THE LEWIS SUPER-MACHINE GUN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 199, 11 August 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE LEWIS SUPER-MACHINE GUN.

OUR WONDERFUL NEW WAR WEAPON. Unlike any other engine of war, the machine-gun, ever since it was first invented (a good many years ago), has always liefd as fascinating an interest for the civilian as it litis for the so'dier —so much so, : ndcvd, that there are comparatitvely few civilians who do not know that it* ; s a weapon designed to fire rifle bullets very quickly; that the principle on which it is worked is that the slight gas explosion produced by the firing of one bullet —the recoil, us it is termed automatically tits the next bullet aito the breech and fires that too; and that; this process can be kept up at an extraordinary rate of speed. For instance, the Maxim machinegun, the only kind of machine-gun with which the British Army was equipped until recently, can iire about 400 rounds a minute —"some - ' speed, certainly!—especially when contrasted with the ordinary rifle. But if 400 rounds a minute may rxs regarded as an extraordinarily rapid rate of fire, as what may the achievement of the Lewis, the super machinegun we have taken into use since tin; war began, be regarded? It can hie 800 rounds a minute, and. at a pinch, 900! Compared with the I/ewis. the Maxim machine-gun— and in fact, any other type of machine gun f'n use in any army in the world—is, from a speed standpoint alone, hopelessly outclassed. WHY THE LEWIS IS THE SUPER GUN. However, it is not merely because .)? its overwhelming speed superiority that we have termed the Lewis gun " the super imu-hir.e-gun." It is because ii excels so vastly, and in so many i: spects. over every other kind of automatic machine gun that has ever been invented that we have so described .t since the Lewis gun has come into practical being all other automatic, guns have automatically become " back numbers indeed." To begin with ,it is of a lightness hitherto undreamt of in connection with machine guns; >it weighs onlv and can be carried easiily by one man. One man also can work if. v/.thput difficulty, but, to obtain the maximum fire speed, two men are desirable —one. to work it, the other to feed in the ammunition. As only two men, at the very nutside, are really needed for the gun, it is not difficult to conjure up what tremendous possibilities it possesses as an engine or war. Why, one regiment armed throughout with Lewises, could absolute'y annihilate a couple of Army Corps armed only with ordinary rifles! Before the outbreak of the present conflict, each of our infantry and cavalry regiments was equipped with only two Maxim guns. And two Maxim-* was about the maximum that could oe conveniently handled; for er'ther mules or horses were needed for transporting them—as each Maxim with its tripod stand, weighed no less than a hundredweight— ajid a small section of men had ti be specially employed m connection with the working of them, a section consisting of one officer, two non-com-missioned officer*, and twelve inch.

HAI.I'-A-MILLIOX ROUNDS A MINUTE. Isu.i, by w'rtup of a Lewis's extrnoi dnary portability, and the fact that. only on.> or two men are required to manipulate it, the eventual possibility of sending a battalion of, say, 1000 strong into act'ou armed with 500 sui:i weapons —a Tiring capacity of nearly halt a mill'on rounds a minute that would be—is no woldiy improbable one To make the possibility a practical) litv though, tho problem of keeping up the supply of ammunition on such a tremendous scale would first have to b" soLved.

However, if the idea of 500 Lewises t:> each battalion is a bit too amlv'tious to be practical at present, the idea of 50 such guns in a batttalion is r.y r>o means a chimerical notion. Units so armed would assuredly work whole-sale havoc in thet ranks of any enemy to which they were opposed Besides the great advantages of spaed and portability to which we have referred, the Lew's gun possesses the supremely important merit of being air-cooh-d. As poss bly some of our readers ntiy not be suttic'ently well versed in gunnery matters to appreciate exactly the value of this, we may explain that whenever a number of bullets have been fired rapidly through a rifle the barrel Incomes red hot, and even it the beat dees not compel the man to stop firing for a few minutes to allow the barrel to cool the accuracy of the rifle's aim is very considerably interfered with by it. Tin's neat.'ng is, of course mtensfiied considerably in the case of a machine-gun barrel, because of -the tremendous rapidity of the Mate of fire, and must be continually counteracted, or the weapon would become useless n no time—it would, : n fait, probably explode. With the Maxim the counteracting system was water, the water being enclosed 'in a steel jacket that fitted round the barrel of the gun, and was capable of holding 7h pints. But the water evaporated at the rate oi i' pints to every thousand rounds tired, and the tju'stion of replenishing it always created a big difficulty. Where water was unobtainable—for instanc-"*, : n the middle of a- desert—the Maxim vuis of necessity put out of act-ion.

