The Borchardt C93 is a semi-automatic pistol designed by Hugo Borchardt in 1893.
40-610: The design is based upon the Maxim gun 's toggle lock mechanism. The pistol uses a locked breech and a short recoil operating cycle, with the barrel and breech moving backward together for a short distance before the breech is unlocked. Borchardt developed the high-velocity, bottlenecked 7.65×25mm Borchardt cartridge for the C93. His assistant at the time, Georg Luger , also claimed to have influenced its design. Machine tool manufacturer Ludwig Loewe & Company of Berlin , Germany, produced
80-661: A captain in the Union Army during the American Civil War . After producing a prototype he went to the Pratt and Whitney company, who after a year of development produced a military version of the weapon. A demonstration to officers at the United States Navy yard in 1875 was successful, however they recommended that Pratt and Whitney continue with development of the system, incorporating improvements to
120-467: A further demonstration was carried out at the Navy Yard, during which the weapon was presented by Francis A. Pratt and Amos Whitney . The weapon fired a total of 10,000 rounds during the test, taking a total elapsed time of 27 minutes 36 seconds, with breaks between firing to resolve an issue with one of the extractors. While the test was not without issues the weapon managed to fire 4,722 rounds before
160-611: A narrower, angular grip. Luger's design eventually became the Luger Parabellum pistol . The cartridge used in the Borchardt C93 Pistol was the basis for the primary cartridge used in the Mauser C96 pistol ( 7.63×25mm Mauser ); they have the same dimensions, but the 7.63 mm Mauser generally had a more powerful powder charge (contemporary loading data indicated it took approximately 20% more powder than
200-680: A reputation for being a strong subscriber to military innovation and reform, which he demonstrated in Africa. There he used machine guns, explored other unconventional ideas, and founded an Egyptian camel corps. The gun's design was also purchased and used by several other European countries. In January 1899, just before the outbreak of the Philippine-American War , the Philippines had forty-two Maxim guns. An English observer who had seen one of them, described it as being "of
240-528: A series of trials selected the Gardner gun. During these tests a five-barrelled Gardner gun fired 16,754 rounds before a failure occurred, with only 24 stoppages. When operator-induced errors were taken into account, there were only four malfunctions in 10,000 rounds fired. The Army adopted the weapon, although its introduction was delayed because of opposition from the Royal Artillery . It saw action in
280-610: A team of men, usually 4 to 6 in number. Apart from the gunner, other crew were needed to speed reload, spot targets, and carry and ready ammunition and water. Several men were needed to move or mount the heavy weapon. In 1884, Maxim began to develop his machine gun in Hatton Garden , London. In November of that year, he founded the Maxim Gun Company with financing from Albert Vickers [ la ] , son of steel entrepreneur Edward Vickers . A blue plaque on
320-610: A wonderful example of Victorian firepower. An American company, International Military Antiques , found a limited number of these exceptionally scarce weapons in the Old Palace of Lagan Silekhana in Kathmandu, Nepal, which were included with the purchase of over 50,000 antique firearms from the Royal Nepalese Army in 2003. There is controversy, as the arms cache had to tranship through India and questions remain as to
360-465: Is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim . It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most associated with imperial conquest" by historian Martin Gilbert , and was heavily used by colonial powers during the " Scramble for Africa ". Afterwards, Maxim guns also saw extensive usage by different armies during
400-668: The Abushiri Revolt . Wissmann was issued one of the first Maxim guns which had reached Germany and used it successfully in his capture of Pangani . The Singapore Volunteer Corps received a Maxim gun in 1889, but it was never used. This was a civilian volunteer defence unit on the British colony. The Maxim gun was first used extensively in an African conflict during the First Matabele War in Rhodesia . During
