- Author
- A.N. Other and NHSA Webmaster
- Subjects
- Naval technology
- Tags
- None noted.
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- August 1972 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
THE MAXIM GUN was adopted by the Royal Navy in the 1880s. It was used with good effect in the Benin Campaign (modern Biafra) in 1896.
The two seamen of the Excellent, the Portsmouth gunnery ship, shown in the picture, are practising with a Maxim gun (not attached), the latest type of machine gun adopted by the Navy. The special feature of the Maxim (so named after its inventor) is its automatic action. The firer presses a button and the gun goes on firing of itself until its ammunition, carried on a belt of from 150 to 200 cartridges, stops. The belts are quickly replaced, and 600 shots a minute, in a continuous stream of bullets, can be fired.