appli- 'III ances to gun,s. Some ten years ago rSM , the Kaiser gave him an honorary dec- II j oration, which the inventor has long .jjjl ; slnco trampled under his feet. His tlti Inventions have been used In every M land, in fact the half crazed Serbian, Tj who killed tho Austrian Archduke on :J that fatal July evening in 1914, used jl an automatic pistol of Browning's, in- vontlon. Fire arms of his invention D have played parts In nearly every I great event In the world and It seems IB but fitting that an Invention of his M should end this awful conflict. HQ Tho machlno gun can be moved M quickly from one place to another U when any sort of cover offers. Each ll gun has a squad of about ten men JSf and should they find themselves too HK closely -pressed they pick up their H weapon, fall back a short distance and H then open up again. IB One military authority has declared jK that one machine gun is worth a wholo B battalion armed with rifles. Few sol- QM dlers can keep up fifteen rounds a H minute rapid fire with a rifle, but a rU machine gun can discharge 600 rounds. jjH in a minute, and one of the machine 'S guns can discharge 1,600 bullets with- rH out stopping. WL A machine gun hfddcn In a shell ll hole can .do valiant work against a , H , German airman. At the beginning of iH the present war the British had only 'H two machine guns to each Infantry battalion, while Germany had at loast fl : a dozen. Today both the Allies and M Central Powers havo special machine . lj ; gun corps besides those belonging to JB tho infantry and men thoroughly H ; trained for tho work. The machine ff gun Is now the most deadly weapot uffi r both for land and air warfare. Sfl |