centurion Posted 8 July , 2014 Share Posted 8 July , 2014 Does any one have an authoritative specification of the weight of the Mk IV tripod introduced in 1912 for British Army 303 Maxims? None of the reference books I have has definitive information on this. I suspect that it may have been heavier than the Vickers gun tripod but lighter than the earlier Maxim tripods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike_H Posted 8 July , 2014 Share Posted 8 July , 2014 Cent, The 1915 edition of the Handbook for .303" & .303" (Converted) Maxims gives the Mk IV tripod weight as 48lbs (variable). The same source gives the following weights for earlier patterns of tripod, Mk I - 85 lbs, Mk II - 49 lbs, Mk III - 49 lbs, Mk IIIa - 56 lbs Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 8 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 8 July , 2014 Thanks but don't understand "303" & .303" Maxims" - is this referring to 303 Vickers and 303 Maxims ? Were the tripods the same for both guns? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike_H Posted 8 July , 2014 Share Posted 8 July , 2014 Sorry, have edited - I missed the "converted" from the title of the handbook. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Pickerd Posted 8 July , 2014 Share Posted 8 July , 2014 centurion, My 1960 edition of "Small Arms of the World" by W. H. B. Smith gives the weight of the British Vickers .303 Machine Gun Mark 1 folding tripod mount as 52 lbs. I would take this to indicate that Mike's mention of the 1915 handbook, giving the .303 Maxim Mark IV tripod weight of 59lbs 12 oz.'s, that the Vickers Mark 1 tripod had been lightened. Footage held by the AWM of machine gun training at Broadmeadows Camp, Victoria, Australia, from 1915, shows the Maxim tripod being carried by one man (at the run) of the four man team. Just under 60 lbs. is a fair weight for one man to carry, but it was obviously achievable. The weight of the gun itself with water jacket empty was about 33 lbs. The water jacket filled weights another 10lb. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 8 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 8 July , 2014 Jeff - Getting puzzled as the Greenhill Military Manual on Machine Guns of two World Wars gives the British Maxim as weighing 60 ibs and the German (Mg 08) as 58.3 ibs but your figures suggest that a Maxim with an empty jacket would be only 7lb heavier than a Lewis The sledge for the Mg 08 was just over 71 lb I'm surprised that the tripod was not significantly lighter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenchtrotter Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 I think the tripod for the Vickers and Maxim (Mark IV) were one and the same. Theweight is in the body of the tripod (not the legs but he middle bit where they all come together) and the cross head upon which the gun sits and rotates. All solid machined / cast brass! TT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 The history of the Ministry of Munitions Vol XI The Supply of Munitions puts the Maxim at 60 lbs and the Vickers at 28.5 lbs. The inference is that this does not include the tripod. The text notes that 'in 1915 a light portable tripod mounting invented in the Machine Gun School in France was adopted'. The implication as I read it was that the light portable tripod replaced the heavier tripod of the Maxim. I suspect the Maxim Tripod was a very heavy piece of equipment given the weight it was trying to support, so 48 lbs for a Maxim tripod is not beyond the realms of possibilities. Still man-portable. In my day the GPMG tripod weighed 22 lbs and was supporting a 30 lb weapon, so more than doubling for a Maxim 'feels' about right. MG Edit A website on the MG 08 puts the weights as follows: Gun:..........26.5 kg.....58.3 lbs Water:............4 kg........8.8 lbs Tripod.......38.5 kg......84.7 lbs Total.........69.0 kg.....151.8 lbs So it started off being a hefty piece of kit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoppage Drill Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 The history of the Ministry of Munitions Vol XI The Supply of Munitions puts the Maxim at 60 lbs and the Vickers at 28.5 lbs. The inference is that this does not include the tripod. The gun (Vickers) weighed about 30lbs, to which you could add another ten for the water. Even so, this combined weight was still less than the tripod which was about 50lbs. Personal recollection, so all figures approximate ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 9 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 9 July , 2014 The gun (Vickers) weighed about 30lbs, to which you could add another ten for the water. Even so, this combined weight was still less than the tripod which was about 50lbs. Personal recollection, so all figures approximate ! According to Hogg and Weeks [Military Small Arms] the Vickers weighed 40 lb! The barrel (in the next line of the table) was 28.5 inches! Possibly a transcription error Martin? The Mk IVB tripod for it was 