[ Vickers "K" aka Vickers Gas Operated ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look
at a Vickers Number 1 Mark I,
aka a Vickers Gas Operated,
aka a Vickers Class K gun.
These are certainly best known for the fact that
the SAS raiders in North Africa mounted them on jeeps.
But they were a standard issue weapon for the Royal Air Force.
And there's really a lot more of a story behind them before we get
to North Africa and the Desert Rats.
So this gun is called a "Vickers Gas Operated"
because it's a completely different mechanism, a completely different basic gun design,
than the traditional water-cooled Vickers heavy machine gun that ... developed from the Maxim.
Basically what happened is after World War One everyone kind of realised
that the light machine gun was going to be a big thing.
And so the French immediately started working on developing one,
and one of the contenders for the French light machine gun was André Berthier.
He designs a gun, and he doesn't end up getting a contract.
Although elements of his gun are built into what the French do adopt, the Châtellerault 24/29.
In the wake of not getting a contract,
Berthier sells his patents and his design to the Vickers Company in England.
Vickers recognises that the British are definitely going to want to replace the Lewis gun
with a more modern light machine gun.
And they think this Berthier design, which is this gas-operated system
... (this is developed directly from the Berthier design), they think this is their ace in the hole.
Like there's no way the British government won't take a gun that has this design,
it's a very reliable gun, it's a ... relatively simple design,
and it's manufactured by Vickers, what could go wrong?
And for this reason like they're not super-concerned about the slowdown
in sales of their water-cooled heavy guns, which are frankly becoming obsolescent.
They're not really worried about that through the 1920 and '30s,
because they're very confident that they're going to get this major British Army adoption.
Well, when the British do the trials for their new light machine gun in the early '30s, 1933 or so,
Vickers is very much disappointed when the Bren gun wins instead.
Or what would become the Bren gun, which was the ZBG-33, based on the ZB-26 out of Czechoslovakia.
And that leaves Vickers kind of,
"Oh, we didn't really have a contingency plan for this. So what do we do now?"
Well they do two things. First off they take this, their Vickers Gas Operated gun
in its light machine gun ground configuration, and they also market it to the Indian Army.
And the Indian Army actually adopts it and uses it through World War Two, and are very happy with it.
But that's not a ton of guns and they kind of want more, and they figure,
"Well, there's still one place that the Lewis gun is in use
that the British are going to want to replace, and that's in the air service."
So the Lewis gun was of course one of the early British aircraft machine guns,
and it's pretty well suited for a flexible sort of role.
They figure, "Let's take our Vickers Gas Operated,
let's crank the rate of fire up to make it more appealing as an aircraft armament,
reconfigure it to be an aircraft-type gun like this,
and try to sell it to the RAF to replace the Lewis gun."
And they did that, and in 1935 the RAF did adopt this as an aircraft gun to replace the Lewis,
and it was very successful in that role.
Of course production didn't really get going on a huge scale until 1939,
but by 1944 or so they had produced at least 80,000 of these guns.
And they were in pretty wide use as a flexible mount gun in the RAF.
Both for ... two-seat torpedo bombers, fighter bombers, that sort of thing
where the rear seat had a flexible gun mount.
And also for use in bombers in side hatches and in turrets.
So, that is where this was actually used.
Now let's go ahead and take a closer look at it,
because there are some really cool elements to it, like this front sight, that I want to show you.
So this is really a pretty awkward gun to put on camera as long as we've got the drum magazine on it.
So I'm going to go ahead and take that off. We've got a big old magazine catch on the back,
very reminiscent of the Vickers-Berthier.
When I push that forward, it's going to pull this whole locking clamp assembly back.
And then the whole magazine just lifts right off the gun.
This is the most common version of the magazine, it holds 60 rounds.
There was a second version that was made later that is slightly larger,
that is actually a 100 round drum.
It's often referred to as a 96 or a 97 round drum because the manual actually says only load
that many rounds into it just to maintain the spring strength, but it was technically 100.
Anyway, that's the 60 here.
Note that you've got this nice heavy duty carry strap on it
so that you can handle this thing fairly easily, snap it in, lock it down.
It's important to remember that as an aircraft gun they weren't really concerned
about how handy the drum magazines were.
Or how bulky the gun kind of was with the drum magazine on it.
What was more important was having an extended supply of ammunition that was self-contained
that could mount right on the gun so that you didn't have belts flopping around in an aircraft,
and you had to change the magazine as little as possible.
Here on the right side of the gun we have really the only marks that are on it.
It is identified as a Vickers GO (that's Gas Operated) Mark I, serial number is 24,000 and change.
These were manufactured during World War Two
both at the Crayford and Manchester works that were run by Vickers.
We do also have just a few little "VAC"
(which is Vickers-Armstrong Company) stamps, so there's one on the grip panel.
