Vickers Machine Gun

The Vickers machine gun came into service in 1912, before the break out of World War 1 and stayed in service until 1968. As the name suggests, the Vickers machine gun was manufactured by Vickers Limited in the UK. The original gun was a water cooled machine gun that fired a .303 round.

Many will remember the Lewis Gun from the First World War, which was a light machine gun; the Vickers Machine Gun was also ever present as a medium machine gun.

The gun took a team of around 6 to carry it from place to place, but only two were used during firing. This included one soldier firing the gun and the other feeding the ammunition for continuous fire.

The Vickers machine gun wasn’t just used by the army. The gun was also mounted onto a Vickers biplane in 1913 as an experiment for air warfare. The outcome was that the Vickers machine gun became the standard choice for a machine gun on both British and French war planes in the First World War.

After World War 1 the British military looked at phasing out the Vickers and using alternative options for the Army, however the decision was to keep with the Vickers when competition was reviewed. The only outcome was that an alternative was used for mounting on tanks.

Part of the Vickers gun success is the fact that it was so reliable. The gun was renowned for failing rarely which gave soldiers confidence in the weapon in the face of opposing forces.