The First World War radically changed the viewsmilitary methods of warfare. And if in its beginning the "deaf" defense did not need highly mobile means of supporting infantry, then by the end of the war they became vital. Some of them were machine guns, among which many experts consider Lewis machine gun the best.
The technical concept of the new machine gun developedSamuel McLean, but to bring it to a real prototype was obtained only from an officer of the US Army, Isaac Lewis. He also patented the idea, and the machine gun received his name - a hand-gun Lewis. However, it did not start "hand" immediately, initially it was a machine gun with water cooling, but then Lewis applied the original design of forced air cooling of the barrel, which significantly reduced the weight of the machine gun and made it manual (by the way, this system is nowhere else but the Russian one the "Pecheneg" machine gun was not used). Production of weapons was established at the plants of BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) in the United Kingdom. The first army, which was armed with a Lewis machine gun, was the army of Belgium (1913). She was the first to experience him in battle.
Пулемет оказался весьма удачным, особенно в compared with the same type of weapon of that time, and was soon adopted by many armies of the world. Moreover, the distribution was received not only by its infantry version, but also by aircraft modification. The latter was distinguished by the lack of a cooling system and a larger cartridge cartridge. In the linear parts of the armies, Lewis's machine gun served until the beginning of the next great war, in which it was also used, but in small quantities. The production was completely stopped in 1942.
Machine gun construction
The Lewis machine gun acts by way of retractionpowder gases. The barrel is locked by turning the bolt, which with its fighting stops enters the grooves, carved on a steel box. The turn itself is carried out due to the curvilinear groove on the gate and the base of the bolt frame. From the machine gun, only automatic fire is allowed. Shooting begins with an open shutter, which adversely affects the accuracy of the weapon. The battle is from the original disc, the cartridges in which are located in several layers.
Depending on the capacity of the store of these layersthere may be two (47 rounds) or four (97 rounds). There is no supply spring in the store, which radically differentiates it from other systems. The supply of cartridges is due to the rotation of the disk, in which it results automatics of the machine gun. The rate of fire can be regulated by a crane on the gas chamber. The return-fighting spring is of the drum type, which allows you to adjust it with a special key.
Machine gun characteristics
Lewis's machine gun fire 7.62 mm bullets with an initial speed of 747 meters per second and a rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. The range of effective shooting is 1800 meters. Weight with a disk filled with cartridges, 17.8 kg.
A role model
Качества нового пулемета оценили не только страны Entente, but also their opponents. German soldiers nicknamed the machine gun Lewis "rattlesnake." This nickname he received for high mobility, secrecy and a characteristic "voice." Captured machine guns the Germans remade under the Mauser cartridge and actively used. We must assume that the experience of acquaintance with this weapon pushed German designers to create their own version, which we know as the best German MG-42 machine gun.
