BROWNING TANK MACHINE GUN, MODEL 1919, ON BALL MOUNT, SHOWING CASING.
When the armistice was signed we had placed orders for 110,000 heavy Brownings and were contemplating still further orders. We later reduced these orders by 37,500 guns.
Because the Marlin aircraft gun had performed so satisfactorily, and because our facilities for the manufacture of this weapon were large, the production of the Browning aircraft guns had not been pushed to the limit, which latter action would have interfered with the production of the Marlin gun at a time when it was most essential to obtain an immediate supply of fixed synchronized aircraft guns. Only a few hundred Browning aircraft guns had been completed before the close of the fighting. In its tests and performances this weapon had been speeded up to a rate of fire of from 1,000 to 1,300 shots per minute, which far surpassed the performances of any synchronized gun then in use on the western front.
By the spring of 1918 it became evident that we would require a special machine gun for use in our tanks. Several makes of guns were considered for this purpose and finally discarded for one reason or another. The ultimate decision was to take 7,250 Marlin aircraft guns which were available and adapt them to tank service by the addition of sights, aluminum heat radiators, and handle grips and triggers. The rebuilding of these guns at the Marlin-Rockwell plant when the armistice was signed was progressing at a rate that insured the adequate equipment of the first American-built tanks.
Meanwhile the Ordnance Department undertook the production of a Browning tank machine gun. This gun was developed by taking a heavy Browning water-cooled gun, eliminating the water jacket and substituting an air-cooled barrel of heavy construction, and adding hand grips and sights. The work was begun in September, 1918, and the completed model was delivered by the end of October. Before the armistice was signed five sample guns had been built, demonstrated at the Tank Corps training camps, and unanimously approved by the officers of the Tank Corps designated to test it. After a test in France, the report stated: "The gun is by far the best weapon for tank use that is now known, and the Department is to be congratulated upon its development." An order for 40,000 Browning tank guns was given to the Westinghouse Co. This concern, already equipped for the manufacture of heavy Browning guns, was scheduled to start its deliveries in December, 1918, and to turn out 7,000 tank guns per month after January 1, 1919. After the signing of the armistice, however, the order was cut down to approximately 1,800 guns. By March 27, 1919, the company had delivered 500 Browning tank guns, and the order for the remaining 1,300 was thereafter canceled.
After the entrance of the United States in the war the armies on both sides developed a new type of machine-gun fighting, which consisted in indirect firing, or laying down barrages of machine-gun bullets. This required the development of special tripods, clinometers for laying angles of elevation, and other special equipment; and speedy progress was being made in the quantity production of this matériel when the war came to an end.
In a complete machine-gun program not only must the guns themselves be built, but they must be fully equipped with accessories, such as tripods, extra magazines, carts for carrying both guns and ammunition, feed belts of various types, belt-loading machines, observation and fire control instruments, and numerous other accessories the manufacture of which is absolutely essential but usually unseen by the public. The extent of our work in accessories is indicated by a few approximate figures of deliveries up to the signing of the armistice: nonexpendable ammunition boxes, 1,000,000; expendable ammunition boxes, 7,000; expendable belts, 5,000; nonexpendable belts, 1,000,000; belt-loading machines, 25,000; water boxes, 110,000; machine-gun carts, 17,000; ammunition carts, 15,000; tripods, 25,000.
The aircraft machine guns also required numerous accessories, some of them highly complicated in their manufacture. This special equipment consisted in part of special mounts for the guns, synchronizing attachments, metallic disintegrating link belts, electric heaters to keep the guns warm at the low temperatures at the high altitudes of the aviator's battle field, and many other smaller items.
Not only our own forces but the allied armies as well were enthusiastic about the Browning guns of both types, as soon as they had seen them in action. The best proof of this is that in the summer of 1918 the British, Belgian, and French Governments all made advances to us as to the possibility of the United States producing Browning automatic rifles for their respective forces. On November 6, a few days before the end of hostilities, the French high commissioner requested that we supply 15,000 light Browning rifles to the French Army. We would not make this arrangement at the time because we thought it inadvisable to divert any of our supplies of these guns from our own troops until the spring of 1919, when we expected that our capacity for making light Brownings would exceed the demands of our own troops. Our demand for the lighter guns, incidentally, was far greater than we had originally expected it to be. As soon as the Browning rifle was seen in action the General Staff of our Expeditionary Forces at once increased by 50 per cent the number of automatic rifles assigned to each company of troops, and we were manufacturing to meet this augmented demand when the war ended. By spring of 1919 we expected to be furnishing light Brownings to the British and French Armies as well as to our own.