Talk:Vickers machine gun

Untitled
ondenser (just a jerry-can affiar with a bit of water in the bottom). Without this the steam coming off the barrel would give away the guns position. GDL 26-1-2005

Reliability
I have read from a reliable source that in a test a Vickers was fired continously for several hours. GDL
 * During WW1, some guns fired continuous barrages for days, stopping only for barrel changes. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I hear thanks to ARRSE that according to "Grand Old Lady of No Man's Land, The: Vickers Machine Gun " by Dolf Goldsmith that in the 60s they fired one for seven days and nights. Anyone seen this book it might be useful reference. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I have seen that too. Unsure whether it was a Hogg reference, but I seem to remember it was a Vickers co. reliability test and it was much earler than the 60s, straining my rapidly failing memory, I believe it was mentioned as being "inter war" Irondome (talk) 23:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's GraemeLegget's source. Apparently, after seven days and seven nights of continuous full auto (pausing only to change the barrel every hour or so), the gun that had fired just under 5 million rounds (500 rounds per minute times 10,080 minutes per week) was inspected and gauged, and found to require no service.  Attributed to  71.41.210.146 (talk) 07:36, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * IIRC, the test was carried out in Yorkshire in the 1960s at the end of the gun's service with the British Army. The reason was that the .303 SAA round was obsolete and no longer required, so there were several million rounds in store surplus to requirements, and it was decided to do a final test of the Vickers to see how it would perform.


 * This talk section seems to confirm that the reliabilitiy claim in the article is based on hearsay, and it appears that an out of print source that has not been digitalized was chosen as the citation in order to make it difficult to question that claim, considering the episode has been described in other sources also. It seems the article needs to be changed to remove this cliam, as the events are more plausibly described as 12 hours of massed fire from one company of machine guns rather than 12 hours continuous fire from all the company's guns leading to no failure of other vital parts due to barrel changes. More than likely, furthermore, the guns were fired in a talking fashion, as per the doctrine for barrage fired machine guns, effectively distributing load evenly over time on all of the guns rather than adding up to a fantastical feat of reliability.31.208.76.24 (talk) 07:26, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

9 yards


I've removed this for the moment, since its origins seems dubious. At 9 yards for 250 rounds you get one round every one and a bit inches which seems a lot for a round only 1/3 inch across.GraemeLeggett

I added the 'whole 9 yards' text before I registered. I heard it on a BBC television programme (I think it was War Walks - but it may have been another of his) presented by the historian Professor Richard Holmes. Actually if you look at a Vickers belt there is a lot of fabric between the individual rounds and your calculation (one and a bit inches) sounds about right.

Were the Maxim and Vickers belts the same? I noticed eyelets between the rounds in both.68.231.184.217 (talk) 17:52, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

And Re: ''have read from a reliable source that in a test a Vickers was fired continously for several hours. GDL''

From: Weapons & War Machines - Ian V. Hogg & John Batchelor - Pheobus - 1976 ISBN 0-7026-0008-3 Page 62

"''The Vickers gun accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, and in the years that followed proved itself to be the most reliable weapon on the battlefield, some of its feats of endurance entering military mythology. Perhaps the most incredible was the action by the 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps at High Wood on August 24, 1916. This company had ten Vickers guns, and it was ordered to give sustained covering fire for 12 hours onto a selected area 2000 yards away in order to prevent German troops forming up there for a counter-attack while a British attack was in progress. Two whole companies of infantrymen were allocated as carriers of ammunition, rations and water for the machine-gunners. Two men worked a belt-filling machine non-stop for 12 hours keeping up a supply of 250-round belts. One hundred new barrels were used up, and every drop of water in the neighbourhood, including the men’s drinking water and contents of the latrine buckets, went up in steam to keep the guns cool. And in that 12-hour period the ten guns fired a million rounds between them. One team fired 120,000 from one gun to win a five- franc prize offered to the highest-scoring gun. And at the end of that 12 hours every gun was working perfectly and not one gun had broken down during the whole period. It was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one. It never broke down; it just kept on firing and came back for more. And that was why the Mark 1 Vickers gun was to remain the standard medium machine-gun from 1912 to 1968.''"

If you want more information on weapons then anything by Ian V. Hogg is usually reliable, e.g.

The Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons of World War II - A&AP - 1977 - ISBN 0-85368-281-X

Military Small Arms of the 20th Century (with John Weeks) - A&AP - 1977 - ISBN 0-85368-301-8

This last one is (or was) a thick book (i.e., expensive! - £9.99 when I bought mine in 1978) but might be available from libraries if you don't want to buy it.

