Colorized footage of Sir Hiram Maxim testing his invention, the machine gun, 1897

The Maxim gun was recoil-operated and was cooled by a water jacket surrounding the barrel. It was manufactured by Vickers and was sometimes known as the Vickers-Maxim and sometimes just Vickers. These guns were used by every major power. Maxim's first British patents relating to the development of the Maxim gun were granted in June and July 1883. The first prototype was demonstrated to invited guests in October 1884. The Maxim gun became the standard design for the machine gun and saw exponential growth in demand and nearly universal use in the first decades of the 20th Century.

Colorized footage of Sir Hiram Maxim testing his invention, the machine gun, 1897.

Hiram Maxim invented the first fully automatic machine gun in the world in 1884. The Maxim gun was recoil-operated and was cooled by a water jacket surrounding the barrel. It was manufactured by… pic.twitter.com/JEvMpwEPLc

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