In the finale of the classic Soviet movie “Chapaev,” the main character takes his last battle in the attic of a mansion surrounded by White Guards. The besiegers customize the armored car with machine-gun turrets and press on all sides. The sound of broken glass rings , and a blunt sting appears from the window of the mezzanine, spewing deadly fire.
Here Vasily Ivanovich swims awkwardly raking with his only surviving hand, and the Cossacks shoot at him from the shore, bursts, in a heap and in the end accurately. What unites all these scenes is that both warring parties use the same type of rapid - fire automatic weapons - the Maxim machine gun.
Soviet people were convinced that he had exclusively domestic origin, even his name sounds like a simple Russian name. Again, another movie is recalled, “Maxim's Youth”. True, the famous Parisian restaurant is also named that way. “Is it not in honor of a machine gun?” - guesses the proletariat.
Everything is a bit more complicated. The Maxim easel machine gun (with emphasis on the first syllable) received a name in honor of its inventor, American Hiram Stevens Maxim. In 1883, he offered his brainchild to the US Army, but was refused. A peaceful agricultural country at that time, separated from Europe by the ocean, did not require such monstrous weapons of mass destruction.
Another thing is Britain with all its colonies, behind which an eye and an eye ... Here they listened very carefully to the engineer-inventor and expressed a desire to place a state order. Together with the Vickers brothers (sons), Hiram Stevens registered an enterprise, the main product of which was the Maxim machine gun, which was very useful in the Boer War.
Deliveries for export also began. The technical data of the new sample was unique at that time. The stopping power remained at a kilometer distance, the rate of fire is the same as that of the modern Kalashnikov - 10 rounds per second.
The machine gun "Maxim" was simple and reliable. For moving the cartridge belt and cocking the shutter, recoil energy was used, and the barrel was cooled with water, which should be poured into a cylindrical casing. The calculation was defended against enemy fire by a rational-shaped armored shield. All parts were unified in order to facilitate field repair. The movement of heavy weapons was facilitated by a wheeled or sled chassis on which the bed was mounted.
Such qualities were always inherent in Russian weapons, so the machine gun "Maxim" immediately after the first samples arrived in the imperial army (1900) earned soldier respect. It cost a lot, 500 rubles, and in order to reduce military expenses, in 1910 its manufacture under license began in Russia.
The changes that plagued the prototype concerned the possibility of using not only water but also snow for cooling, for this purpose the neck of the casing was expanded. To get rid of dependence on the import of ammunition, the caliber of the Russian “Maxim” in Tula was redone under the standard three-line cartridge.
Like many masterpieces of weapons art, this machine gun is much ahead of its time. The Red Army and Navy widely used the Maxim machine gun during the Great Patriotic War. Ship anti-aircraft installations, consisting of four barrels with a synchronized trigger, showed their effectiveness in the fight against German attack aircraft, and the infantry skillfully used this proven firearm in defense and offensive until 1944, when more advanced models appeared.