Lewis gun

Lewis Gun
File:FE 000214.jpg Recruits of the Singapore Volunteer Force training with a Lewis gun.
Type	Light machine gun
Place of origin	United States
Service history
Used by	See Users
Wars	World War I, World War II
Production history
Designer	Samuel McClean Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis
Designed	1911
Specifications
Mass	28 lb (12.7 kg)
Length	38 in (965 mm)
Barrel length	26.5 in (665 mm)
Cartridge	.303 British (7.7x56mmR) .30-06 Springfield
Action	Gas operated
Rate of fire	550 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity	2450 ft/s (746.76 m/s)
Feed system	47 or 97-round drum magazine

The Lewis Gun is a pre-World War I era squad automatic weapon/machine gun of American design that was most widely used by the forces of the British Empire. It was first used in combat with the Belgian Army in World War I, and continued in service all the way through to World War II. It is visually distinctive because of a wide tubular cooling shroud around the barrel and top mounted pan magazines.

History

The Lewis Gun or Lewis Automatic Machine Rifle was invented by U.S. Army Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis in 1911, based on initial work by Samuel Maclean. Despite its origins, the Lewis Gun was not instantly adopted by the Americans. This may have been due to a clash of personalities with the U.S. Army's Chief of Ordnance. It had a cyclic rate of approximately 550 rounds per minute. The gun weighed 28 lb (12.7 kg), only about half as much as a typical medium machine gun of the era, such as the Vickers machine gun, and was primarily chosen because it could be carried and used by a single soldier. The Lewis Gun was therefore more mobile than heavy machine guns and could much more easily follow the troops during advances and retreats, but it was still a bit heavy for its intended role. However, it was also relatively cheap at about one sixth the cost of a Vickers, and was issued in large numbers to soldiers serving on the Western Front. In total only 62 parts made up the gun (six Lewis Guns could be produced in the same time as a Vickers gun due to the excessive complexity of the Vickers lockwork). The lighter weight of the Lewis Gun made it popular as an aircraft mounted weapon, especially since the cooling effect of the high speed air over the gun meant that the radiator and cooling fins could be removed, making the weapon even lighter.

Design

The Lewis Gun was gas operated. A portion of the expanding gases was tapped off from the barrel. This drove a piston to the rear against a spring. The piston was fitted with a vertical post at its rear which rode in a helical cam track in the bolt, rotating it at the end of its travel nearest the breech. This allowed the three locking lugs at the rear of the bolt to engage into recesses in the gun's body to lock it into place. The post also carried a fixed firing pin, which protruded through an aperture in the front of the bolt to fire the next round at the foremost part of the piston's travel.

It was designed with an aluminum barrel-casing to use the muzzle blast to draw air into the gun and cool down the internal mechanism. There is some discussion over whether the cooling tube was effective or even necessary. In the Second World War many old aircraft guns which did not have the tubing were issued to anti-aircraft units of the British Home Guard and to British airfields, and were found to function properly without it. Later, more aircraft guns were used on vehicle mounts in the heat of the Western Desert and again did not suffer without the tube. The Royal Navy however, insisted all their Lewis Guns had to retain the tubing, even in the cold of the Arctic.

List of parts

The Lewis Gun utilized two different drum magazines, one holding 47 and the other 97 rounds (the picture below shows the 47 round version). The 97 round magazine was designed for aircraft use and was considered too heavy for infantry use. A few Lewis Guns were issued for anti-aircraft use with the 97 round drums by the British Army in 1916, but the big drum did not stand up well to the arduous conditions of trench warfare and the 47 round was used thereafter. The aircraft type of magazine had to be carefully stored when used with ground mounts as the underside was open and exposed the ammunition to dust, dirt or spray, which was then carried into the gun mechanism. Interestingly, the Lewis was considered very reliable despite this design fault, but then this may have been in comparison to other less reliable designs like the notorious Chauchat. Unlike other drum magazine designs, the Lewis' drum was not wound against a spring but was mechanically driven by a cam on top of the bolt which operated a pawl mechanism via a lever.

An interesting point of the design was that it did not use a traditional longitudinal coiled spring, but used a spiral spring, much like a big clock spring, in a semi-circular housing just in front of the trigger. The operating rod had a toothed underside, which engaged with a cog which wound the spring. When the gun fired a round, the bolt recoiled and the cog was turned, tightening the spring until the resistance of the spring had reached the recoil force of the bolt assembly. At that moment, as the gas pressure in the breech fell, the spring unwound, turning the cog, which, in turn, wound the operating rod forward for the next round. As with a clock spring, the Lewis Gun's recoil spring had an adjustment device to adjust the recoil resistance for variations in temperature and wear. Unusual as it seems, the design proved enduringly reliable.