440-524: The Battle of the Shangani on 25 October 1893, 700 soldiers fought off 5,000 Matabele warriors with just five Maxim guns. It played an important role in the " Scramble for Africa " in the late 19th century. The extreme lethality was employed to devastating effect against obsolete charging tactics, when African opponents could be lured into pitched battles in open terrain. As it was put by Hilaire Belloc , in
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#1732772164354480-588: The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition in 1886–1890, under the leadership of Henry Morton Stanley . More a publicity stunt than a serious military contribution, in view of the main financier of the expedition, William Mackinnon , "merely exhibiting" the gun was likely to "prove a great peace-preserver". The weapon was used on several occasions, especially during the expedition's retreat from central Africa, not because of its devastating effects, but as an effective means to scare off attackers. One of
520-628: The Mahdist War (in Sudan ), notably at the Battle of Abu Klea , where its mechanism proved vulnerable to desert sand and dust blowing about. There was also the .577/450 Martini–Henry calibre Bira gun, based upon the Gardner gun but with dual barrels, an overhead drum magazine, and designed in Nepal . It is noted that the Bira was only ever produced in very small numbers. These are extremely rare and
560-899: The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Russian Army employed the Maxim in combat and placed a rush order for another 450 units from overseas suppliers, which were mostly delivered to front-line troops before the end of the war. By World War I , many armies had moved on to improved machine guns. The British Vickers machine gun was an improved and redesigned Maxim, introduced into the British Army in 1912 and remaining in service until 1968. Production took place at Erith in Kent, and some models were fitted to early biplanes also fabricated there. The German Army's Maschinengewehr 08 and
600-458: The Russo-Japanese War , the First and Second World Wars , as well as in contemporary conflicts. The Maxim gun was greatly influential in the development of machine guns, and it has multiple variants and derivatives. The Maxim gun featured one of the earliest recoil -operated firing systems in history. Energy from recoil acting on the breech block is used to eject each spent cartridge and insert
640-529: The Borchardt) and is considered to be too strong to be used in a Borchardt C93. Nonetheless, cartridge boxes from some manufacturers were marked "For Borchardt and Mauser Automatic Pistols." The Borchardt C93 was manufactured and sold solely in its proprietary caliber, the 7.65×25mm Borchardt . Some test models were made in 7.65×21mm Parabellum and 9×18mm Borchardt, an experimental bottlenecked cartridge developed in 1902. Maxim gun The Maxim gun
680-625: The British Royal Navy , which had successfully deployed the Gatling gun , became interested in the weapon, and Gardner was invited to England to exhibit his invention. The Admiralty were so impressed by the demonstrations that they adopted the weapon and purchased the rights to produce it in England. Gardner remained in England to supervise the construction of the weapons. The British Army then took an interest in machine guns and after
720-489: The C93 in anticipation of military orders. With about 1,100 manufactured by Loewe and nearly 2,000 more produced by Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), the Borchardt C93 was the first mass-produced semi-automatic/toggle-action pistol. The pistol used a toggle lock system, which meant that when the gun fired, a two-piece arm rose and flexed as the gun recoiled, thus allowing the breech to unlock and release
760-601: The Maxim machine gun since 1887. Model 1889 and Model 1900 Maxims were used for testing, which lasted for years but not continuously. The gun was finally adopted in 1904 as the Maxim Machine Gun, Caliber .30, Model of 1904 as the first rifle-caliber heavy machine gun for standard service in the U.S. Army. The design was characteristic for its visually distinctive cage-like muzzle recoil booster designed by Trevor Dawson and J. Ramsay of Vickers. The first 50 guns and tripods were made by Vickers, Sons & Maxim in
800-511: The Maxim was far more reliable than its contemporaries. A more immediate problem was that, initially, its position was easily given away by the clouds of smoke that the gun produced (although the same was true of artillery pieces and units of troops that the machine gun was intended to replace or supplement, so this wasn't viewed as a particular drawback by the early users). The advent of smokeless powder (developed by, among others, Hiram's brother Hudson Maxim ), helped to change this. The weapon
