The Machine Gun Story (Story of)

Warfare truly entered the industrial age with the invention and adoption of the machine gun. Armed with a machine gun, one or two men could potentially hold off a whole company of enemy soldiers, and inflict terrible losses while doing so. Describing how Hiram Maxim’s late 19th-century invention went on to transform the ways that armies and air forces fought, this book explains each stage in the technical development of machine guns and how submachine guns developed as a more portable offshoot, with their own set of consequences. While the tactical implications of machine guns are explored, the book never shrinks from the dark history of how machine guns have been used, whether fired from a trench on the Western Front in WWI or from a helicopter circling over the jungles of Vietnam. Featuring some of history’s most famous small arms, such as Vickers, MG42, M2HB, and Uzi, this history will appeal to all those interested in World War II and the history of land warfare and small arms.