Popular Science Monthly 



Vol. 91 

 No. 4 



239 Fourth Avenue, New York City 



October, 1917 



$1.50 



Annually 



Is This the Machine-Gun of the Future? 



The men are concealed and the trigger is pulled by machine ; the barrel 

 is cooled like an automobile engine ; the ammunition supply is continuous 



Bv Edward C. Crossman 



MACHINE guns talk in stutters- 

 staccato stutters. They can fire 

 at the rate of six hundred shots per 

 minute, but they can't keep up the pace. 

 Part of this failure is due to the fact that 

 the ammunition containers are limited in 

 capacity, part is due to the fact that the 

 very first rattle of shots jars the gun off 

 the mark, unless the mark be a very large 

 one. The gun must be "relaid," before fire 

 is resumed. Also, there is the fact that a 

 continuous fire in any sort of machine-gun, 

 water-cooled or air-cooled, would ruin the 

 bore. The great heat of powder gases 

 (more than four thousand degrees) results 

 in a washing away of the steel of the barrel 

 in short order when the fire is continuous 

 enough. The chief reason, however, for 

 this break in fire continuity is the necessity 

 for re-aiming the gun every twenty or 

 thirty shots unless the mark is practically 

 unmissable. 



What the machine-gun could use very 

 nicely are these little things: A 

 mount with possibly a recoil 

 absorbing mechanism to pre- 

 vent the gun from jarring 

 off the mark; a better 

 cooling system than 

 ones now used — i 

 which the wate 

 boils away and 

 the air doesn't 

 cool ; a device 

 for continuous { 

 fire for certain 

 conditions; me- 

 chanical control 

 of the firing, the 

 feeding, the ele- 

 vating, and the 

 traversing 



The belt-loader on this machine-gun is operated by- 

 power from the motorcycle on which it is mounted 



483 



mechanism of the gun, so that the crew can 

 operate it in safety, from a distance. 



There comes now an inventor with the 

 significant name of Ford — not Henry, how- 

 ever — with some startling improvements 

 for the machine-gun. 



The first one is a mechanically operated 

 loading machine to keep the belt of the 

 gun filled all the time, regardless of its 

 speed of fire and the duration thereof. The 

 belt-loader is operated by the power of the 

 machine on which the gun is mounted, this 

 to be motorcycle, motor-tricycle, automo- 

 bile, airplane or other power vehicle. 



The second is a circulating water-cooling 

 system, a la automobile, in which the water 

 passes from the jacket around the gun- 

 barrel to a regular automobile radiator, 

 which in turn is cooled by a fan driven 

 by the power that operates the loading 

 mechanism and which in turn is merely 

 the power plant of the car. A centrifugal 

 pump makes the water move, although it 

 would surely thermo-siphon hur- 

 iedly if this system were used 

 "nstead of the pump. 



The third startler is the 

 that the gun is de- 

 ed to be an integral 

 part of its car- 

 riage, which is a 

 gas engine pro- 

 pelled vehicle. 

 Perhaps this idea 

 was borrowed 

 from the fight- 

 ing airplane, in 

 which the ma- 

 chine gun is rig- 

 idly mounted to 

 fire through the 

 propeller. 



