Mr Maxim was a genius.

Maxim wrote his autobiography shortly before he passd away.

Called "My Life", it was published by Methuen & Co. In London in 1915, went through 2 printings (both now rare and very expensive) before it fell out of sight.

Recently, it has been reprinted in a photographic copy by an American company and is available for $25. My local book-shop got a copy in for me and I am waiting for a couple more.

As well as being a wonderful look at the 1850s and 1860s..... and at the machine-gun business in its very infancy, it is one of the FUNNIEST books I have ever read.

Maxim was a screaming genius of the first rank. His experiments with aviation (he almost flew an airplane the size of a Lancaster.... in 1896) made possible the Wrights' success.

Pretty good for a self-educated guy with most of Grade 4.

His first prototype machine-gun is in the IWM. I am proud to say that I have had my own hands into its guts, many years ago.
 
The amazing thing about the maxim gun, is looking at the other offerings of the time, and realizing how innovative it was. A complete game changer, like the bow. Looking at his design, I am gobsmacked that he made it work so well, with nothing to compare it to. A true "machine" gun.
 
Maxim's influence is with us to this day.

We all use electric light bulbs.

Many of our buildings have his automatic fire extinguishers.

All of our aircraft use control systems pioneered by him.

He also started two companies which continue in business. One was the Maxim Machine Gun Company, which became Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which became Vickers, Sons & Maxim, which became Vickers Ltd and now is Vickers-Sperry.

The other was the Maxim Electric Lighting Company, which became Maxim-Weston and now is called General Electric.

Busy boy, you might say.
 
If he wouldn't have invented the damn thing, someone else would have. There are millions of graves full of proof that it worked with terrible efficiency; industrialized killing on a massive scale.
 
purple said:
If he wouldn't have invented the damn thing, someone else would have. There are millions of graves full of proof that it worked with terrible efficiency; industrialized killing on a massive scale.
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I'm pretty sure they put that in the ad.

Meh, more people, means a better culling method was needed. The club was too slow, and the Roman gladius took too much time to train people to use... don't hate the player, hate the game.
 
smellie said:
Maxim's influence is with us to this day.

We all use electric light bulbs.

Many of our buildings have his automatic fire extinguishers.

All of our aircraft use control systems pioneered by him.

He also started two companies which continue in business. One was the Maxim Machine Gun Company, which became Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which became Vickers, Sons & Maxim, which became Vickers Ltd and now is Vickers-Sperry.

The other was the Maxim Electric Lighting Company, which became Maxim-Weston and now is called General Electric.

Busy boy, you might say.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough one of the 18pdr shells the museum has is a V S & M
so yes busy boy indeed

now back to your regularly scheduled programme
 

Muahhahaha!

janice


Sorry I could not help myself. Please, someone- SAVE ME!

(Sorry I put some steam punk fiction in to the milsurp section- but it is better than asking how to bubba my SKS)
 
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Better mousetrap - 2 types - never patented - both still in production.

Blackboard paint - stolen - still in production by CIL.

Tension-supported wheel - never patented - try riding a bicycle without them.

Automatic fire extinguisher - patented - patent ran out, then production; Maxim made not a nickel.

DC-effect demagnetiser.

High-efficiency vacuum pump - bought and patented by Edison.

Filament carboniser - bought and patented by Edison.

Electric light bulb - patented by Edison.

And so on and so forth. Small wonder that when he was challenged to build a better machine-gun, he took the challenge, read everything written, designed carefully, patented every single idea and made a ton of money. His 1884 machine-gun contains Browning's famous T-slot extractor. Browning only used it after the Maxim patent ran out.

The Improved Maxim Gun (1891) was the FIRST industrial product to use MODULAR CONSTRUCTION.

In a Maxim Gun, there are NO loose parts banging about. ALL motion is under CONTROL, with the result that the Gun is never overstressed and lasts almost forever. To this day it is the best MG ever designed for a DEFENSIVE position. Small wonder Russia still has 100,000 in storage. We smelted ours.

There are FIVE major ways to make a fully-automatic machine-gun operate.

Maxim built and patented SIX.
 
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