Where did the Machine Gun Corps fight in ww1?
The MGC saw action in all the main theatres of war, including the Western Front in France and Belgium, Sinai and Palestine Campaign, Mesopotamian campaign, Egypt, Salonika, East Africa campaign and Italian front. In its short history, the MGC gained an enviable record for heroism as a front line fighting force.
What did the Machine Gun Corps do in ww1?
All armies would soon learn this lesson, as the machine-gun, perhaps more than any other weapon, drove soldiers from the battlefield and into relatively safe trenches, dug-outs, and fortifications. Overcoming the stalemate created by the dominance of firepower would challenge armies for the rest of the war.
What is a machine gun company?
Machine Gun Companies were units attached to the Brigade with the same numeric designation, in this instance, the 15th Brigade. Later in the war they were consolidated into Battalions of four Machine Gun Companies, attached to each Division.
What was a gunner in ww1?
Artillery soldiers, known as ‘gunners’, fired explosive shells. The biggest guns weighed several tons and were hard to move. Artillery guns would fire thousands of shells to flatten enemy defences before the infantry ran forward. This was known as a barrage.
What was a runner in ww1?
Runners were essentially foot messengers. They were men whose primary role was to deliver critical pieces of information from one command unit to another. Not only that, runners needed to make themselves familiar with areas of the front line as their battalions moved in and out.
How many bullets per minute would a machine gun fire in ww1?
450 to 600 rounds a minute
Early machine guns were hand-powered, not automatic, but they provided a gateway for what was to dominate 20th-century battlegrounds. By World War I, machine guns were fully automatic weapons that fired bullets rapidly, up to 450 to 600 rounds a minute.
How many machine guns are in a battalion?
Each battalion had an assigned strength of 28 officers and 748 enlisted men and was authorized 64 heavy machine guns, divided equally among the companies.
What do machine gunners carry?
Machine gunners have to carry the heavy stuff. While riflemen just have to carry their puny rifles and tiny bullets, machine gunners have to lug around a 24-pound (when unloaded) machine gun on top of their big bullets.
What rank is a gunner in the army?
Gunner (Gnr) is a rank equivalent to private in the British Army Royal Artillery and the artillery corps of other Commonwealth armies. The next highest rank is usually lance-bombardier, although in the Royal Canadian Artillery it is bombardier. Historically, there was an inferior rank, matross.
What was the worst job in World war 1?
Of all the jobs in the infantry, “the runner’s job was the hardest and most dangerous,” World War I veteran Lt. Allan L. Dexter observed in a 1931 newspaper article. “With a runner, it was merely a question of how long he would last before being wounded or killed.”
Who was the most famous boy soldier during the Civil War?
The most famous of the boy soldiers during the Civil War was Johnny Clem. Johnny first tried to join the Union Army at the age of 9, but was rejected because of his age and size.
How big of a crew did the machine gun require?
The Machine Gun in 1914 The 1914 machine gun, usually positioned on a flat tripod, would require a gun crew of four to six operators. In theory they could fire 400-600 small-calibre rounds per minute, a figure that was to more than double by the war’s end, with rounds fed via a fabric belt or a metal strip.
What was the Machine Gun Corps in WW1?
The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in the First World War. The Heavy Branch of the MGC was the first to use tanks in combat and was subsequently turned into the Tank Corps, later called the Royal Tank Regiment.
What is the cap badge of the Machine Gun Corps?
Cap badge of the Machine Gun Corps. The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in the First World War.
What can we learn from the British Machine Gun Corps?
As far as British army personnel are concerned, and Machine Gun Corps soldiers in particular, this opens up a very useful additional source of data. Probably the most significant part will be the identity of the unit in which a given soldier was serving at the time of his capture.
How was the infantry branch of the MGC organised?
The Infantry Branch was by far the largest and was formed by the transfer of battalion machine gun sections to the MGC. These sections were grouped into Brigade Machine Gun Companies, three per division. New companies were raised at Grantham.