12. THE HEAVY MACHINE-GUN AND THE BAR
Despite the considerable success of the Model 95, Browning was already looking at the short-recoil operating mechanism for machine-guns, and in 1900 he filed a patent for a water-cooled weapon working on that principle. The US Government, predictably enough, showed no interest whatsoever in the gun, but Browning continued refining the design even after the patent had been granted, while still concentrating most of his attention on the design of small arms with considerable and increasing commercial success.
He also devoted some of his time to the development of another automatic weapon, but this time a lightweight machine-rifle intended for use by individual soldiers. This started life as the ‘Browning Machine Rifle’, but after numerous name changes it finished up as the ‘Browning Automatic Rifle’ or simply the ‘BAR’. Both the BAR and the water-cooled heavy machine-gun were designed to use the same cartridge — the standard Springfield .30/06 — to aid compatibility in the field, and both weapons were fully developed by 1917.
13. WORLD WAR ONE
Due in large part to the reactionary attitude of the American military community, when the United States entered the First World War its forces had access to just over eleven hundred automatic machine-guns, comprising 670 Benet-Mercies, 282 Maxims and 158 Model 95 Colts. These were just about enough to start a war, but hardly sufficient to finish one. The German forces, in contrast, had begun the hostilities with well over twelve thousand Maxims alone.
Somewhat ironically, the Lewis machine-gun, a good and reliable weapon, had been designed in America but chosen by the British for volume manufacture, forcing the American government to buy them from the United Kingdom to equip its forces. The only other machine-gun available at the time was a French-designed weapon called the Chauchat, which very quickly proved to be both wholly inadequate and extremely unreliable, the worst possible combination for any weapon designed to be used in a combat situation. Its maximum rate of fire was only 250 rounds a minute, less than half that of the Browning, and it also had to be fired in short bursts and quite often in semi-automatic mode to avoid it repeatedly jamming.
With the entry of America into the First World War in 1917, the US Government, working very much on the ‘stable door’ principle, invited Browning and a number of other firearm designers to produce suitable weapons with which to fight it. Browning’s response was to offer both the BAR and the water-cooled machine-gun he had perfected, and they first saw the public light of day in a weapon test at Congress Heights outside Washington on the 27 February 1917.
As with all previous official and unofficial showings of Browning weapons, the demonstration proved entirely successful. The BAR showed that it could fire an entire twenty-shot magazine in two and a half seconds — a rate of fire of four hundred and eighty rounds a minute — and the weapon’s simple construction permitted it to be disassembled and reassembled in under a minute.
The decision was made to immediately adopt both the BAR and the established Colt Model 95 for use by American forces. The problem then faced by the US Government was that of volume production of both weapons, and the solution was to buy the production rights from Colt and then farm out the required manufacturing. The indirect result of this was the return of John Moses Browning to Winchester, where the design of the BAR went through its final refining. By the end of the war, Winchester was producing these weapons at the very creditable rate of 300 a day. This rapid production of both Browning designs by the two major arms manufacturers redressed the balance, and by 1918 thousands of Model 95s had been made. For some time after the end of the First World War these weapons were the primary machine-guns on US aircraft.
The BAR adequately fulfilled the US Army’s need for a fully automatic weapon able to be carried and operated by one soldier, and the first BAR used in combat was carried in July 1918 by another Browning: John’s son First Lieutenant Val Browning of the 79th Division. Field reports passed up the chain of command made it clear that the weapon was a total success and, with only minor changes, it would be used again in both the Second World War and in Korea.
The Browning water-cooled machine-gun, despite its successful public showing, was not immediately adopted, and further tests were scheduled. In May 1917 at the Springfield Armory a total of 40,000 rounds were fired through one example at a rate of 600 per minute without malfunction, and Browning then produced a second weapon just to prove that the first successful test hadn’t been a fluke. This gun was fired continuously for over 48 minutes without stoppages, the sustained fire being made possible by joining ammunition belts together to provide the almost 30,000 cartridges required. As with the Colt 1911, this weapon achieved a perfect score in the test.
The rather tardy subsequent acceptance of the weapon by the US Government meant that this Browning saw very little service during the First World War, but since that conflict, and with only minor modifications, the gun has been used in virtually all theatres of war with conspicuous success — a tribute to the design genius of John Browning.
Once America had decided to go to war, arming its troops took the highest priority and substantial quantities of the BAR, Colt 1911 and the heavy machine-gun were ordered, which raised the issue of royalty payments to John Browning. At the end of 1917 an officer called to see him at the Colt factory to transmit the Government’s initial offer for the manufacturing rights for the duration of hostilities.
The officer emphasized that the offer was considerably less than Browning would receive if he accepted normal royalty payments for weapons already ordered, and that further negotiations were possible. Browning shook his head, and accepted immediately. Some years later it was revealed that John Browning had accepted a single payment of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a typically niggardly government offer. If he had held out for the royalties he would have collected a little under thirteen million dollars, but John Browning had never been a greedy man, and was far more interested in ensuring that his fellow Americans involved in the hostilities were equipped with the best possible weapons to fight their battles.
His brother Matt argued with John over the low offer and hadn’t even haggled over the price, but John stopped the conversation immediately by reminding Matt that if they’d been a few years younger, they themselves would have been over in France standing in the mud of the trenches, dodging bullets, and this way they were doing their bit for the war effort. All the Browning brothers were too old to fight as soldiers, but John was determined they would do all they could to support their country and their countrymen, and the only way they could do that was as gunmakers. But he certainly wasn’t prepared to profiteer from the weapons he had designed.
A condition of the offer from the US Government was that John would supervise the manufacture of his weapons in all the factories which had been sub-contracted. This brought him into intimate contact with the red tape which surrounds all government operations, so one of the first tasks he set himself was to slice through it.
He finally rang the Chief of Ordnance directly to explain his difficulty. If he wanted to make a minor change to one of his guns, the Ordnance Department official on the spot would have a blueprint made of the proposed alteration and send it, with a covering letter, to Washington for approval. Two or three weeks later, the necessary permission would be granted.
As far as Browning was concerned, this was ludicrous. His parting shot to the Chief of Ordnance was to suggest that he should find the man in Washington who apparently understood the John Moses Browning designs better than John Moses Browning did, and then send him to Hartford, which would allow John to go home. He had no further problems with red tape.
A major problem faced by the allied forces in Europe was the armour plating on German vehicles, which the relatively small .30 calibre rounds fired by the Browning weapons would not penetrate. Browning was called in to assist after army engineers had tried, and failed, to modify his 1917 water-cooled machine-gun to take the French 11 mm round. Quite why he was not asked to assist from the start is not clear — presumably the American Army believed they could design weapons as well as fire them — but within a short time Browning had completed the modifications and was able to test-fire a .50 calibre weapon similar in basic design to his smaller gun.
