Submachine Guns Unleashed!
Offering a middle ground between bulky early machine guns and tough to handle machine pistols, the submachine gun came to dominate the WW2 battlefield
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Isaac Newton Lewis showed his machine gun design to several United States ordnance officers and the Secretary of War by 1912, but received no interest from the American military. His military.
By then a colonel in the United States Army, Lewis retired and took the four models of his gun to Europe in 1913, just in time to be one of the most important weapons of World War 1. The Lewis gun was an open bolt, gas-operated, air-cooled machine gun that was light enough to be carried by a doughboy but packed enough punch to mount on new-fangled war machines like airplanes and tanks.
A pair of Lewis guns, one a Birmingham Small Arms Model 1914 chambered in .303 British and a U.S. Savage Model 1917 Lewis gun chambered in the American .30-06, are available in Rock Island Auction Company’s Aug. 25-27 Premier Auction.
A Birmingham Small Arms Lewis gun is available in Rock Island Auction's Aug. 25-27 Premier Auction. The Lewis gun was highly utilized by the British who saw the effectiveness in its stopping power and mobility.
The Lewis gun earned its nickname, “the Belgian Rattlesnake,” from German soldiers faced with its rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. The gun weighed in at 26 lbs. with its bipod, far less than the M1909 Benet-Mercie that weighed 30 lbs., the Colt Model 1914 machine gun that weighed 93 lbs. with its tripod, and the Vickers that was a hefty 90 lbs. with its tripod and full water jacket for cooling. The Lewis gun weighed slightly more than the Browning Automatic Rifle when it was introduced late in World War 1.
The gun’s mobility was a huge factor in its success, being able to be used and brought to fire more easily and quickly than the far heavier Vickers that required a six-man crew. The British would create a machine gun corps during the war that would strategically treat the Vickers as artillery.
The Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) factory made 145,397 Lewis guns during World War 1 so that each British infantry unit had one by the end of 1917. Demand for the gun was so high that BSA licensed Savage Arms of Utica, N.Y. to manufacture the gun, too. Despite its early rejection of the Lewis gun, the United States eventually received 16,000 by May 1918. Of those, 10,000 were for aircraft and the rest were assigned to the Marine Corps.
Demand was so great for the Lewis gun that inventor Isaac Newton Lewis contracted with Savage Arms of New York to make his namesake gun. The Lewis gun was also made in Britain by BSA. This Savage Lewis gun is available in Rock Island Auction Company's Aug. 25-27 Premier Auction.
Isaac Newton Lewis was born in 1858 in Pennsylvania before his family moved to Kansas. He started his career as a teacher before he attended West Point where he graduated in 1884, 11th in a class of 37. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant for artillery. He earned his first patent, for the world’s first successful artillery range and position finder, in 1888. The United States declined the range finder.
After several assignments and a promotion to captain, in 1900 Lewis went to Europe, ordered by Col. Nelson Miles to study manufacture and supply of ordnance by other countries’ militaries. He reported back and his findings led to new organizational standards for artillery adopted in 1902.
He served with the Board of Ordnance previously and found himself re-assigned there as the board’s recorder. He got caught up in political controversy and testified to Congress about the “obsolete policies and worn-out conditions” in the Board of Ordnance, getting cross-ways with Brigadier Gen. William Crozier who led the board.
After being rejected by the United States Army, Isaac Newton Lewis, left, took his namesake gun to Europe on the eve of World War 1 and found buyers for his light, air-cooled machine gun. A gunner fires a Lewis gun from the hip with the assistance of a sling. The Lewis gun weighed 26 lbs. A British-made BSA Lewis gun and an American-made Savage Model 1917 Lewis gun are both available in Rock Island Auction Company's Aug. 25-27 Premier Auction.
Lewis found himself in a “limbo posting” in San Francisco where it appeared he’d been put out to pasture. However, Lewis continued with his work and created a successful defensive plan for San Francisco harbor. This success infuriated Crozier further and Lewis was sent to Puget Sound, furthering his exile.
“Why is it some of the biggest men in military and government positions have the smallest minds?” Lewis wrote.
Lewis continued to invent and write, increasing his reputation to the point he returned to the east coast, and posted at the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Va. He served as an instructor in electricity and power as well as an artillery instructor. He took on several roles, including director of the department of enlisted specialists, acting commandant of the school and commander of Fort Monroe. He bore the rank of lieutenant colonel by 1911.
He drew the interest of business for his mechanical engineering prowess and was brought on as a part-time consultant by Automatic Arms Company in Cleveland, Ohio to develop a light machine gun based on his ideas and any patents the company owned.
A U.S. Marine fires a Lewis gun. The United States Army didn't recognize the importance of full-auto guns that were light enough to move easily until after the nation entered World War 1. The Marine Corps did order Lewis guns from Savage.
Lewis focused on the light machine gun design of Dr. Samuel N. McClean that had failed to interest military buyers. By 1910, McClean’s company was in financial difficulties and was bought out by Automatic Arms Company. An ordnance expert, presumably Lewis, told investors that it needed to develop an air-cooled gun and that it would receive no interest from the United States military, which wasn’t considering the use of automatic weapons at the time.
McClean’s design overheated, so Lewis knew where he had to go to work. He created a newly designed gun that utilized some of McClean’s patents. Lewis’ design cooled the barrel through forced air drawn from the back of the barrel to the front, with a large tube over the barrel. The gun drew ammunition from a circular pan magazine – holding either 47 or 97 rounds -- on top of the gun. The Lewis gun had 62 parts purportedly for easy assembly.
By 1911, Lewis had a gun he was ready to unveil and contacted an old friend, Gen. Leonard Wood, the Army Chief of Staff. Fired in front of several War Department and Army officials, the prototype performed excellently and earned an official test.
