Lewis Gun

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The Lewis Gun was a pre-WWI era American design of machine gun most widely used by the British and Imperial armies that continued to see service all the way through to WWII. It is visually distinctive because of the wide tubular cooling shroud around the barrel, and the top mounted drum magazines.

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The Lewis gun or Lewis Automatic Machine Rifle was invented by US Army Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis in 1911 but was not instantly adopted by the Americans. This may have been due to a clash of personalities with the American selection officer. It could fire 550 .303 rounds per minute. The gun weighed 12 kg (28 lb), only about half as much as a typical machine gun of the era such as the Vickers machine gun, and was primarily chosen because it could be carried and used by a single soldier. It was also relatively cheap at about one sixth the cost of a Vickers, and was issued in droves to soldiers on the Western Front. In total only 62 parts made up the gun. (Six Lewis guns could be produced in the same time as a Vickers gun.) The lightness of the Lewis gun made it popular as an aircraft mounted weapon especially since the cooling effect of the high speed air over the gun meant that the radiator and cooling fins could be removed, making the weapon even lighter.

WWI: REDIRECT World War I...

Machine gun: A machine gun is a fully automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. Such automatic weapons with a caliber of 20 mm or larger are generally referred to as autocannons....

British: The word British has several different uses. See the article on Britain for more details on the development and use of the word Britain....

Lewis Gun related Images and Photos (experimental)

Gun Shy	Gun Law	Lewis Carrol	Lewis Collins
Lewis Collins	Gun Glory	Gun Glory (DVD)	Ray Lewis
Gun Runners, The	Gun Brothers	Kitty, Daisy & Lewis: Kitty, Daisy & Lewis CD	Kitty, Daisy & Lewis: Kitty, Daisy & Lewis CD