Hotchkiss Machine Guns : From Verdun to Iwo Jima Paperback / softback
by John Walter
Illustrated by Mr Adam Hook, Alan Gilliland
Part of the Weapon series
Paperback / softback
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Description
Created by a long-forgotten Austrian nobleman, Adolf Odkolek von Augezd, the air-cooled Hotchkiss machine gun was the first to function effectively by tapping propellant gas from the bore as the gun fired.
Although the Hotchkiss would be overshadowed by the water-cooled Maxim and Vickers Guns, it proved its effectiveness during the Russo-Japanese War.
The gun, quirky though it was, was successful enough to persuade Laurence Benét and Henri Mercié to develop the Modèle Portative: a man-portable version which, it was hoped, could move with infantrymen as they advanced.
Later mounted on tanks and aircraft, it became the first automatic weapon to obtain a ‘kill’ in aerial combat. Though it served the French and US armies during World War I (and also the British in areas where French and British units fought alongside each other), the Odkolek-Hotchkiss system was to have its longest-term effect in Japan.
Here, a succession of derivatives found favour in theatres of operations in which water-cooling could be more of a liability than an asset.
When US forces landed on Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima, battling their way from island to island across the Pacific, it was the ‘Woodpecker’ – the Type 92 Hotchkiss, with its characteristically slow rate of fire – which cut swathes through their ranks.
Supported by contemporary photographs and full-colour illustrations, this title explores the exciting and eventful history of the first successful gas-operated machine gun.
Information
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In Stock - low on stock, only 1 copy remainingFree UK DeliveryEstimated delivery 2-3 working days
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:80 pages
- Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication Date:28/11/2019
- Category:
- ISBN:9781472836168
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Information
-
In Stock - low on stock, only 1 copy remainingFree UK DeliveryEstimated delivery 2-3 working days
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:80 pages
- Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication Date:28/11/2019
- Category:
- ISBN:9781472836168