Machine Guns facts

While investigating facts about Machine Guns In Ww1 and Machine Guns Destiny 2, I found out little known, but curios details like:

While attacking a series of machine gun nests during WW2, Daniel Inouye had most his right arm shot off while arming a grenade. He pried the grenade out of his severed hand and destroyed a bunker with it before finishing the last resistance in the bunker with a one-handed Tommy gun burst.

how machine guns work?

New Zealands first tank (the Bob Semple tank) was built from a tractor, sheet metal and 6 machine guns. When ridiculed for the design Bob Semple said "I don’t see anyone else coming up with any better ideas."

What machine guns were used in ww2?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what machine guns were made before 1986. Here are 50 of the best facts about Machine Guns Used In Ww1 and Machine Guns Of Ww2 I managed to collect.

what machine guns were used in ww1?

Sergeant Dipprasad Pun, a Gurkha soldier who single-handedly held his post against dozens of oncoming Taliban; after firing 250 machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, throwing 12 grenades and one claymore mine, 30 Taliban lay dead around him.
In 1917 you could order a belt-fed machine gun from a Sears catalog: "Machine guns are used largely by police organizations, home guards and municipalities in case of riots."
Yogendra Singh Yadav, a soldier of the Indian army, climbed up a vertical, snow-covered cliff face while under machine gun and rocket fire. Despite taking three bullets, he managed to finish the climb, grenade a bunker and then kill four enemy soldiers in hand to hand combat.
Thomas Peterffy was told by NASDAQ that his algorithmic trading was illegal because it lacked a keyboard so he created a robot with fingers to type all trades on the keyboard which made it legal - "the robot typed so fast it sounded like a machine gun."
US Marine John Kelly was the last person to be awarded 2 Medals of Honor. He ran 100 yards in advance of the front line and attacked an enemy machine gun nest, killed the gunner with a grenade, shot another man with his pistol, and returned with 8 prisoners. He was 19.
In 1992 dance/pop duo The KLF were invited to play at the BRIT awards. They unexpectedly performed with a grindcore metal band, fired machine gun blanks into the audience, announced they were leaving the music industry, dumped a dead sheep at the afterparty, and deleted their entire back catalog
Tony Stein. On the first day if the assault on Iwo Jima, Stein cleared multiple enemy pillboxes using his custom M1919 machine gun named "Stinger." During the assault he made a total of 8 trips back to the beach to reload on ammunition and carried a wounded soldier on his back each trip.
The American gangster John Dillinger escaped from jail with a wooden pistol. After whittling it in his cell, in March 1934 he used the fake weapon to intimidate 33 people before getting a real machine gun. "Ha, ha, ha! And I did all this with a wooden gun!" he bragged while leaving.
Germany during WW2 dropped on Britain propaganda leaflets showing Churchill carrying a machine gun, calling him a "gangster" who encouraged murder. The leaflets stopped when the Nazis realized that they made the prime minister more popular in the UK.
You technically COULD stop a hurricane by shooting at it, if you had ~5000 machine guns firing constantly into the wind for 24 hours straight.

machine guns facts — What machine guns were used in vietnam?

Why machine guns are illegal?

You can easily fact check why are machine guns placed behind the front line by examining the linked well-known sources.

In 1932 Australia waged a war against Emus, known as the Great Emu War, but found that machine guns were ineffective at killing the birds.

As Lt. Dan Inouye was about to toss a grenade at a German machine gun nest, a Nazi shot his arm off with an RPG. Undaunted, Inouye pulled the live grenade from his severed hand, tossed it, put his gun in his left hand, then wiped out three machine gun nests and killed 25 Nazis on his own. - source

Aerial dogfights were fought with pistols before they figured out how to properly install machine guns into planes. - source

During World War 1, Alvin York pretty much single handedly attacked a German machine gun nest, killing 20 and captured 132 solders. His actions made him one of the most decorated solders in the US Army, earning medals not only from the US, but also France, Italy, and Montenegro.

The chief of Police in St. Paul let mobsters like Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson live in the city as long as they didn't commit any crimes there. They were also protected from extradition and tipped off of any federal raids. - source

When were machine guns banned?

Black US servicemen on duty in Australia during WWII were treated so poorly by their white superiors that they rioted and are said to have used 30,000 rounds of machine gun ammo firing at the tents of their white superiors.

How machine guns were used in ww1?

At the start of WWI, Italy developed the Villar Perosa Double Machine Gun that could fire 1200-1500 rounds per minute, but they were unable to figure out a practical use for it until the end of the war.