KEEPING THE LEWIS COOL. By the inventors' c-lev.er idea of cat( li ng a portion oi' the powder gases that escape from a hullet as it leaves the barrel ul the weapon, and making such gases, with tlie aid of mechanical arrangements, suck hack air into the specially contrived jacket in which the barrel is encased, the Lew's .sun. no mndter what the rate of fire may he, is kept remarkably cool—and. of course the worry of water replenishing is thereby dis^'patcd. The magazine of the pun is a revolving drum affair, and it does not rniiTter in what position the gun may be, right side n]>, upside down. srdeway>. the rnu/.r.le pointing at an angle of •">. !". ( X), 10-5, or I") d?gi".o>, the magazine works just the same. And becasue the gun ran thu- !>• fired in any position and at anv angl.'. and because of its extreme lijrlit lit-■% and speed and accuracy, it in, above a'.l its many recommendations, the ideal weapon for us'- in an aeroplane. Already in this war our a/rmen I r.v achieved miraculous results with i! the Germans could tesrfy ii they onlv had th« pluck to acknowledge the number of tlv'ir aeroplanes that have I ?en brought down by it. Tn conclnidng our remarks aboii 1 the trci! wo ni'iv -ay tli.it h appearaive " is very much like an onl'iiai'V I'll". that has b en fattened m- .•T'-.itly. Lie- ,d it : s so inni-li lit;-' an ordinal - 1' rifle that it can b" lire.-! from t.v -hould «r ii■»< ,ts if it were one. True, not w'th ,'tite the f ante degree of comfort, bui .- • - t.iin'y w : th no irreat degree of d; ~>;,! fort. Ori'l'na'ih*. however, it mev li" 1 rostynl oii i s>u".li tripod when it i- lining fired, or if occasion arses, mcrei.

on a sandbag, while in an aeroplane it needs only to be sl.ghtly secured by a special dp to one of the stays to m usable safely, accurately, and conveniently in all circumstances.

Such i* the marvellous adaptability of th« Lewis gun'.the super machinegun, tlie weapon undoubtedly destined eventually to send all -its predecessors the Colt, the Hotchkiss, the V ekcrs. etc.—to the scrap-heap. THK INVENTOR—COLONEL LEWIS. Now, a fen words about the invenlor. V rst of all, he is, like the famous S'.r Hiram Maxim, an American. And next he is. or rather was. a distinguished soldier in the United tales ArmyColonel I. X. Lewis, of the Coast Art:.ll?ry. After 3-! i years' service;—including active operations in the Span-ish-American War—during wlreh time he presented the American military authorities with innumerable big gun and other war inventions of his, he retired from the active list because of lll-hea'-th. At the fine of, his retirement only about three years ago hs had perfected his machine gun, and pathetically offered it to his own Government first— for absolutely nothing. But. oven in the land of the Stars ;-.nd Stripes, the country of 'euteness. it seems that there are fools in h : gh places; for, to cut a long story short. the American War Office, despite Colonel Lewis's previous brilliant invent'ons record, refused even to look il the gun —for which we ought to fee! much obliged! Thereupon Colonel Lewis hied himself to Europe, and, of all p'aces, to Belgium. In that gallant little country ho found friendly sympathy with Irs idea. Soon he. succeeded in creating a company to finance it. and the gun was placed on the market. Several foreign Governments gave the weapon a trial test, but none was smrrt enousrh to snap it up immedir.te'v. HOW THK GERMANS NEARLY GOT THE INVENTION Th? Germans, though, d : d not give >t a public test. Instead, with usual cunning, they endeavoured to get the control of the 'ittle Belgian company itnd thereby the gun —completely ; nto their own hands by surreptJtoiusly buying up as many of the company's shares a stbey cr-uld But as soon as Colonel Lewis foiin-i out the : r little game, he scotched 't promptly by a counter financial move and then paid a flying visit to England, and laid the invention before the famous Birmingham Small Arms Company who at once arranged a contract whereby they obtained the sole manufacturing rights for the who'e of Europe.

Thus ths first claim on the gun wa* secured by Britain, though it was wjthn an ace of being secured by Ucrniany. Had the Birmingham small Arms Company not hacked the weapon it is absolutely certann the German Army would by now have been completely equipped with it. As it is. Brrtain has "beaten the field." As soon as tho Birmingham Smn.ll Arms Company took tho weapon under their wing, they were not long in (impressing its merits upon th • "powers that be'' at tiie War Office, and, as a result, a few mouths before the outbreak of Avar tho gun was submitted to an exhaustive series of official military tests. Out of those tests it cam.' with hVng colours, and, when the war commenced, the authorities prompt l ? placed a large order with the Birmingham firm. And that order is, we may say. very w'sely. be ng repeated constantly; the weapon is, in fact, oeing turned out at various factories throughout the country as rapidly as it i* humanly possible. COLONEL LEWIS'S PRIDE AND PLEASIRE Naturally, Colonel Lewis—who s in England-and in close contact ail the time with the production of the weapon is highly pleased with the phenomena' success of th? gun, and. equally naturally, h- also der'ves thereby ->. certain gr'in amusement from the reflection that his own countrymen were so lacking in foresight as to reject such a superbly splendid engine of war wh.'n he off 'rod 't to them —fro?. But of all the. tributes to his gnu Colonel Lewis is proudest of the verdict of tho soldiers who actually work the weapon in action. T'hey, one and all. absolutely swear by it.