Guns By Barrett Tillman
If you do an internet search for “chattering Spandaus,†you only get 95 hits but the stock phrase has become synonymous with World War I aviation. Generations of moviegoers have seen the image: the leering Teutonic ace, hard eyes gleaming behind squared-off goggles above the blazing muzzles.
The fact is, there is no such thing as a Spandau machine gun — or Maschinengewehr in German. Nearly all German fighters of the Great War were armed with Maxim designs and the fact many were produced in the Spandau arsenal led to the misnomer.
Of far greater import — the weapon was designed by an American-turned-Briton, Sir Hiram Maxim.
Crossing The PondMaxim was a passionate inventor, best known for his electric lights as a rival of Thomas Edison. Maxim’s business took him from Massachusetts to London so often he permanently moved in 1900, becoming a citizen of the United Kingdom. He was knighted the following year.
By then, the former Yankee had revolutionized warfare. In the Victorian era of hand-cranked Gatling guns, the recoil-operated, belt-fed Maxim gun represented a huge technological advance. The basic design, patented in 1883, was demonstrated in Maxim’s garden the next year, churning out 500 rounds of .303 ammunition per minute. The heat produced by the high rate of fire was dissipated via a water jacket surrounding the barrel.
More:
https://gunsmagazine.com/rifles/maxims-in-the-third-dimension/
Britain’s Vickers machinegun was the Allies’ most-used aircraft weapon of the Great War,
usually in .303 but also in 10mm for destroying observation balloons.
