Machine Gun History

The Lewis gun was a machine gun that weighed a mere 12kg was air cooled and had a circular cartridge magazine. This weapon soon became and offensive weapon. As the war developed the weapon was added to things such as the tank and the airplane though they were relatively larger caliper weapons.
             Battlefields were dominated by the killing power of the weapon. The battle of Somme utterly demonstrates the effectiveness of this weapon. On 1 Jul 1916 an attack was launched on a 30 kilometer front north on the Somme river. It was a joint attack from the French and the British. The French Commander in Chief Joffre planed the attack as an attack of attrition with a secondary goal of gaining land. The plan was agreed upon by the British Commander in Chief Haig. Originally the attack was planed for 1 Aug was move up to advert German resources in Verdun. The joint attack was preceded by an 8 day bombardment. Haig and Joffre hoped to destroy all forward defensive positions of the Germans with this bombardment. Haig had hoped to have generally little resistant from the remaining Germans. There were around 3000 guns both French and British used in the bombardment. The Royal artillery had prepared an underground telephone network for forward observation officers to command the barrage as the battle raged. General Haig ordered his advancing party from the center of the line to consolidate after a limited advance. For this reason they went with many supplies. Meanwhile on the north end of the line Haig ordered General Allenby to break trough the enemy line and divide the German line in half. The French in the south also planed to attack at the same time as General Allenby's forces did. The allied forces did follow one of the principle of war by massing there troops at the battlefield. 27 divisions of men where involved in this attack 750,000 men, most were British expeditionary force. The German only had 16 divisions of men.