Now Jonathan has mentioned a few things that we might follow up and expand upon! Great to have our stoppages video mentioned as well. Stoppages and the Vickers Machine Gun ua-cam.com/video/MuAS_eMpRBc/v-deo.html
A bit off topic, but: in the QI episode "International" there was a mention about the Vickers gun, and when Stephen Fry said "we have a gentleman from Royal Armouries", a person looking suspiciously like Jonathan rolled the gun on stage:)
@@samholdsworth420 Take your bigotry somewhere else. How someone can take an educational video about a niche part of history and turn it into hate idk
A common misconception about synchronizers is that they simply block the gun from being able to fire whenever a propeller blade is in the way. Synchronizers are actually directly linked to propeller revolutions (exact mechanism varies as mentioned on the video I believe) so that the system actually triggers the gun once for each revolution. This is more or less a must since the propeller spins at a way higher RPM than the gun is mechanically able to cycle at, so you wouldn't actually have a gun firing until a propeller blade gets in the way, rather its one single shot every few propeller revolutions. As a result of this, the rate of fire of the machine gun is linked to engine RPM. If you were to draw a graph of the rate of fire relative to engine RPM (you can find some of these graphs online), the graph would appear to form sort of steps where the rate of fire increases steadily before dramatically dropping before starting to climb back up again (typically climbing slightly higher each time as RPM increases). This has to do with the engine RPM and the mechanical cycle rate of the machine gun and how they line up. The rate of fire will increase until the engine is running just too fast for the machine gun to squeeze in that one last shot. From that point on, the gun is firing one shot fewer per minute, until the increasing engine RPM brings the machine gun steadily back to speed again. The exact shape of the graph and just how high the rate of fire can get varies between different synchronizers.
Thank you, I was scrolling for this comment. 👍 Few people appreciate how slow the gun to be synchronised is, compared to the propeller. This practically flips the problem on its head, compared to common descriptions of the problem (interrupter gear).
Thanks Jonathan and team. It is amazing to hear all the tasks that pilots had to perform to keep their guns in action, while still controlling their aircraft.
Shooting through propellers "wasn't done for very long..." 😂 That reminds me of the passenger who asked the air hostess if planes crash very often. "No sir, only once."
Modern fighter aircraft do have round counters... usually HUD displayed. Obviously very easy to implement, given electrically primed ammo like 20mm, and a digital data bus!
James Bigglesworth approves. Wilkinsons' opinion is immaterial, for obvious reasons. Many years ago I caught a fragment of a BBC(?) kids show set during WW1 in which a man was explaining to a curious kid what his (synchronisation) experiment was all about. That was the only part of a tv show I really wish I'd seen all of and memory says the scene I saw was set in a railway tunnel as the site of the synchronisation experiments.
Jonathan, I have a PDF copy of the official handbook of the C.C. Gear if you don't already have a copy, I would be very happy to forward a copy to you.
I've been brought here by Jonathan's appearance on Forgotten Weapons some year or two ago and have watched every video you published ever since. Next time I go to UK I plan on visiting one of your sites. You are doing a magnificent job. Thank you for that and big thanks to Ian for letting us now about this great channel. I was wondering if you have any plans on bringing to light some more or less makeshift guerrilla weapons made by resistance organisations in WW2 - I imagine they were produced in very limited numbers so not many can be part of the museum's collection, but man can have a dream, now can't he? :)
@@vmone7678 I can't recall, but quick search on FW channel returned these 3 (might be more): NFC Jonathan Ferguson Interview Jonathan Reacts to the First Day Kickstarter for his Book Sneak Peek at Thorneycroft to SA80 with the Author, Jonathan Ferguson
Brilliant dive into the rigours of operating one of these in the air. Just think you're not even allowed to eat an apple or use a dash mounted phone in the car now. But 104 odd years ago, fly, dodge the enemy & sort jams in a Vickers one handed... with freezing fingers or very thick gloves. Special chaps in the RFC & RNAS. Many thanks for the video.
