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Despite the fact that feedbelt ammunition feeding systems are far superior and universally chosen by machineguns (and SAWs) designers since the end of WW2. Why are there so many countries chose Hotkiss 'feedstrips' designs instead of Maxim/Browning? (Actually concieved by Laurence Benét and Henri Mercié. the in-house engineers) in addition to France (where Hotkiss factory is)... Especially Japan and Italy are big licencees, What are the advantages of feedstrips over the feedbelts while Benet & Mercie designs are all required a constant oilings and had a relatively low ROF (compared to any Maxim / Browning MGs or derivatives).

Gunny did prove the superiority of Maxim/Browning feedbelt MGs over Benet and Mercie designs




Also on any MGs that uses detachable magazines (not feedstrips) why aren't Lewis style cylindrical hopper magazines being so popular but the box (or banana) magazines like either Madsen or Czech ones (which later became BREN and also copied by the Japs) preferred?

I you look, often you'll find the tin can (or record player as the Russians called it) often came from the Lewis design.

There is a strong argument that we should have used the Lewis instead of the BAR for squad level purposes, but political infighting killed it for the Army (Navy and Marines had them).

A problem with belts is that they get tangled or not fed perpendicular to the gun which can cause jamming. However the belt design-especially with the invention of metal linked belts vs. canvas-has proven itself over time.

^
1. In the First World War. Brits used Lewis as SAW, in the second WW they chose Czech designs and toss Lewis away (or at least relegated Lewis MG) why?
2. Who introduced metal linked ammo belts? the Germans?
and does that means the tendency to jam of the canvas ammo belts made either Feedstrips or mag-fed (Heavy) MGs more favorable designs to certain nations? (France, Italy and Japan... which kept Benet & Mercie 'woodpeckers' until the end of WW2)

Well the Japanese were just weird with their machine guns. One of theirs used rifle ammunition clips dropped into a Hopper. Plus they had BAYONET LUGS.
Sounds great on paper, but is stupid in Real Life.



Googling looks like Maxim had both cloth and metal options. Browning had cloth options initially. Looks like the belts evolved over time.

 Frazzled wrote:
Well the Japanese were just weird with their machine guns. One of theirs used rifle ammunition clips dropped into a Hopper. Plus they had BAYONET LUGS.
Sounds great on paper, but is stupid in Real Life.

The Japs designed the that the 'hopper clip MG' (One the looks ALOT like BREN, but with bayonet lugs) Light Machine Guns ... which are 'Squad Automatic Weapons'... the weapons are expected to be used as offensive as well as defensive. With their fondness of oldschool bayonet charge, they believed that LMG are required to have Bayonet options so an MG crew can do the same bayonet charge with his squadmate if he's been told to do.... (didn't they have any ideal or concepts of 'Assault Weapons' or how to use LMG that way?) the Gunny clip attached earlier did also show how an LMG (or SAW) can be used in 'assault mode'.

An excellent related article-lots of pics.

http://m1919tech.com/26513.html

Interesting thread discussing the Bren vs. the Lewis.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=207585

the Bren was a lighter by about 20% if I remember right (I think its 10 compared to 13kg), had a longer effective and maximum range and took up less space (especially for the magazines)

In combat you could change the barrel on the Bren really easily but could not change that on the Lewis when it overheated (really critical as all the non water cooled designs did overheat eventually and if you9 keep shooting an overheated gun it will eventually jam) or wore out, and the Lewis was far less reliable in terms of stoppages/jams especially running off the drum magazine

(a problem with the Russian DP too until the realised that putting in 47 instead of 49 rounds fixed most of the issues... I wonder if underloading the Lewis would have had a similar success)

I suspect it's also more involved reloading the drum style magazines(I know some designs have to be wound up too, not certain if the lewis was one of these) than the box type, not something you plan to do under combat conditions but if you do have to the faster it can be done the better

I suspect the reluctance of many countries to give squads access to belt fed designs is probably for similar reasons why there was reluctance to use sub machine guns... give a soldier the ability to shoot more shots and he will shoot more and mean increased logistics requirements to bring in more ammo



the Lewis gun also suffered from far greater rate of stopaged/jams especially with the larger drum magazine