WW1 (1914-1918) was the first war to have more than half the world involved, this war started from one murder. With the introduction of devastating weapons of mass destruction in ww1 it would change how wars were fought forever. In this ww1 report u will learn about the background of machine guns, who first built them and where they came from. The significant impacts the machine gun made during ww1, how it shaped the outcome of the war and the lessons learned that help shape our understanding of the war. The Maxim machine gun was invented by Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884 in England. It was the first automatic firing machine gun. These guns used the energy to eject and insert a cartridges this means they could reach higher rates of fire. This also meant that they didn’t not need some one to hand crank it to get it working. This machine gun was used in ww1 but it was later redesigned and improved to become the Vickers machine gun which was the one of the standard machine gun for the British army during WW1. Machine guns usually needed 3-6 men to operate them although they could be operated by one person, one man is needed for speed reloads, one for water …show more content…
In ww1 they had not adapted their tactics to accommodate for machine guns. This meant that when trench charges occurred they would be cut down very quickly standing no chance. Machine guns at the start of war were not seen to be a such a great weapon by the British officers, so there was usually only 2 per battalion. Meanwhile Germany saw great use of these guns and had around 12,000 at the start of the war which became 100,000 compared to the British's mere few hundred. Because of the high number of machine guns the Germans had it gave them a great tactical advantage when defending British attacks. Machine guns also became anti air weapons proving very useful for defending against air