From where I'm sitting I can see a display housing an original Bristol M1c, brought back to Australia by RFC pilot Harry Butler, who formed a local Aviation Company after WW1 with Harry Kauper - another Australian who developed the Sopwith-Kauper interrupter system ! P.S. Sir Ross Smith's Vickers Vimy, G-EAOU, the aircraft flown by Smith to Australia in the 1919 Great Air Race with his brother Keith, is also here in South Australia, at the Adelaide Airport.
Did you know that Anthony fokker designed a motor driven machine gun in the first world war , and it was the end of the war that prevented it to be mounted on aircraft. ? Designs are german pattented , by Fokker Fleugzeug waffen fabrik.
I did not watch this video ... it played in the background while is was editing video. But I realized what makes me like your videos. It is your voice and way of telling the story. There are a few people on UA-cam that I like because of the sound. I will replay it now to see the footage as well. :)
Ref shooting through propellers. IIRC some aircraft had metal plates on the propeller blades so if any shots did hit them they would deflect and the pilot didn't effectively shoot down his own aircraft.
Really interesting stuff here. I'm a bit surprised the rof was so low. Guess I'm spoiled by 20 rps WWII aircraft mgs. On another note; given that the vickers formed half the armament of the SE5, does anyone have any info on why the boffins decided to pair it with an over-wing mounted Lewis gun? It's almost as if they said; "So we've got a semi-enclosed windshield that the pilots will hate, because it restricts visibility and will cut their faces up in a rough landing,; we've got a rear head-rest that pilots will hate, because it will restrict visibility to the rear; and we've got REALLY long exhaust pipes that everyone will hate because they'll burn both ground crews and pilots. How about we add a gun that has to be re-loaded after only 90-odd rounds in a 130 mph slipstream and will REALLY complicate their sighting issues?" Weird. I'm tempted to believe they'd just read accounts of that awful Oik Albert Ball using one in his newport to snipe upwards at unsuspecting Albatros recon planes on a Foster mount and went; "good idea, lets do it". Always seemed very strange to me.
Any gun mounted overhead, especially near the propeller doesnt need trailing belts of full and empty ammo. Most early war guns had linen ammo belts not disintegrating links, the Germans invented them, the British copied them but that was late in the war.
@@voiceofraisin3778 yeah, but why not just give the SE5 twin vickers? I mean, sopwith managed it with the camel and then the dolphin. Seems to me Farnborough just went crazy with "features".
You're selling the SE5 mounted Lewis pretty short, using it to blast scouts from underneath was actually really popular, Mick Mannock got more than a few kills that way. Of course, that was on top of just sneaking up from below, bobbing up and letting them have what for, at the last second.
The over wing gun could be canted upwards to fire into the belly of bombers and Zeppelins. Sitting behind a bomber with little speed advantage would get you dead very fast.
That is some Dakka tecc! Also, it is impressive to learn about the people operating this weapons and in what situations they may have been when using it, very interesting! Thanks for sharing! cool video!
If my memories of Biggles are correct, the RE-8 was referred to as the "Harry Tate", (a popular comedian of the era), but was not actually very funny. Vulnerable to attack even by WWI standards, soggy handling, it didn't have a clear stalling speed, just a propensity to stop flying and fall out of the sky. Fiddling with a jammed outboard gun might well be the prelude to such an event.
I was a GP in Luton before I retired... Many years ago I was called to an old fellow in a care home. He was 99y old. On the wall was a photo of a Bristol F2B. "aha a Bristol Fighter " I say... yes I flew those after our squadron got rid of its RE8s... I sat for an hour or so whilst he talked about the first war flying he did. The pilots disliked the RE8. It was slow and cumbersome, and apparently as you came into land it would float on an air cushion blown under it by its own prop which was at a curious angle. He said "It was a deathtrap"... "if I saw a Fokker or thought there was one near, I'd open the throttle and put the nose down". He said that if the RE8 was in a combat that its crew were doomed... Then they were given Bristol F2Bs... much improved he said... only problem was that I (the pilot) was sat on the fuel tank, which was pressurised with a stirrup pump handle... If a bullet went through the tank, there would be a whistling sound and the cockpit would fill with petrol vapour... "cut both magnetos... throttle closed... nose down.. hope to make our side in the glide". He died about a week later ... a man full of vim and courage...