Service

Australian Soldiers firing at enemy planes during World War I.

Men of 28th Battalion of the 2nd Australian Division lying prone on the ground to practice Lewis gun drill at Renescure.

Colonel Lewis became frustrated with trying to persuade the U.S. Army to adopt his design. He retired and headed for Belgium much like John Moses Browning. The Belgians quickly adopted the design in 1913, using the .303 British round. Not long after that the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) purchased a licence to manufacture it. The Germans first encountered the Lewis in 1914 and nicknamed it "The Belgian Rattlesnake".

World War I

The British adopted it not long after the Belgians late in 1914. Each Lewis Gun required a team of two gunners, one to fire and one to carry ammunition and reload, and the whole rifle squad was trained to fire it in case the gunners were incapacitated.

The early British Mark IV tanks used the Lewis Gun. It was used on British aircraft either as an observer's or gunner's weapon or as an additional primary weapon to the more common Vickers machine gun. Due to its open bolt firing cycle, it proved to be impossible to synchronise it to fire through a spinning propeller, so that the heavier Vickers gun had to be used for this purpose. Because of this, the Lewis was fitted on S.E.5as above the top wing in a Foster mount, which was outside of the propeller's arc, and allowed the gun to be swung down on a rail to allow the magazine to be changed in flight. For the use of aircraft gunners, the Lewis was mounted in a Scarff ring, which allowed the gun to be rotated and elevated whilst supporting the gun's weight. The Lewis has claim to being the first machine gun fired from a plane.

In 1917, the U.S. Army adopted the Lewis Gun in the .30-06 caliber, but the design was soon replaced in September 1918 by the Browning Automatic Rifle.

The Russian Empire bought significant number of Lewis Guns in British .303 or Russian 7.62x54R calibre and used it as squad automatic weapon for infantry units, or as GPMG for cavalry, cossack, or dragoon units. These guns were replaced by the Degtyarev light machine gun from the late 1920s. The Lewis had reputation of being a somewhat cumbersome, but fairly reliable weapon. Some Lewis Guns were briefly re-issued in Autumn 1941 to make up for losses of equipment to the advancing Germans. They were withdrawn from service in 1942-1943, as more DPs became available.

The Germans also used captured Lewis guns (rechambered for German rounds) after the Battle of the Somme. The Lewis remained in use in these units until the formation of the Maschinen-Gewehr Scharfschützen battalions, in April 1918. However, the stormtrooper battalions seem to have liked the Lewis gun so much that many retained them in preference to the later light machine guns produced by the Germans. Lewis guns remained in frontline service until the end of the war, with captured weapons repaired and converted in a factory in Brussels.

The French Air Services (L'Aeronautique Militaire) used many Lewis Gun ( in .303 caliber) as an observer's gun fitted on a Scarf ring. They were actually manufactured in France under licence by the firms of Milde and Darne.

World War II

In World War II, it was replaced by the Bren gun for most infantry uses, but the Lewis saw continued service on Royal Navy warships and submarines. Additionally, it was used as a vehicle-mounted weapon, primarily as a side gunner's weapon on aircraft. Although it was probably obsolete for that role as well, the British were facing something of a major economic crisis during the war, and had to use their existing stocks of Lewis guns for purposes such as airfield defense.

In the crisis following the Fall of France, Lewis guns were used to arm the British Home Guard.

After World War II, the Lewis was officially discontinued in British Service, and all existing models were retired in favour of the Bren, Vickers and other machine guns.

The Lewis gun saw limited use with American forces at the beginning of World War II. The United States Navy used Lewis guns on armed merchant ships, small auxiliary ships, landing craft, submarines, and for ships' landing forces. The 4th Marine Regiment and Philippine Army units used Lewis guns against the Japanese after the invasion of the Philippines in 1941.

Additionally, the German FG 42 borrowed significant design elements from the Lewis Gun.

Users

• Belgium
• Commonwealth
• Germany
• Japan
• Philippines
• Russia
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Canada
• Netherlands

See also

• Infantry Weapons Of WWI
• Charlton Automatic Rifle
• Vickers K machine gun

External links

• Scans of Lewis gun manual of 1917
• Video footage of a Lewis gun being fired

Gallery of images

• 
  Side view of British Lewis gun
• 
  Detail of British Lewis gun showing underside of (empty) magazine and aluminium cooling fins
• 
  Dorsal view of British Lewis gun magazine showing part of barrel shroud
• 
  Long Range Desert Group truck mounted with a Lewis gun, circa 1942