Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, and I'm out here with a very generously loaned LMG 08/15.
This is a German light machine gun from World War One and it ... has a nice slotted barrel jacket.
This was intended for aerial use. What's really interesting about
this particular one is that ... this gun is set up as a Zeppelin defence gun.
So instead of being mounted physically and permanently on a fighter aircraft,
this would be mounted on a pintle on a German Zeppelin.
So you could get a real good free moving field of fire with it to defend from attacking fighter aircraft.
I should say this is ... of course on a ... different tripod. This isn't any sort of original Zeppelin thing, tripod.
It's just up here for us to to shoot with, because we don't have a Zeppelin on hand to use.
However, there are a couple of real interesting elements of this gun that are neat to take a look at,
that differentiate it from the standard 08/15 light machine gun.
So the most obvious first difference is this slotted jacket.
Because aircraft technology was pretty rudimentary during World War One it was important to have guns,
anything on airplanes really, be as lightweight as possible
so that they didn't hinder the airplane's performance any more than necessary.
So since these were generally on aircraft, they're flying around at 60, 80, 100 miles an hour,
you don't really need a water jacket for cooling.
You are at altitude, you just cut slots and let the fast-flowing air cool the barrel.
So they did that, that reduced some weight right there, and of course not having it full of water reduced weight.
This is the 08/15 version of the German Maxim gun, which is lightened over the standard MG08.
You can see the receiver has been cut down here, it's shorter.
They removed a few pounds here and there. They equipped it with a buttstock and a pistol grip
instead of the spade grips on a typical MG08.
And for fighter aircraft use obviously you wouldn't have these,
the guns typically would be hooked up to a synchroniser mechanism
so that they would fire through the blades of the propeller.
Well for a Zeppelin defence gun you do want the buttstock, because you
do actually have a gunner standing behind it. So you have the buttstock and the pistol grip.
Now one of the other elements specific to the aircraft guns is this very interesting mechanism for charging the gun.
And I'm going to bring the camera in a little closer so you can get a good view of exactly what that does.
So on a normal Maxim gun we just have this handle. We don't have any of this mechanism.
What you do to charge the gun, pull the handle forward,
it lets you manually cycle the bolt.
So what you would do is the gunner would charge the gun like this, while the assistant gunner pulls the belt through.
Because the belt feed pawls are run on the recoil of the barrel mechanism,
and if you're just running the handle like this the barrel is not moving.
That's fine for a ground gun where you've got a crew of guys running it anyway.
That's a problem for an aircraft, because you don't have a whole bunch of guys standing around to help.
So what they have on this gun is this little cam that flips over, and this extra built-up protrusion on the side of the bolt.
... When this extension pushes up against this roller, that actually forces the whole recoil mechanism of the gun to operate.
So you can see when I do this, the feed mechanism is actually running.
At the same time you can see the barrel coming back and then moving forward,
where if I don't use this, none of that happens.
So these were bolted onto the side of the guns for aircraft use.
Just a really clever extra mechanism to simplify things.
So Mark here is the actual owner of this gun, and we're going to show you how to disassemble it
and ... he knows that process better and faster and smoother than I do.
So he's going to go ahead and walk us through that, if you would Mark.
- OK. First thing, we got to get the bolt out of the weapon.
Gotta put the weapon into cock, pull it upwards, 45 degree turn and the bolt comes out. Interrupted threads.
Next thing the feed block. Pull straight up, disassembles itself.
That is how it hooks into the recoil system of the lower feed ... arm, and that's what controls
the feeding method and the feed block.
- So every time the barrel goes backward it cycles that. - Exactly, it's connected into the recoil mechanism, connected to the barrel.
Fusee cover, hiding a big spring.
Fusee cover comes off of its catches, and not just from the hook.
- And that's the mainspring of the gun? - Yes.
- Now there's no more spring pressure on anything.
Pop the latch, pop the cocking handle, stock drops back on its pivot pin.
Grab the cocking handle,
the barrel and the recoil rails slide right out the rear end.
OK, the barrel is attached to the ... recoil rails and the cocking handle mechanism.
And pops loose like that, the barrel comes out in the one movement.
- And you have two separate chunks. - And that is a field-stripped Maxim gun.
Dirty and greasy, dirty and greasy.
OK.
- So the reason we're actually taking this apart is we're going to switch out to a standard 08/15 set of
recoil rails and charging handle, because the aircraft one is actually getting a bit worn and not running very reliably.
- OK, goes back together same way,
pops in the hole,
the other side springs up and catches over, just like so.
Making sure your cocking handle is cocked and not this way, because if it's this way
you'll never get it back around once it gets hung in the bottom of the receiver.
And then slides right back in.
-OK.
-The tricky bit is aligning the end of the muzzle into the end of the jacket.
- Once it's in, hold in place,
rear end snaps up,
pull handle locks in place.
The fusee spring attachment point goes onto the chain hook.
That attaches it to the side wall of the receiver and to the rail system.
Fusee's back on, we now are back to spring pressure.
Feed block goes in, making sure that we get
the ... lower feed pawl aligned in the recoil rail.
Lock goes back in, the right way.
Now she's ready to go.
- So because of the difficulty in finding good quality Maxim belts,
we're actually using an MG34 belt flipped upside down.
... There is some historical relevance to that as well, that was done
later on in World War Two when they went back to using some of these guns in rear echelon areas.
Because we have switched back to the standard 08/15 charging handle,
we aren't able to use the special one hand, one man charging system.
So Mark here is going to pull the belt for me while I charge the gun. Here we go.
That's our first round. That means we have a round in the extractor.
We need to charge one more time in order to get a round chambered.
Alright, now we're all ready to fire.
- Going hot? - Going hot.
The rear panel of the Maxim gun here has a socket on it for this wooden buttstock.
... And that was designed for the infantry guns, the regular Maxim 08/15.
When they adapted these for aircraft use, they just went ahead and continued using that same part.
They're already making them in large numbers, and it didn't make sense to make a separate part specifically for the aircraft guns.
But they'd leave the buttstock off if it was going to be mounted to the side of an airplane.
What they did instead in some situations, was they wanted a an external safety on the gun
for aircraft use and so they came up with a mechanism like this
bolted on to the back of the receiver cover.
And this has a big ol' lever that is safe when it's up. What this does is actually push the bolt handle
slightly out of battery, just like that. That prevents the gun from firing. When you're ready to fire,
drop that back down, it no longer impacts any of the parts of the gun, and you're ready to go.
Since this is a Zeppelin gun it needed to have the buttstock again,
so a part like this wasn't in use. These actually have a safety back here above the trigger guard.
Another neat element on the Maxim guns, not just the aircraft ones but all of them,
the mainspring under this cover can actually be adjusted, the amount of tension that's being put on the gun.
We have a scale here that measures kilograms of pressure on the spring.
By happy coincidence, this also more or less equates to rounds per minute if you multiply it by 10.
So if you crank this thing all the way up to maximum tension you can get about 700 rounds a minute out of this gun,
although it'll kind of beat itself to death in the process. A more typical rate of fire was 400 to 450.
Now to adjust this I have a screw here on the front,
and it rotates in 90 degree sections.
I'm gonna drop this down to about 35 pounds.
There we go.
- Going hot? - Going hot.
And that's a 50 round belt.
- That was a relatively low rate of fire. Probably, well, 350 or 400. - She's set about 350, she runs best right about there. - Yeah.
- Let's do it again. - Yeah.
- Going live. - Going hot.
You always have to try that you know. Whoo, I'll tell you what, it's better than a BAR.
- Probably lighter. - Yeah.