Re sighting. Even in the FWW ground troops had periscopes to see over trenches without exposing their heads. The thought occurs they could have used a similar arrangement to move the sight picture from say the upper wing to in front of the pilot. Presumably folding or telescopic so it wasn't always in the way.
I’m quite frankly amazed that pilots would sometimes have to replace the lock of the gun during flight. Vickers guns have a reputation for utter reliability. Was this just a strangely fragile part that was replaced on ground guns so routinely it’s usually never mentioned?
This is fantastic Jonathan, for me by far the best as this reflects and give a great understanding how the vickers operated in flight, I play il2 flying circus on pc (rise of flight) in Vr and its amazing to see them firing but I never really knew how they actually worked. All the best would love to see more aircraft machine guns in future videos all the best 👌
I love watching these. It's like Forgotten Weapons but the Royal Armouries is just showing off. "We have this crazy 100+ year old machine gun! Let us show it to you in front of our multiple racks of priceless historical rifles!" Haha Ultimate history flex.
@@jimfrodsham7938 @LazyLife IFreak - And here is Chris building a new one. With period-appropriate tools and some serious academic research ua-cam.com/video/ML4tw_UzqZE/v-deo.html
Actually the stream of air would be the /opposite/ way, so opening it would be a menace. The leaf spring you mentioned was probably to try and offset the wind so it wouldn't keep trying to slam shut.
What's an historian, museum curator point of view on manufacturing, or 3d printing missing pieces (especially for expositions) ? IMHO it might help people understand better how things worked and were operated in the field, while not denaturing the historical nature of the rest of the object (especially if printed in coloured plastic, to suggest that the original is missing).
Changing the lock mid dogfight about as easy as changing the drum on the Lewis gun mounted on the top wing center section mid dogfight. Different breed in them days.
Why didn't they remove the water jacket. I'm assuming it wasn't used on the aircraft. Before interrupter gear, armoured deflector plates were fitted to the propeller, better than shooting the propeller to bits.
Good vid. When the adaptations (especially trigger) touch just about every part of the weapon, that is impressive. Now we just make a different gun. Weapons like you have in your care, are snapshots in time and should be shared in a museum. Or even on UA-cam. On a side note: I confess.....I want a round counter. And yes.....A counter similar to what is seen in video games. Who wouldn't want that?
Ive got a manual knocking around somewhere for the American version of this from... I think the manual was printed 1920, but 1918 edition, and clearly I need to study it to see howmany of these features are carried over on this side of the Atlantic. I got horribly, horribly distracted by the mention of 11mm versions, and so haven't read asmuch as I should have. For that matter, I also need to finish reading the Bullpups, and see if I can find any more information anywhere on what changed between 11mm Gras and 11mm Vickers...
That's a lot of really heavy metal to cart around in a WW1 single seat aircraft. Per gun, what's the combined 'flying weight', inc. ammo & associated tinware, compared with say, a Lewis plus the equivalent loadout in drums? Great videos btw : )
Jonathan, do you guys ever do any experimental archeology and construct replicas of the parts you don't have to see if you can make the weapons work the way you understand the manuals tell you they did?
Hey jonathan, It would be cool if you could do a video on the ZH-29 sometime would be very interesting to hear from a person who knows alot, give a more solid assesment on the gun.
I believe I'm correct in saying the system actually fired the gun when the propeller was out of the way it didn't stop a firing gun. In other words it fired twice for each revolution of the propeller.
