Marlin aircraft guns have been fired successfully on four trips 13,000, 15,000 feet altitude, and at temperature of minus 20° F. On one trip guns were completely covered ice. Both metallic links and fabric belts proved satisfactory.
(Cartridges are fed into the fixed aircraft guns inserted in belts made of metallic links which disintegrate as the guns are fired.)
On November 2, 1918, just before the armistice was signed, Gen. Pershing cabled as follows, in part:
Marlin guns now rank as high as any with pilots, and are entirely satisfactory.
The French government tested the Marlin guns and declared them to be the equal of the Vickers. In order to meet the ever-increasing demands of the Air Service for machine guns capable of synchronization, the original order for 23,000 Marlin guns, placed in September, 1917, with the Marlin-Rockwell Corporation, was afterwards increased to 38,000. Along in 1918 the French tried to procure Marlins from this country, but by that time the Browning production was reaching great proportions, and the equipment at the Marlin plant was being altered to make Brownings.
The original order for Lewis guns, placed with the Savage Arms Corporation, had contemplated their use by our troops in the line; but when it became evident that the available manufacturing capacity of the United States would be strained to the utmost to provide enough guns for our airplanes, we diverted the large orders for Lewis guns entirely to the Air Service. This action was confirmed by cabled instructions from Gen. Pershing. For this flexible aircraft work the weapon was admirably adapted.
To the machine-gun tests, May, 1917, the producers of the Lewis gun brought an improved model, chambered for our own standard .30-caliber cartridges, instead of for the British .303 ammunition, with some 15 modifications in design in addition to those which had been presented to us before, and some added improvements in construction and in the metallurgical composition of its materials. From our point of view, this new model Lewis was a greatly improved weapon. The fact should be stated here that the Lewis gun, as so successfully made for the British service by the Birmingham Small Arms Co., had never been procurable by the United States, even in a single sample for test.
The Lewis accordingly became the standard flexible gun for our airplanes. The Savage Arms Corporation was able to expand its facilities to fulfill every need of our Air Service for this type of weapon, and therefore we made no effort to carry the manufacture of Lewis guns into other plants. Before 1917 came to an end the Savage company was delivering the first guns of its orders.