840-735: The Maxim, firing a one-pound shell, was built by Maxim-Nordenfeldt. This was known in the Second Boer War (in South Africa) as the Pom-Pom from its sound. The Boers' "one-pounder" Maxim-Nordenfeldt was a large-caliber, belt-fed, water-cooled "auto cannon" that fired explosive rounds (smokeless ammunition) at 450 rounds per minute. The Maxim gun was also used in the Anglo-Aro War (in present-day Nigeria ) of 1901–1902. National and military authorities were reluctant to adopt
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#1732772164354880-594: The Philippines, Hawaii, Mexico, and Central and South America, but never saw much combat use. During World War I, it remained in the U.S. for training. The Maxim, in the form of the PM M1910 chambered in 7.62×54mmR , has been used by both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022. Many Maxim guns were retrofitted to suit the nature of modern warfare, including its installation on technicals and
920-650: The Russian Pulemyot Maxim were both more or less direct copies of the Maxim. It also saw use during the Russian Civil War , which followed the Revolution in 1917. A picture of the period depicts a Maxim gun mounted on a tachanka , a horse-drawn carriage, along with the gunner, firing backwards at a pursuing White Army regiment. Anarchists attribute this mobile setup to Nestor Makhno . The United States Army had shown interest in
960-439: The U.K. chambered for .30-03 . Colt's Manufacturing Company was selected to produce it domestically, but challenges with schematics and specifications delayed its introduction. By the time Colt began production in 1908 (which was also the last year orders were placed for the guns), a total of 90 M1904s were made by Vickers. Colt made their machine guns for the new .30-06 caliber, and the ones made by Vickers were re-chambered for
1000-631: The company was absorbed into the mother Vickers company, leading first to the Vickers-Maxim gun and then, after Vickers' redesign, the Vickers machine gun . Maxim's first British patents relating to the development of the Maxim gun were granted in June and July 1883. The first prototype was demonstrated to invited guests in October 1884. A prototype of the Maxim gun was given by Hiram Maxim to
1040-474: The empty cartridge case. DWM employed Georg Luger to promote the Borchardt pistol in military and commercial channels. The pistol was tested by the U.S. Navy as early as 1894 and later by the U.S. Army. Although it was accurate and its rate of fire was rapid, the Borchardt pistol was expensive to produce and unwieldy to handle due to its almost vertical grip and distribution of weight. Furthermore, its recoil
1080-551: The factory where Maxim invented and produced the gun is located in Hatton Garden at the junction with Clerkenwell Road in London. Albert Vickers became the company's chairman, and it later joined hands with a Swedish competitor, Nordenfelt , to become Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company . The Post Office Directory of trades in London of 1895 lists its office at 32 Victoria Street SW (London) on page 1579. Finally,
1120-450: The feed system, which were designed by E. G. Parkhurst, an engineer at Pratt and Whitney. The army attended the tests, but showed no interest in the weapon. Parkhurst added many improvements to the gun's firing mechanism which made it more reliable. During 1877 additional tests took place with a .45 calibre (11.4 mm) version of the weapon, which determined its muzzle velocity to be 1,280 feet per second (390 m/s). On 17 June 1879
1160-487: The first stoppage, and after the stoppage was resolved it fired approximately 5,000 rounds without incident. On 15 January and 17 March 1880 duplicate tests were conducted at Sandy Hook proving ground in front of an Army review board. The weapon performed well, and they recommended that the Army buy a limited number for field evaluation, noting the low cost of the weapon. However the Army declined to purchase. At this point,
1200-671: The first uses of the Maxim gun by British Forces was in the 1887 Yoni Expedition . The same prototype used by Stanley was brought back to central Africa by Frederick Lugard , where it played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Uganda Protectorate . The first unit in the world to receive the Maxim was the expeditionary force led by Hermann Wissmann which was sent in 1888 by the German Imperial government to its colonies in East Africa to suppress
