Vickers machinegun

[straightshooter]

A few weeks ago, in a thread I can no longer find, someone put up a link to a youtube video by Ian McCollum featuring the Vickers machinegun which attracted the usual lauditory comments from the usual suspects.
The claim made was that the British army fired 5000000 rounds in 7 days and the machine gun did not show any appreciable wear at the end of the test.
I was curious so I read a few articles on the vickers.
The rate of fire of a vickers is from 450 to 500 rounds per minute so firing 5000000 rounds in 7 days would work out to be 496 rounds per minute.
That's at the upper end of the Vickers capability but on the face of it quite feasible.
Now comes the skepticism.
What about belt changes?
Ammo came in 250 round belts. That means 20000 belts would have been used, requiring 19999 belt reinsertions so with each taking on average 5 seconds that means 27 hours 46 minutes was spent reinserting belts.
What about barrel changes?
Barrels were changed every 15000 rounds meaning 333 barrels were used so there were 332 barrel changes. Each change would take 5 minutes or more so total time spent changing barrels was at least 27 hours 40 minutes.
Given those numbers the reality is that 5000000 rounds would have taken 9 days 7 hours 26 minutes.
Put another way the likely true round count for 7 days thus could have been a still impressive 3760000 but that isn't 5000000.
By the way, the Vickers used by McCollum in the video was doing nowhere near 496 rounds per minute. My impression was closer to 300 rounds per minute.
I am a little disappointed Ian McCollum was so gullible.
The morals of the story
1. Never let facts get in the way of a good story
2. People will readily believe what they want to believe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSG2Flnc1Rs

[No1_49er]

As you have said, "the British Army fired 5,000,000 rounds in seven days".

It's probably best NOT to conflate that with there being only one Vickers machine gun.
They would have had hundreds, if not thousands, to discharge that quantity of ammunition.

Perhaps you need to re-think the probability that they did, indeed, fire that many rounds?

[bigrich]

I dunno bout the 5 million round claim, but the vickers/maxim machine guns are renowned for their ability to constantly fire for long periods of time. Ukraine is using them in defensive static fire positions right now . The moderate rate of fire and having a barrel water jacket are brilliantly simple

[bladeracer]

As you have said, "the British Army fired 5,000,000 rounds in seven days".

It's probably best NOT to conflate that with there being only one Vickers machine gun.
They would have had hundreds, if not thousands, to discharge that quantity of ammunition.

Perhaps you need to re-think the probability that they did, indeed, fire that many rounds?

I think it was a propaganda thing. I've seen various statements of what the Vickers guns "did" during the war and they all vary.

On Wiki a British machinegun _company_ fired their ten MG's for twelve hours firing a million rounds using 100 barrels. It doesn't state that each gun was firing continuously for 12 hours, but they didn't have any breakdowns. They wouldn't destroy the barrels either, they would've been swapping them out to cool then cycling them back in later on.

Apparently during the Angola War in the late eighties six old Vickers guns in 7.62x51NATO were put back into service.

[bladeracer]

By the way, the Vickers used by McCollum in the video was doing nowhere near 496 rounds per minute. My impression was closer to 300 rounds per minute.

He does the 250rd belt dump at the end but keeps swapping between the two cameras so you can't time it. But he did have one stoppage with approximately 25rds left in the belt, which he dumped in about three seconds, which is about 500rpm.

[No1Mk3]

The 10 guns of the 100th MG Co. fired 1,000,000 rounds during a sustained action oner 12 hours, using over 100 barrels, (re: Ian V Hogg), that is a rate of fire per gun of 139 r/pm with people shooting at you so they were not slacking about. So 1 gun (and that is the story that is told, that it was an Armourers Course firing))and 5.000,000 rounds at that rate is 25 days.