His design greatly reduced the incidence of jamming and part breakage, and by war’s end the Army had adopted the water-cooled M1917 Browning as its standard infantry machine gun.
The M1917, however, was not exactly a light weapon. In its battle-ready state
with a tripod, ammunition, and water, it weighed more than 100 pounds. Something more portable obviously was needed, and soon the M1919 — an air-cooled weapon with a lighter tripod that could be operated by a crew of two rather than the four men earlier models required — debuted.
A portable prototype
The M1919 was a step in the right direction, but it still weighed more than 30 pounds empty. Former Army Lt. Col. John Thompson decided to correct the situation by inventing a new, lightweight gun, which he dubbed the Annihilator. After forming the Auto Ordnance Corp., Thompson began work on the weapon in 1915, and the first prototypes were completed in the fall of 1918, just as World War I ended.
Thompson teamed up with the Colt Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Co. to get the guns produced, but with no war to boost sales, they mostly sat in a warehouse. Shifting gears, the company marketed the Thompson Submachine Gun to law enforcement agencies and private citizens. Many “Tommy guns” ended up in the hands of gangsters such as Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly.
The start of World War II created a huge and sudden demand for machine guns, and Auto Ordnance charged into full production, cranking out hundreds of thousands of Submachine Guns, Caliber .45 M1928A1, as the Army designated them. By 1944, when production ceased, the company had produced 1.75 million of the weapons.
Airborne armament
In 1903 — the same year Gatling died — Orville Wright first took to the air in a rickety contraption that soon would become the next automatic weapons platform. A scant 12 years later, a French pilot became the first to fly an aircraft sporting a machine gun that fired through its armor-clad propeller. The Germans refined the design, synchronizing the weapon with the propeller to reduce the chance of damage. By the beginning of World War II, machine guns were standard issue on combat aircraft.
Most American fighters were fitted with .50-caliber M2 Browning “Ma Deuce” heavy machine guns, mounted inside the leading edges of their wings. Bombers such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator defended themselves with the M2 as well. Back on the ground, the M2 heavy barrel (HB) was proving itself a formidable antiaircraft and ground attack weapon, capable of bringing down low-flying enemy aircraft or punching holes in German half tracks and light-armored cars.
Mounted to a heavy trailer or half-track in a foursquare configuration called a Quad-50, the M2HBs could loose a barrage of 1,600 to 2,200 rounds a minute, taking out targets up to 2,500 yards away. Dismounted troops relied on the M1918A2 Browning automatic rifle (BAR), a .30-caliber
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64 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2012
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