Ian Dunster 19:08, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Sustained fire and continous operation during a 12 hour period does not mean continous firing, as is pointed out by your source itself in that field maintenance was ongoing throughout the action. A machine gun company, furthermore, in barrage fire would perform talking fire, where one gun takes over as the previous ends its volley - necessary both to distribute the physical load on the guns throughout the entire company's guns and also in order to observe effect and adjust fire. This is a tremendously unencyclopedic addition to the article and an abusive use of the original source which is anecdotal to begin with. If this claim were true as stated, the alloy used in the firing pins would be the historically significant component, not the (false) claim of early machine guns firing for some period without failure. 31.208.76.24 (talk) 07:59, 9 May 2021 (UTC)


 * "The whole nine yards" - approx length of a Vickers 250-round belt: (around 8:00 mark) here:  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 15:15, 12 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The round isn't "only 1/3 inch across". The bullet might be said to be, but it's a bottle case. Also it's a canvas belt, and they leave more space between rounds. One reason for moving to steel link belts was to shorten the belt relative to the round diameter. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That said though, isn't "the whole nine yards" something from baseball? Andy Dingley (talk) 21:27, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The original and full wording of the phrase is "Give him (or them) the whole nine yards".


 * The British Army went over to disintegrating link belts because of the change to rimless ammunition with the adoption of the NATO 7.62mm round.


 * revisiting the phrase origins, the OED identifies first use of phrase as in Indiana in 1855, with more examples from region in 1907, 1908. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:01, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Aircraft armament & heavy v medium
The History section of the article, last sentence, states: "As the machine gun armament of fighters moved from the fuselage to the wings before WW 1,..." I think that should read " after WW 1". All the well known fighters of WW 1.i.e. Camel, SE 5, Spad, Fokker, etc, had fuselage mounted guns.

The section 'Use as a support weapon' above, begins: "As a first point the Vickers is a heavy machine gun". No, it was not - it was a medium machine gun. Indeed, the quote from "Weapons and War Machines", above, includes the sentence: " The Mark 1 Vickers was to remain the standard medium machine-gun from 1912 to 1968". Example weapons of the different 'weights' are: Bren (light), Vickers Mk 1 (medium) and Browning M2 (heavy).

84.130.116.15 21:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * That's correct that the British Army called it a medium MG, but hardly anyone else uses that term. It is in everything but name in the same class as other heavy machineguns such as the US M-1917 series or the Soviet M1910 Maxim. The US M2 and Soviet DShK are in a class by themselves. DMorpheus 18:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * From what period did the British Army call the Vickers a medium MG? Was that from the mid-war period onward? During WW2 for certain, yes. During WW1? Can someone please provide evidence of that? Pretty sure all mounted and crew-served MGs during WW1 were called 'Heavy machine-guns' in British English of the time. There were essentially 'heavy' and 'light' machine-guns during WW1 (the latter being assigned to infantry platoons and carried forward by the gunner when advancing, then operated by him alone if necessary).
 * Is this retro-classification? It seems that would be a bit like calling the De Havilland Mosquito "a meteorological research aircraft". 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:F99E:36C5:E280:CAD5 (talk) 19:55, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

In research for wiki article on Willy Coppens, I found reference to his use of an 11 mm Vickers to shoot down German observation balloons during WWI. Don't know if this is a useful addition to this article, but thought I would mention it. ````George J. Dorner, (gjdorner when logged in) 27 June 2008```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.186.114 (talk) 04:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Tea
Should the article say something about the popular myth that the Vickers' water-cooling jacket was used to make tea? Quite apart from a situation requiring heavy enough fire to boil the water not being the most suitable time to stop for a tea break, I understand that the water would've been too contaminated with oil, rust, asbestos etc for even the most hardened tea-drinker to stomach. Chris 00:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and copper, too, from the barrel plating..a daily dose of carcinogens from the barrel packing and heavy metals...68.231.184.217 (talk) 12:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * is it that popular a myth?GraemeLeggett 08:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure, but it seems to've been persistent enough to have been refuted on occasion. If it's not that popular, maybe it should be.  :) Chris 11:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You wouldn't use the water from the cooling jacket - you'd use the condensed water from the condenser can. Providing that can was kept clean then there'd be no problem making tea from it. On the Western Front there'd be plenty of times when the gun would be fired constantly enough for the making of tea. You'd just need to wait until the condenser can had enough boiling water in it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.250.154 (talk) 20:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Cryptonomicon reference
Neal Stephenson gives a very colorful description of Vickers in Cryptonomicon. It's quoted here:. sendmoreinfo (talk) 21:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * IIRC the early Maxim guns had a facility for varying the rate-of-fire that Vickers subsequently removed in their modified design. They also replaced brass or steel with light alloy in some parts to save weight.

