Note (The Maxim)

The Maxim machine gun and its various deriatives was, without a doubt, the most influential weapon on the field of battle in WWI. It was the biggest leap in weapons development since the encased bullet cartrigde. However it was not the only automatic machine gun developed in the late 18 hundred's. Several men all over the world independently developed their own designs for self-reloading guns. These guns did not succeed in a military enviroment for several reasons:

• They were hand-cranked, thus not really automatic.

• They were needlessly over-engineered.

• They were too fragile.

• They were too bulky.

• They used ammunition that was too small.

• The barrels could not be cooled efficently and over-heated often.

• They were unreliable.

• They never mastered feeding in rounds on a belt, which meant they used huge and awkard magazines.

• They were difficult to manufacture on a production line, making them extremly expensive.

• They were never marketed effectively, unlike the Maxim.

The Maxim was the only automatic weapon that overcame all of these difficulties. Hiram Maxim was a brilliant engineer as well as a great marketer. The number one reason why the Maxim was so successful was because of Hiram's great marketing skills. He gave shows where he chopped down trees with his gun. He gave free models to all major armies. After designing the gun, he simplified it so that it could survive in battle. None of the other designers ever really came close to Maxim's success. So without Maxim the machine gun would not have been a feasible weapon for the First World War.

Automatic guns that were developed but were never successful include:

• The Gattling gun(hand-cranked, unreliable, awkard, bulky, never mastered belt-feeding)

• Kjellman machine gun(over-engineered, fragile, unreliable, expensive, not marketed well)

• Gardner Gun(fragile, never mastered belt-feeding, not marketed well)

• Bira Gun(expensive, never mastered belt-feeding, not marketed well)

For the above reasons, I believe that without Maxim it would have been perfectly reasonable that the machine gun is not developed in time for WWI.