Hell Let Loose - What about the Vickers K?
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- One of the regular responses to our Hell Let Loose videos about the light machine guns in the game is ‘why not the Vickers K?’
A lot of people know of this variant of the Vickers because of its role with the Special Air Service but don’t realise it was rarely used as an ‘infantry’ machine gun and it’s certainly not an LMG. Watch Rich explain more.
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My father used them on RAF air sea rescue launches. The first magazine was all tracer. This was frowned on as it supposed to damage the gun barrel but he said that four or six Vickers K's all firing tracer if nothing else put the attacking pilot of his aim.
That’s great! Thanks for sharing. If we ever had a boat in the collection, an air sea rescue launch would be the one we want! Twin Ks on either side of the bridge and super fast engines. Ideal for the regatta!
Several tail gunners in Lancaster bombers also loaded their guns with mainly tracers,this was also to throw off luftwaffe pilots who were used to every fourth or fifth round being tracer,so at night 4 out of five rounds or more being tracer would’ve looked like a secret weapon to them.this is covered in a bbc documentary interview with a tail gunner circa the year 2000 .
@@roserado8228lots didn't use tracer at all as it highlighted their position to any other night fighters mulling around
An interesting point. A fine balance between seeing where you’re shooting and being seen. Most tracers have a delayed ignition to stop that now, not sure if they did then so would have to look it up.
That’s a great piece of information and certainly viable!
My dad was an RAF armourer during WWII. The VGO / K gun was in his opinion a superb weapon, cleverly designed to be disassembled very easily. A whole chapter is devoted to the gun in the book The Guns Of The Royal Air Force 1939 - 1945 G F Wallace, incuding info on the issue of Swedish steel used in the magazine spring becoming unavailable, and armourers being subsequently instructed to not fill the magazines with later inferior steel springs to capacity.
Don't forget that they were also used in twin and quadruple mountings on Royal Navy MTBs and MGBs.
We're not aware of quad mounted Ks on MTBs and MGBs but twin either side of the bridge were very common. Single mounted AA for submarines as well!
You can see why the likes of the LRDG liked the K when mounting vehicle patrols in the desert. Once the pan is on its quite well sealed from the moon dust of North Africa as opposed to a belt fed gun.
Yeah certainly made it attractive for quick changes of direction of fire as well without a trailing belt.
Plus 1000rpm is perfect for hosing up airfields etc from a fast moving jeep :)
Absolutely, with 100-round magazines so you don’t have to change them every half-second!
Thanks for the short on the Vickers.❤
You’re welcome. Have you found the longer version?
0:37 Very interesting picture! Not seen that before - a SAS Landrover with the twin Vickers K guns, a L4 LMG and what looks like a Browning .30" MG in the rear. A logistical pain of .30", .303" & 7.62mm ammunition!
They were used right up until the introduction of the Series 2A ‘Pink Panther’ with twin GPMGs.
Probably for fexiblity of the target. Rather a high rate of fire or soft targets. But it's a job to lug around so many difderent rounds
They’re not planning for sustained fire or multiple engagements though really. The Bren gives them some reach and the Browning some slow and steady suppression.
Who do we need to write to to get this in the game!
That would be great, wouldn’t it?!?
That jeep looked like it had seen better days
It would have had plenty of sandy miles on the clock!
we had one in the clubhouse for ages... the volunteers built them into jeep configuration from scrapped planes along with armourered glass to offer some protection to the operator ... it may still be at the Artist's rifles in Bisley...
When did you last look or know it was there?
@@vickersmg it was part of the clubs inventory which we sold in 1997 as the chairman and wife where forced into retirement on medical grounds. It was an Old style deact lots of moving parts along with a few other cool items... A Vickers display on tripod with offset sights, 1928 early Thompson with cutts compensator... Not sure who's incharge there now... I could find out as I need to pop down that way next week... I know it sort of closed it's doors to general folks... but these items where given to the club to remain trophies of the club and it's history... "The Artists" being what it was
The reason I ask is I believe the first one I bought was from the club - bought in about 2002 I think. It’s now part of the Association’s founding collection as is one of those in front of me at the table. - Rich
@@vickersmg well that's interesting, I was only with the club till the then owners retired. I did the transition to the first new owners 1997-2002 who turned out to be less than we'd hoped for... after their initial big claims of wanting to keep the clubs as was... the other bloke bought the club in 2002 ish Moss? Maz..? only met him once, as I was interested in renewing my membership and association with the club due to my history with the place... but that didn't go all that well.. but the Vickers K, the tripod mounted Vickers and a few smaller pieces where all added when I was the membership sec. there... I also held all the personally owned stuff of the owners and this was disposed of separately via a mate of mine onto his sec5... when it all got banned in 97 small world :)
I seem to recall a Thompson was for sale at the same time and from the same place. They were sold by a dealer at the War and Peace Show at Beltring. Possibly 2001 but I can’t remember.
good summary of the K
Thank you. A really interesting weapon.