And there's one over here with a British broad arrow proof on the charging handle.
In place of the buttstock and traditional pistol grip and trigger assembly
that was on the Vickers Berthier, for the gas operated guns they put on
a single like a D handle type grip with the trigger up at the top.
So that was nice and convenient for an aircraft gunner to make use of.
It would also be very convenient for the SAS raiders to make use of.
There is also a safety catch here on the back of the grip.
So nice and easily accessible with the thumb when you've got a firing grip on it.
This one is not functional at the moment.
Typically down would be the safe position, and pushed up would be the fire position.
The basic mechanical design here is of course you have a gas port in the barrel,
pulls gas off to here, you then have a gas piston in the tube under the barrel.
There is a compound recoil spring here in the back.
And the bolt is a tipping bolt that locks up, as you can see right there.
It locks up against a locking surface in the back of the receiver.
So this fires from an open bolt, with a non-reciprocating charging handle.
When I pull the trigger (I'll let this down gently)
when I pull the trigger the bolt comes forward like that, locks, and fires.
So pretty simple overall, really.
Now in terms of sights: we have an aircraft sight. So this is the rear with an aiming circle.
And then the secondary circle ... allows you to give lead on an aircraft travelling a known speed.
Or approximate your lead, based on how much slower or faster they might be going.
I believe this ring is 50 miles an hour relative to the aircraft that you're in.
So if you're in a plane going 200 miles an hour and you're shooting at someone who's going 250,
this gives you an approximation of the lead.
Now it's a little more complicated than that because of all the angles that you have
to take into consideration, but you've got some help on that with your front sight.
What we have out here is a wind vane type of front sight, and these were used in World War One as well.
They are basically useful anywhere that you have the guns
firing at flexible angles into the slipstream around an aircraft.
So the point is that these two brackets are going to catch the wind.
And they're going to point the front sight into the wind,
no matter what direction the gun is pointed.
So in theory, if the aircraft were flying straight forward and the gun were pointed forward,
it would work just like this.
However, if you start to nose down or up, you're going to be firing against wind and gravity.
And you're going to need to adjust your aim up or down to compensate,
and this wind vane does that for you.
Same thing if you turn the gun ... so it's not pointing in the same direction as the aircraft.
This is going to compensate for your offset.
This will basically keep your aiming position
on station with the orientation of the gun in the aircraft.
So it's a really, really cool intricate system that they came up with.
Like I said, they came up with it during World War One,
but it still made sense for these guns because many of these were being mounted
in a similar sort of way as ... Lewis guns were in World War One.
There are a lot of pictures out there of Vickers Gas Operated guns
on Scarff rings, just like in World War One.
And of course also out here at the muzzle, we have this very simple scoop-like flash hider.
So I know you guys are going to ask, and I have no idea what the "C. E.T.A." means.
I don't know who painted that on or when.
What I can tell you is of course these were put on jeeps
by the ... Long Range Desert Group in North Africa.
And they were used because of their aircraft origins.
Both because they offered a very high rate of fire,
... these guys were typically shooting up vehicles and aircraft,
and the higher volume of fire you can get on in a short time, the more effective the gun will be.
In addition, the guns were available,
because they were able to be taken off of aircraft that were unserviceable and dropped onto jeeps.
They were guns that weren't easily adapted to an infantry role
in the same way that they could be put onto these raider's jeeps.
This would in fact set a standard, and during Market Garden
they did mount some of these guns on jeeps with the 1st Airborne Division.
So they did see a similar sort of use there.
This never really ended up being the gun that would save the Vickers Company
in the way that they expected it would.
It did well for them, and they did sell a lot of them to the RAF,
and they did see wide use during World War Two.
There was actually a version that was developed very late in the war, the Number 2 Mark I,
actually used for ground service.
What initiated this was Royal [Marine] Commandos actually using the guns
modified with Bren gun sights and bipods during Overlord.
There were very brief sporadic uses of them elsewhere by airborne troops.
This would not continue after World War Two.
So, at some point I'll find a Number 2 Mark I ground service version of this to show you,
but for the time being we'll stick to just the aircraft gun.
By about 1943 the Browning ... was taking over as an aircraft gun.
And by late in the war rifle-calibre machine guns were kind of falling out of favour
as aircraft armaments at all, because they just weren't powerful enough to get the job done.
So everyone would kind of transition up from .30 calibre machine guns
to .50 calibre machine guns, and then to 20mm cannons, and
in some cases even bigger than that.
So by the end of World War Two as an aircraft gun this had become obsolete as well.
Production didn't continue after the war.
These are tremendously scarce guns in the United States today,
they're not exactly common anywhere.
But this was a very cool opportunity to take a look at this one,
which I think is like the only registered transferable Vickers K gun in the US.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.