Machine Guns and the Great War by Cornish, Paul -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Front Cover Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents List of Plates Acknowledgements Prologue: Taking Aim

The machine gun in context The scope and limitations of this book

Chapter 1. A Revolution in Infantry Firepower: 1883–1914

A triumph of engineering A technological leap First blood The second wave Tactics and procurement

Chapter 2. The Search for Superiority of Fire: 1914–1915

Machine guns and modernism Issue, organization and doctrine The BEF: trials and errors Ballistics A new form of warfare The Vickers gun Procurement and production 1915: evolution

Chapter 3. The Little Gunners

A corps d’elite? British equipment New methods of fire British machine guns on the Somme The machine gun barrage The Germans and French in 1916 ‘Tommy and his Machine Gun’

Chapter 4. Walking Fire

The British and the Lewis gun The ‘Chauchat’ The German response The Bergmann gun On the Eastern Front American controversy The birth of the submachine-gun A machine pistol

Chapter 5. ‘Like the Whistle of a Great Wind’

The set-pieces Universal tactical developments Third Ypres Command and control Enter the USA

Chapter 6. From Triumph to Dissolution

The MP18 mystery Old solutions to new problems Mobility Vanguards and rearguards The AEF in combat Towards modern warfare The great British machine gun controversy

Epilogue: The Machine Gun Legacy – Reality and Myth

The tactical legacy The technological legacy The machine gun myth

Notes Bibliography