GERMAN MACHINE GUNS: Development, Tactics and Use from 1892 to 1918

1-222380

In WWI, artillery shaped the battlefield, but machine guns defended it! The industrialized warfare of WWI was marked in particular by the use of machine guns. This 520-page illustrated book contains about 1000 photos and illustrations traces the development of German machine guns and graphically depicts why they became the most feared infantry weapons of WWI.

In addition to the standard MG 08 and MG 08/15 machine guns, the book also describes the Luft-MG 08 and 08/15 variants, the MG 08/18 which ended the Maxim development series, and the very rare models Parabellum M 1913, M 1913/17, the Dreyse machine gun, the Bergmann machine gun alter Art and neuer Art models, and the Anti-Tank and Anti-Aircraft Machine Gun. The period under consideration thus extends from 1892 until the post-war period after the First World War and into the time of the Reichswehr.

The authors digress to examine the Mondragon self-loading rifle and the Mauser aircraft self-loading carbine, which though not automatic weapons, were used by the German air force as predecessors of automatic weapons. Finally the book also examines the Maschinenpistole 18, the automatic weapon introduced shortly before the end of the First World War which for the first time allowed the machine gun to be wielded as a versatile hand-held weapon.