Various Designs
Machine guns diverged into heavier and lighter designs. The later model water-cooled Maxim guns and its derivatives the MG 08 and the Vickers, as well as the American M1917 Browning machine gun, were all substantial weapons. The .303 Vickers, for example, weighed 33 lb (15 kg) and was mounted on a tripod that brought the total weight to 50 lb (23 kg). The heavier designs could, and in some cases did, fire for days on end, mainly in fixed defensive positions to repel infantry attacks. These machine guns were typically mounted on tripods and were water-cooled, and a well-trained crew could fire nonstop for hours, given sufficient ammunition, replacement barrels and cooling water. Carefully positioned heavy machine guns could stop an attacking force before they reached their objectives.
Read more about this topic: Heavy Machine Gun
Famous quotes containing the word designs:
“I have no scheme about it,—no designs on men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?—and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)