Maybe the Very Early Maxims had a "rate of fire control"; but not the '04 or '08 models. The Vickers was designed in 1912, so, no "unnecesaary parts". Toggle link was reversed. Receiver was not as tall. "The Devil's Paintbrush".Tintinteslacoil (talk) 00:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The Rolls-Royce Merlin and Allison V-1710 were roughly contemporaneous in design and neither was designed as a 'replacement' for the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.68.219 (talk) 19:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Vickers machine gun. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120401064809/http://ww2armor.jexiste.fr/Files/Allies/Allies/4-Infos/UK/Guns/Light-Weapons.htm to http://ww2armor.jexiste.fr/Files/Allies/Allies/4-Infos/UK/Guns/Light-Weapons.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 22:13, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

republic of china
in the section that lists the armies that had this gun the flag of the peoples republic of china is shown but it is identified as china. given the time when these guns were made it is more logical that they were bought by Chang Kai Shek and later captured by by communist forces when the peoples republic of china was established. please explain this issue — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.245.243.173 (talk) 23:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Vickers machine gun. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150131141822/http://www.ima-usa.com/nation/u-s-militaria/u-s-machine-guns/metal-belt-links-for-ww-1-u-s-m1915-vickers-aircraft-gun-phosphate-finish.html to http://www.ima-usa.com/nation/u-s-militaria/u-s-machine-guns/metal-belt-links-for-ww-1-u-s-m1915-vickers-aircraft-gun-phosphate-finish.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304055848/http://www.essentialsomme.com/articles/british_machine_gun_tactics.htm to http://www.essentialsomme.com/articles/british_machine_gun_tactics.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 03:04, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Rate of fire
Infobox says 450-500rpm, text says up to 600. My understanding is that the latter is correct and it was about 600 with the booster and 450 without, the latter seemingly being more commonplace in WWII. But "my understanding" and "seemingly" is a bit WP:OR if I don't come out with some citations which I don't have handy, so I'm just throwing this out there. --Vometia (talk) 11:19, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Recent edit
Hi, per this edit, you add that the Polish aircraft Vickers used a pan magazine. This is curious as it would require a total redisign of the feed mechanism unlikely for a small batch and would suggest it is more likely the Vickers K machine gun? Could you please confirm. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:34, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Vickers Class F was indeed a redesign of the Vickers E machine gun (the commercial version of the air-cooled Vickers Mk. III machine gun), developed specifically for Poland in early 1920s, see, , , . Its manual, available at https://www.forgottenweapons.com/vickers-class-f-manual, states that "Vickers Automatic R. C. Gun, Class F, is... supplied from a drum-shaped magazine attached to the top of the gun" but "by the interchange of a few parts, the gun may readily be converted to a belt-fed weapon". However, nowhere else in the manual it is mentioned what "few parts" should be changed and how, and unfortunately not a single photo or a drawing of a Class F (the front low receiver is clearly different from the Class E, cf. its closeup photo) converted back to belt feeding has been published (unlike later Class J). I presume no country was interested in converting a turret gun back to belt-feeding back then. P.S. I believe this early attempt in modularity is absolutely worth an article of its own, which is why I added a red link, but I don't have time for it myself sadly. =/ Ain92 (talk) 10:40, 19 April 2022 (UTC)


 * , thank you for your reply. Yes, there probably needs to be more on these subsequent developments.  I will put it on the to-do list but when it might be done, I cannot say.  Could you tell me a bit more about the Russian language source you have linked.  The google translator did not translate the web site title and I do not know whether it might be considered a WP:RS.  It would simplify things if it is. regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:13, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
 * This website ("Уголок неба") founded by Dmitry A. Volkov in 1998 aggregates different printed sources, mostly large handbooks and encyclopedias, and is about as reliable as the sources it uses (they are listed in the end of each article). I believe yes, it can be used as RS (at least in this case), and I used it a lot when I was writing quite a few articles in ru-wiki a decade ago. Ain92 (talk) 07:36, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Vickers machine gun
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Vickers machine gun's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Gazette": From Pattern 1914 Enfield:  From Chauchat:  From 1st Anti-Aircraft Division (United Kingdom): Pile's despatch. 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 07:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)