Fascinating stuff. Would be great to see it set up with the interuptor gear on an aircraft to learn the degree of calibration that was required and the practicalities of it. That would be one of the most technical "living history" demonstrations of all time!
Under current USofA law a hand cranked Gatling gun is not a machine gun. But putting a motor on it makes it a machine gun because it means you have moved the trigger to the button that activates the motor meaning that one trigger use can fire more than one shot.
As to your discussion as to wether it is semiautomatic or automatic I wold suggest it is “supper automatic” as well as firing automatically it stops firing automatically when unsafe due to the propeller was in the way
My favourite ww1 story that was genuine was a pilot who actually fell out while I think changing a lewis magazine. He then fell back in to his plane and continued the fight!
Someone get Rich a Pilot's license, a Sopwith Camel or that other one, where the gun's strapped to the side, so he can do a stoppage clearance demo on an Air Service Vickers, in flight of course.
I still don't understand at all why they ever dreamed up such a complicated synchronisation system for aircraft guns, rather than just sticking the guns on the wings, outside the propeller arc. Surely creating a sighting system that would allow a fair degree of accuracy firing from the wings would be far simpler to design and implement than something relying on reliably timing the rotation of a high-speed propeller and the passage of sonic pulses through hydraulic fluid?
World War One guns were still setup to be serviced by the pilot in case something went wrong. You have to remember that those aircraft guns were generally first generation machine guns that weren't very fully developed, at least the aircraft variations.
Who would need a Vickers gun that can be operated one-handed? Someone who's been working out and decided that duel-wielding pistols is for girly-men, obviously. 😂
Now Jonathan has mentioned a few things that we might follow up and expand upon! Great to have our stoppages video mentioned as well. Stoppages and the Vickers Machine Gun ua-cam.com/video/MuAS_eMpRBc/v-deo.html
A bit off topic, but: in the QI episode "International" there was a mention about the Vickers gun, and when Stephen Fry said "we have a gentleman from Royal Armouries", a person looking suspiciously like Jonathan rolled the gun on stage:)
Changing locks while piloting the plane is just insane. Wow those guys.
While hoping not to get shot down in the process.
@@rickv1007 I'd feel like they'd disengage first and fly away a bit before attempting to do anything.
Ya but still I know people that can’t tie shoes today
You know when men were men not trans men
@@samholdsworth420 Take your bigotry somewhere else. How someone can take an educational video about a niche part of history and turn it into hate idk
A common misconception about synchronizers is that they simply block the gun from being able to fire whenever a propeller blade is in the way. Synchronizers are actually directly linked to propeller revolutions (exact mechanism varies as mentioned on the video I believe) so that the system actually triggers the gun once for each revolution. This is more or less a must since the propeller spins at a way higher RPM than the gun is mechanically able to cycle at, so you wouldn't actually have a gun firing until a propeller blade gets in the way, rather its one single shot every few propeller revolutions.
As a result of this, the rate of fire of the machine gun is linked to engine RPM. If you were to draw a graph of the rate of fire relative to engine RPM (you can find some of these graphs online), the graph would appear to form sort of steps where the rate of fire increases steadily before dramatically dropping before starting to climb back up again (typically climbing slightly higher each time as RPM increases). This has to do with the engine RPM and the mechanical cycle rate of the machine gun and how they line up. The rate of fire will increase until the engine is running just too fast for the machine gun to squeeze in that one last shot. From that point on, the gun is firing one shot fewer per minute, until the increasing engine RPM brings the machine gun steadily back to speed again. The exact shape of the graph and just how high the rate of fire can get varies between different synchronizers.
Thank you, I was scrolling for this comment. 👍
Few people appreciate how slow the gun to be synchronised is, compared to the propeller. This practically flips the problem on its head, compared to common descriptions of the problem (interrupter gear).
Thanks Jonathan and team. It is amazing to hear all the tasks that pilots had to perform to keep their guns in action, while still controlling their aircraft.
Shooting through propellers "wasn't done for very long..." 😂 That reminds me of the passenger who asked the air hostess if planes crash very often. "No sir, only once."