1240-602: The most improved type." In 1895, the Imperial Japanese Army purchased a number of Maxims and tested them during the 1895 invasion of Taiwan but later decided to standardize on the Hotchkiss machine gun . The Imperial Russian Army likewise purchased 58 Maxim machine guns in 1899 and contracted with Vickers in 1902 to manufacture the design in Russia, although manufacturing did not start until 1910. During
Borchardt C-93 - Misplaced Pages Continue
1280-536: The mounting of red dot sights . At least one documented Maxim gun used by the Ukrainian Ground Forces in the Battle of Bakhmut still had its original iron wheels with no visible modifications. A Ukrainian soldier told BBC News in March 2023: "It only works when there is a massive attack going on ... then it really works. So we use it every week". Gardner gun The Gardner gun
1320-608: The new round. A total of 287 M1904 Maxims were manufactured. The U.S. procured other machine guns after M1904 production ended, including the M1909 Benét–Mercié , the Colt–Vickers M1915 , and the Browning M1917 . M1904 Maxims were issued to infantry companies and cavalry. Each company had four guns with associated tripods, ammunition, and 20 mules to transport the heavy guns. The M1904 was deployed in operations in
1360-534: The next one. Maxim's earliest designs used a 360-degree rotating cam to reverse the movement of the block, but this was later simplified to a toggle lock. This made it vastly more efficient and less labor-intensive than previous manually-operated rapid-firing guns, such as the manually-cranked Mitrailleuse of 1851, the Gatling gun of 1861, the Gardner gun of 1874, or the Nordenfelt gun of 1873. The Maxim gun
1400-482: The weapon, and Maxim's company initially had some trouble convincing European governments of the weapon's efficiency. Soldiers generally held a great mistrust of machine guns due to their tendency to jam . In the 1906 version of his book Small Wars , Charles Callwell says of machine guns: "The older forms are not suitable as a rule... they jammed at Ulundi , they jammed at Dogali , they jammed at Abu Klea and Tofrek , in some cases with unfortunate results." However,
1440-530: The words of the figure "Blood" in his poem "The Modern Traveller": Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not. However, the destructive power of the Maxim gun in colonial warfare has often been embellished by popular myth. Modern historical accounts suggest that, while it was effective in pitched battles, as in the Matabele wars or the Battle of Omdurman , its significance owed much to its psychological impact. A larger-calibre version of
1480-403: Was water cooled , allowing it to sustain its rate of fire far longer than air-cooled guns. The extra weight and complexity this added, however, made it heavier and less flexible in use. Trials demonstrated that the Maxim could fire 600 rounds per minute. Compared to modern machine guns, the Maxim was heavy, bulky, and awkward. A lone soldier could fire the weapon, but it was usually operated by
1520-603: Was adopted by the British Army under the guidance of Sir Garnet Wolseley , who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in 1888. In October that year, he placed an order of 120 rifle-calibre Maxims using the same .577/450 ammunition as the Martini–Henry rifles. Wolseley had previously led military expeditions in Africa (the Ashanti war and the Gordon Relief Expedition in 1884–85) and had
1560-442: Was an early type of mechanical machine gun . It had one, two or five barrels , was fed from a vertical magazine or hopper and was operated by a crank. When the crank was turned, a feed arm positioned a cartridge in the breech, the bolt closed and the weapon fired. Turning the crank further opened the breechblock and extracted the spent case. The Gardner machine gun was invented in 1874 by William Gardner of Toledo, Ohio , formerly
1600-459: Was unexpectedly powerful. These criticisms were noted in the Swiss Army field tests. However, Borchardt refused to make any changes to his original design. DWM then appointed Georg Luger to make the requested improvements to the pistol. Luger took the Borchardt design, using the shorter 7.65×21mm Parabellum cartridge, which allowed him to incorporate a shorter stroke of the toggle mechanism and
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