50 lbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 9 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 9 July , 2014 Just to confuse matters there were two series of tripods for the Vickers - an official series starting with the 1906 "Machine Gun, Tripod Mk IV" which it appears was similar to but not identical with the Maxim Mk IV tripod, and a Vickers series which used letters rather than Roman numerals and usually sold with export models Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 According to Hogg and Weeks [Military Small Arms] the Vickers weighed 40 lb! The barrel (in the next line of the table) was 28.5 inches! Possibly a transcription error Martin? The Mk IVB tripod for it was 50 lbs No. I am extremely confident it was 28.5 to 30 lbs ( depends on what was attached). See here. which is as near to an authority as you will get. A website of a dedicated man. Click on each gun to see details for weight etc.. There was a lot of extra clobber and I suspect the 50 lbs includes all the paraphernalia that goes with the gun. Man in avatar was in charge of an MG section at Gallipoli (MiD etc) and consequently I have researched this. When he moved his 2 MGs and Ammunition across Suvla plain on the night of 20th Aug 1915 to Chocolate hill it took 50 men per two guns (and ammunition). I recall reading somewhere that the aim of the Vickers design was to cut the weight of a Maxim by half. Might be my imagination but pound for pound the Vickers was a supremely good weapon compared to the earlier Maxim. If you have not read it, I would also recommend "The Social History of the Machine Gun" by John Ellis which covers much of the early ground. An interesting book despite its ghastly cover. MG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 9 July , 2014 Author Share Posted 9 July , 2014 But given the actual technical changes made I would be extremely sceptical of any claim to have cut the weight in half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 9 July , 2014 Share Posted 9 July , 2014 But given the actual technical changes made I would be extremely sceptical of any claim to have cut the weight in half. The Maxim was substantially over-designed and the Vickers was (I think) an exceptional piece of engineering. The British munitions engineering expertise was small but innovative. It would be interesting to explore the metallurgical advancements of gun-making in detail. Regardless, the Vickers was a better gun. Period. Reliability would be a factor and again the wonderful OH Ministry of munitions has lots of stats. One might argue that the Vickers was as innovative as the Bailey Bridge of the later generation. Difficult to 'prove' but from an engineering perspective. It was a work of sheer genius in my view. The fact that it was used for nearly 50 years with only small modifications is testimony to its design qualities. Half the weight of its competitor. For anyone who has carried an MG or its tripod it would be quite clear that the ability to man-haul such firepower would be a significant advantage. One could easily write a dissertation on the Vickers. MG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 10 July , 2014 Share Posted 10 July , 2014 Probably the single most important weight saving difference between the Maxim and Vickers was the water jacket. On the Maxim it was cast in thick gunmetal/Bronze whilst on the Vickers it was thin sheet steel. Similarly, other parts were changed from brass to steel, e.g. the Maxim's feed block with its heavy brass roller. I have never had to lug a Maxim about (thank goodness) but have carried a Vickers for half a mile or so on a couple of occasions and that was bad enough! Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 10 July , 2014 Share Posted 10 July , 2014 According to Hogg and Weeks [Military Small Arms] the Vickers weighed 40 lb! The barrel (in the next line of the table) was 28.5 inches! Possibly a transcription error Martin? The Mk IVB tripod for it was 50 lbs Stoppage Drill is spot on. Gun weighed 30 lbs and water weighed 10lbs. Corroborated by the Vickersmachinegun.org website. Incidentally they put the barrel slightly shorter and if you drill through to the section on the tripod, it records a weight of 48 lbs. This is the Maxim Mk IV tripod which was used on the Vickers from the start. If the sources are reliable it suggest the Maxim (MG 08) weighed 58.3 lbs and the Vickers 30 lbs or some 48.5% less. The Vickers first entered service in 1912 and was taken out of service with the British Army in 1968 which means it lasted 56 years. Not a bad record. The Mk 1 barrel casing contained 7 pints which evaporated at the rate of 1.5 pints per 1,000 rounds. A slight problem if you are in a rather dry environment such as some of the the ridge lines at Gallipoli. At 5,00 rounds per minute that would suggest half an hour of firing would consume 15,000 rounds and 22.5 pints of water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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