This closeup of the British BSA Lewis gun shows its circular pan magazine atop the gun. Magazines were made in two sizes, one for 47 rounds and one for 97 rounds.
Unfortunately, the gun failed to perform as well as it had in its informal demonstration. Lewis had continued tinkering with it after its success and made it worse. He quickly made the necessary changes and in a second public demonstration, Lewis mounted his gun to an airplane, making it the first aerial fired machine gun. The weapon received tremendous publicity but little interest in the United States.
One issue that might have hurt Lewis’ chances of gaining a contract was his personality conflict with the Board of Ordnance’s Crozier who called the gun “Lewis’ military mower.” Lewis pledged not to take any royalties from the United States government on the sale of the gun but heard nothing.
Promoted to full colonel in 1913, Lewis was fed up and set his retirement date with plans to sail to Europe with his prototypes. “I was an army officer for nearly 37 years and devoted myself to my country’s service … all I got was slapped with rejections by ignorant hacks,” he told friends.
The markings on the Savage Lewis gun in a closeup without the magazine. Note the anchor on the lower left since the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Navy both used the Lewis gun.
The Lewis gun quickly drew interest from Belgium and Lewis set up a factory in Liege, but when the British expressed interest, he moved production to the Birmingham Small Arms factory. Guns were starting to roll off the assembly line as the opening salvos of World War 1 were being fired. BSA had trouble meeting production numbers and quickly expanded the factory as it was making the Lewis gun for Belgium, France, and Russia, too. By early 1916, more than 40,000 Lewis guns were in use by French, British, and Belgian troops.
The gun was well thought of by troops but ordnance officers in World War 1 were unsure if it was a light machine gun or an automatic rifle since it could serve in both roles. Still, its importance was never questioned, described in a British ordnance report as “…finest weapon for frontline trench strafing, both offensively and defensively.”
U.S. Marines train with the Lewis gun. A BSA Lewis gun and a Savage Lewis gun are both available in Rock Island Auction Company's Aug. 25-27 Premier Auction.
The Battle of the Somme erupted on July 1, 1916. When it ended Nov. 18, 1916, a third of the three million men who fought in the battle were dead or wounded. The Lewis gun played an out-sized role in the battle. British ordnance experts estimated the Lewis gun’s rate of fire exceeded 15 million rounds every 24 hours during the battle that raged for 140 days. By the end of 1916, the British fired more than 7 billion rounds of ammunition through their Lewis guns.
The United States ordered 350 Lewis guns for Gen. John J. Pershing’s pursuit of Pancho Villa. When the United States declared war, it had less than 1,000 rapid-fire guns in its arsenal. The Marines adopted the gun and trained vigorously with them only to be handed unreliable French Chauchats when they arrived in Europe.
Despite the Army’s misgivings over the Lewis gun, it eventually ordered 2,500 from Savage. The Lewis gun also became popular as an airplane-mounted weapon with the tube removed from over the barrel and the wood stock replaced by spade grips.
Lewis was true to his word and declined to take money from the United States government for his gun. He returned $1.2 million in royalties to the U.S. Treasury. In March 1918, the acting Secretary of War, Benedict Crowell wrote to Lewis: “I cannot let these long negotiations be concluded without expressing to you my personal and official thanks for your gracious action in permitting the government to retain from royalties to be paid on the Lewis patents all your interests in these payments for guns delivered after January 1, 1918. It is exceedingly gratifying to observe the fine spirit of sacrifice patriotism manifested in the people of this country, a notable instance of which is your action in this matter.”
A soldier takes aim with a Lewis gun without its aluminum tube over the barrel. When Lewis guns were mounted on aircraft during World War 1, they didn't have the tube because the cool air aloft kept the gun from overheating.
The U.S. Marines continued to use their Lewis guns in small actions in the 1920s and 30s like Haiti, Nicaragua, and China. The American BAR and the British Bren would eventually replace the Lewis gun. A second-string gun for U.S. forces in World War 2, the Lewis gun still found use mounted on landing ships. The British pulled the Lewis gun from mothballs in 1940 after Dunkirk when the nation was desperate for weapons. They were issued to the Home Guard.
Even after use in two world wars, the Lewis gun even saw limited action in the Korean War. There is no doubt the Lewis gun served superbly in World War 1 and in support during later actions and World War 2.
A British publication, “The Complete Lewis Gunner,” published in 1918 laid out the importance of the Lewis gun:
“A Lewis gun in the hands of good gunners will work as much destruction as 50 average riflemen. The rat-tat-tat of a Lewis gun has a great moral effect. Against a machine gun a man stands little chance, and human flesh will not face it. A machine gun has terrible killing powers. A Lewis gun gives a maximum volume of fire from a minimum of front.”
Marines carried the Lewis gun into a number of minor actions between world wars. Here a marine holds a captured Lewis gun taken from Nicaraguan rebels.
Leaving the disinterest of the United States, Isaac Newton Lewis took his full auto namesake to Europe on the eve of war and found ready buyers for an air-cooled weapon that could change a battlefield with its high rate of fire and mobility. Rock Island Auction Company will offer two Lewis guns in its Aug. 25-27 Premier Auction, a Birmingham Small Arms Model 1914 chambered in British .303 caliber and a U.S. Savage Arms Model 1917 chambered in the American military’s .30-06, providing an opportunity for collectors of military weapons to acquire a “Belgian rattlesnake” from either the country that embraced it, or the country that dismissed it.
The Lewis Gun, by J. David Truby
The Lewis Gun was a New Kind of Killing Machine, by Paul Huard, Medium.com
Lewis Light Machine Gun, Royal Armouries
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