I love how it had an ammo counter. and I appreciate the explaination on how the sync gear works.
I would have had it count down instead of up but it's better than no data.
Amazing that 25 years later the Spitfire didn't have one😀
@@rootbeerpoptart count up don’t really make much sense having to do math while flying to figure out how much is left prob not the best idea
Modern fighter aircraft do have round counters... usually HUD displayed. Obviously very easy to implement, given electrically primed ammo like 20mm, and a digital data bus!
James Bigglesworth approves.
Wilkinsons' opinion is immaterial, for obvious reasons.
Many years ago I caught a fragment of a BBC(?) kids show set during WW1 in which a man was explaining to a curious kid what his (synchronisation) experiment was all about. That was the only part of a tv show I really wish I'd seen all of and memory says the scene I saw was set in a railway tunnel as the site of the synchronisation experiments.
I’d be interested in the Professor’s thoughts on the matter…
Jonathan, I have a PDF copy of the official handbook of the C.C. Gear if you don't already have a copy, I would be very happy to forward a copy to you.
I've been brought here by Jonathan's appearance on Forgotten Weapons some year or two ago and have watched every video you published ever since. Next time I go to UK I plan on visiting one of your sites. You are doing a magnificent job. Thank you for that and big thanks to Ian for letting us now about this great channel.
I was wondering if you have any plans on bringing to light some more or less makeshift guerrilla weapons made by resistance organisations in WW2 - I imagine they were produced in very limited numbers so not many can be part of the museum's collection, but man can have a dream, now can't he? :)
Would you be kind enough to tell me the title of the video in which he appeared in Forgotten Weapons ? I think I missed that one.
@@vmone7678 I can't recall, but quick search on FW channel returned these 3 (might be more):
NFC Jonathan Ferguson Interview
Jonathan Reacts to the First Day Kickstarter for his Book
Sneak Peek at Thorneycroft to SA80 with the Author, Jonathan Ferguson
I think they have been on together more than once but it could be my confusion that Ian appeared on this site.
Brilliant dive into the rigours of operating one of these in the air. Just think you're not even allowed to eat an apple or use a dash mounted phone in the car now. But 104 odd years ago, fly, dodge the enemy & sort jams in a Vickers one handed... with freezing fingers or very thick gloves. Special chaps in the RFC & RNAS.
Many thanks for the video.
From where I'm sitting I can see a display housing an original Bristol M1c, brought back to Australia by RFC pilot Harry Butler, who formed a local Aviation Company after WW1 with Harry Kauper - another Australian who developed the Sopwith-Kauper interrupter system ! P.S. Sir Ross Smith's Vickers Vimy, G-EAOU, the aircraft flown by Smith to Australia in the 1919 Great Air Race with his brother Keith, is also here in South Australia, at the Adelaide Airport.
Did you know that Anthony fokker designed a motor driven machine gun in the first world war , and it was the end of the war that prevented it to be mounted on aircraft. ? Designs are german pattented , by Fokker Fleugzeug waffen fabrik.
This is something an American pilot would've wanted. What's missing is a holster for his six shooter......
Big iron on his hip bruh
0:03 Vickers aircraft gun and I would love to have one
I did not watch this video ... it played in the background while is was editing video. But I realized what makes me like your videos. It is your voice and way of telling the story. There are a few people on UA-cam that I like because of the sound. I will replay it now to see the footage as well. :)
Ref shooting through propellers. IIRC some aircraft had metal plates on the propeller blades so if any shots did hit them they would deflect and the pilot didn't effectively shoot down his own aircraft.