They were married up with the‘Buckingham Incendiary Round’, which was developed to bring down Zeplins in WW1. That is what made them so lethal when used on the raids by the SAS and LRDG.
By the time the Vickers K was in, there was a myriad of types of 303 they could use - quite remarkable really! vickersmg.blog/the-guns/ammunition/303-inch/
I appreciate they decided they might as well dual-mount these.
Yeah it gives a sense of redundancy as well as 200 rounds available straight away. We’ve heard (but can’t remember the source) that they would alternate the burst fire from one gun to another to generate a constant stream of fire.
Way back I build that Tamiya model of the SAS jeep, with the figures and kit that was totally based on that particular picture of the desert group.
Yes, we have several of those! They were the only Tamiya kit with any sort of Vickers MG I think.
My father used a pair as a WAG to shoot up a gun crew of a surfaced U Boat! 415 Squadron RCAF, Hampers torpedo bomber
Wow! Just reading about 415 Squadron and surprised to see they exist again!
Thank you for looking at Hell Let Loose! If so could you look at other games that feature British factions and weapons such as Post Scriptum or Battlefield 1!!!!! If so that would be great!!!!!!!!!
We think we will. It’s a different audience to our usual and a different understanding so it would be good to do more. We have a range day booked in a couple of weeks time to get some SMG firing done, including the Thompson we’re still crowdfunding so if you can help with that, please do! vickersmg.blog/product/project-thompson/
Carried a Heavy Barrel Lithgow produced SLR while in the RNZA. Would love to see more on this beast….
We will be acquiring an SLR in the coming months but a British L1A1. A heavy barrel version would be very interesting.
Possibly unrealalistic, but it would be a neat change to have it on the British half track
It would be unrealistic. Easy crossover to put the .50 Browning on there though!
@vickersmg Probably the only WW2 rifle caliber machine gun to have a higher rate of fire to the Vickers K and MG42 was the Soviet ShKAS aircraft gun with a rate of fire of 1,800 RPM. They had to have special bullets with two annular grooves in the bullets to prevent barrel wear though they had some 42 different ways they could have stoppages. They got some use on the ground, especially with the Finns who had double mounted ones on a pintle mount.
As far as Hell Let Loose goes, they really fucked up the weapons from a historical point of view in the North African campaign. Lots of P14 Enfields and No. 4 Enfields and no SMLE's, Sten Guns galore, oh yes and the Lanchesters in abundant army service and to top it off Sherman Fireflys. As far as I'm aware sten gun production and No. 4 production was really only getting going at the end of the North Africa fighting. The Firefly was very rare in North Africa and was only there in very small numbers very late.
Yes, in broad terms, 1st Army was the real introduction of the newer weapons and then only limited.
Stick them on the jeep. (in the game)
That would be a great role for them!
It was nice if you reated to british weaponry in the game called post scriptum,there is even a vickers in this game.
Thanks. We’ve been sent some clips so we’ll certainly take a look at what’s there once we have someone familiar with it enough.
@@vickersmg thank you for answer.
You’re welcome. I saw some clips of the Vickers in PS yesterday and there are certainly some comments we could make.
They should add the 100 drum mag for the bren
Only if they add muscles for soldiers to support it when firing! That makes it a really heavy weapon. The drum was for use when on the anti-aircraft tripod.
There was no belt feed derivative of the Vickers K?
No. There wasn't a developmental program to do that or an operational need for it. BESA's and 1919s filled that role. The 1919s stayed in some AFV turrets right up until the 70s.
Arguably the belt-fed Vickers did that role too! The Berthier design didn't have a belt-fed derivative either.
We need better guns in he’ll let loose there was some customization weapons out there like the STG with a scope etc
All weapons have ‘scope’ for variation so it would be good to see more options.
The Germans used a machine-gun with a 1200 round a minute rate of fire as a section weapon - the MG 42 - but it meant that the rest of the section pretty much devoted themselves to carrying ammunition for it. And protecting it.😁
Well they carried the same amount of ammunition in the section as the Bren and had very similar tactics at that level so it’s not just about rate of fire. We are in the process of crowdfunding an MG42 variant so please help out if you can: vickersmg.blog/product-category/project-support/