Hotchkiss Machine Guns - From Verdun to Iwo Jima

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 Benet and Henri Mercie to develop the Modele 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.>

Product details

• Authors: John Walter, Walter John
• Assisted by: Alan Gilliland (Illustration), Gilliland Alan (Illustration), Adam Hook (Illustration)
• Publisher: Osprey Publishers
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.11.2019
• EAN: 9781472836168
• ISBN: 978-1-4728-3616-8
• No. of pages: 80
• Series: Weapon; Weapon
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; HISTORY / Military / World War II, HISTORY / Military / World War I, military history, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Military Science, HISTORY / Military / Weapons, ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES / Firearms & Weapons, Warfare & defence, Warfare and defence, Weapons & equipment, Ordnance, weapons technology, Weapons and equipment, Militaria, arms and armour, ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES / Subjects & Themes / Military