Roland Garros, a French fighter pilot used them in April 1915.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 Thanks.. :) Ah.. that would who the French Open tennis courts are named after :)
@@julianmhall Correct :-)
Really interesting stuff here. I'm a bit surprised the rof was so low. Guess I'm spoiled by 20 rps WWII aircraft mgs. On another note; given that the vickers formed half the armament of the SE5, does anyone have any info on why the boffins decided to pair it with an over-wing mounted Lewis gun? It's almost as if they said; "So we've got a semi-enclosed windshield that the pilots will hate, because it restricts visibility and will cut their faces up in a rough landing,; we've got a rear head-rest that pilots will hate, because it will restrict visibility to the rear; and we've got REALLY long exhaust pipes that everyone will hate because they'll burn both ground crews and pilots. How about we add a gun that has to be re-loaded after only 90-odd rounds in a 130 mph slipstream and will REALLY complicate their sighting issues?" Weird. I'm tempted to believe they'd just read accounts of that awful Oik Albert Ball using one in his newport to snipe upwards at unsuspecting Albatros recon planes on a Foster mount and went; "good idea, lets do it". Always seemed very strange to me.
Any gun mounted overhead, especially near the propeller doesnt need trailing belts of full and empty ammo.
Most early war guns had linen ammo belts not disintegrating links, the Germans invented them, the British copied them but that was late in the war.
@@voiceofraisin3778 yeah, but why not just give the SE5 twin vickers? I mean, sopwith managed it with the camel and then the dolphin. Seems to me Farnborough just went crazy with "features".
You're selling the SE5 mounted Lewis pretty short, using it to blast scouts from underneath was actually really popular, Mick Mannock got more than a few kills that way.
Of course, that was on top of just sneaking up from below, bobbing up and letting them have what for, at the last second.
It was basically a single shot vickers fired by the propeller.
The over wing gun could be canted upwards to fire into the belly of bombers and Zeppelins. Sitting behind a bomber with little speed advantage would get you dead very fast.
That is some Dakka tecc! Also, it is impressive to learn about the people operating this weapons and in what situations they may have been when using it, very interesting!
Thanks for sharing! cool video!
Two Vickers gun - akimbo style
As an Infantry man, very well explained.
If my memories of Biggles are correct, the RE-8 was referred to as the "Harry Tate", (a popular comedian of the era), but was not actually very funny. Vulnerable to attack even by WWI standards, soggy handling, it didn't have a clear stalling speed, just a propensity to stop flying and fall out of the sky. Fiddling with a jammed outboard gun might well be the prelude to such an event.
I was a GP in Luton before I retired... Many years ago I was called to an old fellow in a care home. He was 99y old. On the wall was a photo of a Bristol F2B. "aha a Bristol Fighter " I say... yes I flew those after our squadron got rid of its RE8s... I sat for an hour or so whilst he talked about the first war flying he did. The pilots disliked the RE8. It was slow and cumbersome, and apparently as you came into land it would float on an air cushion blown under it by its own prop which was at a curious angle. He said "It was a deathtrap"... "if I saw a Fokker or thought there was one near, I'd open the throttle and put the nose down". He said that if the RE8 was in a combat that its crew were doomed... Then they were given Bristol F2Bs... much improved he said... only problem was that I (the pilot) was sat on the fuel tank, which was pressurised with a stirrup pump handle... If a bullet went through the tank, there would be a whistling sound and the cockpit would fill with petrol vapour... "cut both magnetos... throttle closed... nose down.. hope to make our side in the glide".
He died about a week later ... a man full of vim and courage...
Re sighting. Even in the FWW ground troops had periscopes to see over trenches without exposing their heads. The thought occurs they could have used a similar arrangement to move the sight picture from say the upper wing to in front of the pilot. Presumably folding or telescopic so it wasn't always in the way.
I’m quite frankly amazed that pilots would sometimes have to replace the lock of the gun during flight. Vickers guns have a reputation for utter reliability. Was this just a strangely fragile part that was replaced on ground guns so routinely it’s usually never mentioned?
This is fantastic Jonathan, for me by far the best as this reflects and give a great understanding how the vickers operated in flight, I play il2 flying circus on pc (rise of flight) in Vr and its amazing to see them firing but I never really knew how they actually worked. All the best would love to see more aircraft machine guns in future videos all the best 👌
I love the expertise of the pilots. They were Warrior-Engineers. And mostly very young.
