WWI Service


Artillery Machine Gun

Artillery Machine Gun
Item 14245   info
Bucksport Historical Society

The American-made Colt M1895 machine gun was used as a training weapon by the A.E.F. during the first World War. By 1917, the American field machine gun of choice was the Hotchkiss M1914 and the Colt-Vickers M1915.

Designed in the early 1890s, the M1895 was used during the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. It shot about 400 rounds per minute and weighed roughly 35 lbs. It was updated during WWI to the M1895/14 model, which became popular with the Russian army. A modified version, made by Colt and the Marlin Arms Corporation, was used by the American military in aircraft during WWI.

The M1895 is an air-cooled, gas-powered, belt-fed machine gun. It was nicknamed the “potato digger” because of the down-swinging, reciprocating lever underneath the barrel. As a result, the gun would dig into the earth if fired too low to the ground.
The first self-powered machine gun was invented in 1883 by Sir Hiram Maxim, a native of Sangerville, Maine. Using recoil technology, the ‘Maxim Gun’ was the first weapon to load automatically. It was patented in England, where the inventor lived during the second half of his life.

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