One of the most decorated soldiers of WWII when held at Nazi gunpoint used HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER to distract them, then wiped out his machine gun killing 21 and capturing the rest of the 90. Then said to his men, “That was the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen!”

British paratrooper Joshua Leavey took on Taliban fighters while running through heavy machine gun fire multiple times in order to rescue an injured US Marine Captain.

During the WWII, Khanpasha Nuradilov a Chechen native, was credited with over 920 confirmed kills, taking 12 prisoners, and capturing nine machine guns.

About Lt Commander Joseph Vaghi. He was an US Beachmaster during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, acting as a "traffic cop" orienting the landing troops. Giving orders under heavy machine gun fire, he ran into an old classmate, who asked him, "Hi Joe, what the hell are you doing here?"

When were machine guns invented?

John Moses Browning not only designed the M1911 handgun, but also the M2 50 caliber machine gun, the BAR automatic rifle, the 1887 lever action shotgun, the Auto 5 semi-auto shotgun, the Winchester 1894 lever action rifle, and many other designs and calibers.

The WWI Native American code talkers lacked words for modern-day military terms. They used “big gun” for artillery, “little gun shoot fast” for machine gun, “stone” for grenade and “scalps” for casualties, etc.

In 1984, in response to protests outside the Libyan embassy in London, machine gun fire was turned on protesters on the street from inside the embassy, hitting 11 people and killing a police officer. This lead to an armed siege of the embassy by police and breaking of diplomatic relations.

The shape of the first supersonic airplane, the Bell X-1, was based on the Browning .50 caliber machine gun bullet, which was known to be stable in supersonic flight.

In 1863, the owner and editor of the New York Times held off a rioting mob from attacking the main office with a Gatling machine gun, which he manned himself.

How machine guns changed warfare?

WW2 US Army Sgt Sylvester Antolak who charged 200 yards over coverless terrain into a German machine-gun nest, despite getting hit 3 times and standing back up after each shot. With a shattered right arm and Thompson wedged in his left arm, he captured the strongpoint.

The Columbine Massacre (Not the Columbine you're thinking of). On this day in 1927, a fight between Colorado State Police and unarmed striking coal miners led to machine guns being fired into the crowd of miners. Six miners were killed and dozens were injured.

The M2 50 Caliber Heavy Machine Gun of the US Armed Forces and many allies has been in use since 1919.

Ernest Hemingway once fired a sub-machine gun at sharks that attacked a tuna he was trying to land; the blood from the bullets caused the sharks to attack even harder

Ben Salomon, an army dentist who earned the Medal of Honor in World War 2. When his field hospital was about to be overrunned, he manned a machine gun and killed 98 Japanese soldiers. He died, but not before his wounded colleagues were evacuated.

Major James Robertson of Australian Army once stole one of the only 20 German tanks from no man's land, while being attacked by machine gun and mustard gas.

A man named William Hawkins took out six machine gun nests and refused to retire even after being wounded twice. An editor writing about him even wrote, "To say that his conduct was worthy of the highest traditions of the Marine Corps is like saying the Empire State Building is moderately high."

Stanley Bender who WALKED towards enemy machine gun nests and killed their occupants after standing on a knocked out tank for 2 minutes to scout out their positions

Ben L. Salomon, a dentist in the Battle of Saipan whose field hospital was overrun by the Japanese. He provided cover fire for the wounded to escape and then manned a machine gun for additional cover fire. When his body was found, 98 dead enemy soldiers were piled in front of his position.

Ernest Hemingway hunted U Boats and Submarines on his fishing boat with grenades and machine guns.

In World War 2, Audie Murphy's best friend was killed by German soldiers who pretended to surrender. Murphy then single-handedly stormed a machine-gun-fortified house while taking heavy fire to attack his friend's killers. He ended up wounding two, killing six, and taking eleven prisoners.

The most recognizable machine gun of The First World War, the Vickers Machine Gun, had such outstanding reliability that during action in August 1916 a British Machine Gun Corp fired 10 guns continuously for 12 hours. Using 100 barrels they fired 1 million rounds without a single failure.

Upon creating the world's first machine gun, Dr. Richard J. Gatling wrote that he did so "to reduce the size of armies, to reduce the number of deaths by combat, and to show how futile war is."

During WWI, Sgt. Alvin Cullum York led a seven-man assault on a German machine gun nest in France and captured 32 machine guns, 132 German soldiers and killing at least 20 others.

John J. Kelly, the last recipient of 2 medals of honor, because he attacked an enemy machine-gun nest, killed the gunner and another member of the crew, and returned with 8 prisoners. He was only 20 years old

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