I love watching these. It's like Forgotten Weapons but the Royal Armouries is just showing off. "We have this crazy 100+ year old machine gun! Let us show it to you in front of our multiple racks of priceless historical rifles!" Haha
Ultimate history flex.
if you find any drawings of the mechanisms you definitely should get one made and show it in use with some dummy rounds
14:13 Surprisingly satisfying
Noice!
The ingenuity of that synchronisation is truly fascinating.
@@daubentonsbat4257 I'm still trying to get my head around it. I've watched that bit about 10 times. LOL
@@jimfrodsham7938 If that blew your mind, take a look at the Antikythera mechanism, an astrolabe/analogue computer build out of bronze in antiquity.
@@LazyLifeIFreak oh yes, I've looked at that many times. It too is fascinating
@@jimfrodsham7938 @LazyLife IFreak - And here is Chris building a new one. With period-appropriate tools and some serious academic research
ua-cam.com/video/ML4tw_UzqZE/v-deo.html
Better lighting would be much appreciated! Still - thanx for another interesting video of a WWI MG.
It's pretty clearly lit. What did you have trouble seeing?
And a lighter background. And an ability to hand me some of those toys through my laptop screen.
I thought that was a picatinny rail on the barrel shroud to start with haha.
Fascinating video. I know that’s unoriginal but hopefully it helps with the algorithm.
To give you an idea on how a loading lever works: Maxim 08/15 Zeppelin LMG
ua-cam.com/video/Gbt1_gyAPYY/v-deo.html
Actually the stream of air would be the /opposite/ way, so opening it would be a menace. The leaf spring you mentioned was probably to try and offset the wind so it wouldn't keep trying to slam shut.
What's an historian, museum curator point of view on manufacturing, or 3d printing missing pieces (especially for expositions) ? IMHO it might help people understand better how things worked and were operated in the field, while not denaturing the historical nature of the rest of the object (especially if printed in coloured plastic, to suggest that the original is missing).
how did they get the timing when using them in aircraft? I always thought they would destroy the propeller.
my question was answered just after I sent my comment 😂
Changing the lock mid dogfight about as easy as changing the drum on the Lewis gun mounted on the top wing center section mid dogfight. Different breed in them days.
Bouncy text animations are really distracting with the video playing off to the side, it'd be a lot nicer to just fade them in
I read in some history book that before they mounted guns on planes, pilots would just shoot at each other with handguns
please find some light to illuminate the weapons. it's like the black hole of Calcutta in there.
There’s some guys you could contact in australia who would have to parts for that gun
at 2:50, that is a Lewis isn´t it?
also, imma need a video on that Mondragon with the trommelmagazin, never seen one with the drum
Hydraulic bump-stock?
Another good explanation and demonstration.
Why didn't they remove the water jacket. I'm assuming it wasn't used on the aircraft. Before interrupter gear, armoured deflector plates were fitted to the propeller, better than shooting the propeller to bits.
Yeah it wasn't filled with water, but the jacket is an important part of the 'frame' so they just drilled out the front.
you know Jonathan i'm still; amazed the British army accepted the vickers without that knuckle breaking cocking handle being corrected!!
Good vid. When the adaptations (especially trigger) touch just about every part of the weapon, that is impressive. Now we just make a different gun. Weapons like you have in your care, are snapshots in time and should be shared in a museum. Or even on UA-cam.
On a side note: I confess.....I want a round counter. And yes.....A counter similar to what is seen in video games.
Who wouldn't want that?
Ive got a manual knocking around somewhere for the American version of this from... I think the manual was printed 1920, but 1918 edition, and clearly I need to study it to see howmany of these features are carried over on this side of the Atlantic. I got horribly, horribly distracted by the mention of 11mm versions, and so haven't read asmuch as I should have.
For that matter, I also need to finish reading the Bullpups, and see if I can find any more information anywhere on what changed between 11mm Gras and 11mm Vickers...
That's a lot of really heavy metal to cart around in a WW1 single seat aircraft. Per gun, what's the combined 'flying weight', inc. ammo & associated tinware, compared with say, a Lewis plus the equivalent loadout in drums? Great videos btw : )
uuuummmm? My guess is someone with one hand.
6:25 Is that a Mondragon with a drum mag?
What’s with the German synchronization system the British copied after shooting down a German airplane? We forgot about that 😂
Thanks , I have often wondered about the details of synchro...now I am wiser!
Jonathan, do you guys ever do any experimental archeology and construct replicas of the parts you don't have to see if you can make the weapons work the way you understand the manuals tell you they did?
Hey jonathan, It would be cool if you could do a video on the ZH-29 sometime would be very interesting to hear from a person who knows alot, give a more solid assesment on the gun.
I believe I'm correct in saying the system actually fired the gun when the propeller was out of the way it didn't stop a firing gun. In other words it fired twice for each revolution of the propeller.
Question is who wouldn't?
Proud to say that my late father was one of two in his platoon to have qualified marksman on the Vickers gun when he did National Service 1954-56 :)
Fascinating stuff. Would be great to see it set up with the interuptor gear on an aircraft to learn the degree of calibration that was required and the practicalities of it. That would be one of the most technical "living history" demonstrations of all time!
Yes there would be a lot more to it than the diagram I used to have. (The cat got it.)
Under current USofA law a hand cranked Gatling gun is not a machine gun. But putting a motor on it makes it a machine gun because it means you have moved the trigger to the button that activates the motor meaning that one trigger use can fire more than one shot.
Re thumbnail: I’d make a John Basilone joke but… wrong gun
I did read that pilots were often ordered to carefully load their own MG belts for these guns to minimise stoppages.
Phew! Flying was new and machineguns fairly new... what a mix?!
and here I thought it was a balloon buster 11mm gras vickers.
I was a bit tad too ahead of the game I guess 😅
As to your discussion as to wether it is semiautomatic or automatic I wold suggest it is “supper automatic” as well as firing automatically it stops firing automatically when unsafe due to the propeller was in the way
To do all that while flying a plane and have someone else shooting at you must have a very brave or fearless. Thank you for another awesome vid.
Some of early wooden propeller blades did have a deflective armour plate attached to them.
Steampunk games should incorporate that round counter
One of my bucket list items is to get a Maxim or Vickers gun for taking out to the range.
Interesting
Remind me never to mess with a vicar.......
So we’re back in his hobby room again I see.
My favourite ww1 story that was genuine was a pilot who actually fell out while I think changing a lewis magazine. He then fell back in to his plane and continued the fight!
You read that one too!
It might have been true, but pilots...
Someone get Rich a Pilot's license, a Sopwith Camel or that other one, where the gun's strapped to the side, so he can do a stoppage clearance demo on an Air Service Vickers, in flight of course.
Fascinating. Thanks Jonathan and team.
Very interesting Jonathan now what in the god damn fuck is that thing on the rack to your right???
I mean your left my right
3:04 xd
I still don't understand at all why they ever dreamed up such a complicated synchronisation system for aircraft guns, rather than just sticking the guns on the wings, outside the propeller arc. Surely creating a sighting system that would allow a fair degree of accuracy firing from the wings would be far simpler to design and implement than something relying on reliably timing the rotation of a high-speed propeller and the passage of sonic pulses through hydraulic fluid?
World War One guns were still setup to be serviced by the pilot in case something went wrong. You have to remember that those aircraft guns were generally first generation machine guns that weren't very fully developed, at least the aircraft variations.
@@johnscheib9077 also I doubt if the wings would be strong enough to take the weight of a MG and ammo
:)
Who would need a Vickers gun that can be operated one-handed?
Someone who's been working out and decided that duel-wielding pistols is for girly-men, obviously. 😂