Walk Around: The Vickers Machine Gun & Machine Gun Corps Event at the National Army Museum

On the 16 July, I took part in a Spotlight Saturday event at the UK’s National Army Museum in London. Organised by the Vickers Machine Gun Collection & Research Association the event commemorated the 100th anniversary of the disbandment of the British Army’s Machine Gun Corps but also commemorated the legacy of the Vickers Machine Gun itself and all the other units which used it during its service between 1912 and 1968.

The displays outlined the history and legacy of the Vickers Gun, with displays looking at the logistics of using the Vickers in the field, how they were used with range finders, the mechanisation of the British Army, the barrage at High Wood during the First World War, the kit used with the guns and how the guns themselves worked. Also on display were Robbie McGuire’s documentaries about the members of the Machine Gun Corps who were awarded the Victoria Cross and Adam Blackmore-Heal’s documentary about the shoot at Bisley a couple of weeks earlier.

It was great to see and speak to so many people who wanted to learn more about the Vickers Gun and then men who used them during the guns’ near 60 year service life.

I had the pleasure of giving a talk about how the vickers was used in the indirect fire role and I’ll be sharing that as a separate video in the future. This video is just a quick walk around showing some of the exhibits and kit that were on display. I highly recommend heading over to the Vickers Machine Gun Collection & Research Association’s YouTube channel and checking out their videos from the event too.

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National Army Museum Talk: The Vickers Gun & Indirect Fire

On the 16 July, I took part in a Spotlight Saturday event at the UK’s National Army Museum in London. Organised by the Vickers Machine Gun Collection & Research Association the event commemorated the 100th anniversary of the disbandment of the British Army’s Machine Gun Corps but also commemorated the legacy of the Vickers Machine Gun itself. In support of the event I gave a talk on how the Vickers was used in the indirect fire role. Find out more about the events commemorating the Machine Gun Corps here.

*Indirect fire talk at National Army Museum (LM)*

16 Vickers Machine Guns in Action – Commemorating the Legacy of the Machine Gun Corps

A couple of weeks ago I had the honour of taking part in a shoot at Bisley to commemorate the disbandment of the British Army’s Machine Gun Corps. The Corps was formed in 1915 and disbanded in July 1922. They left an important legacy of skills and doctrine for machine gun use which remains with the British Army today.

*Myself an TJ manning a Nepalese contract Vickers Gun during the shoot. We portrayed members of the Guard Machine Gun Regiment (all photos courtesy of Adam Blackmore-Heal)*

The shoot was organised by my friend Rich Fisher of the Vickers Machine Gun Collection & Research Association. The shoot gathered 16 Vickers Machine Guns, the equivalent of a First World War Machine Gun Corps company. Each gun represented a different period of the British Army’s use of the Vickers Gun from 1912 all the way through to 1968, when it finally went out of service.

Here’s some photos from the shoot (courtesy of Adam Blackmore-Heal):

Throughout the day I captured some behind the scenes footage and Rich Willis was kind enough to run my camera for me during the shoot when I had my hands full. This was the first time this many guns had been fired together in 20 years and all in all around 16,000 rounds were fired and over 700 people turned out to watch the event.

Not only did the day illustrate the impressive volume of fire that the guns were capable of but it also put their lethality into perspective. The shoot illustrated the devastation the weapons could bring and the important legacy of the men who manned them.

I highly recommend visiting the Vickers Machine Gun Collection & Research Association’s YouTube channel to watch the stream of the full 45 minute shoot, a brilliant 360-degree view video which puts you right on the firing point and a really special 20 minute mini documentary about the shoot.

Vickers Gun In The Rhineland

In this final video of the Rhineland Campaign Weapons series we take a look at the little known role of the British and Commonwealth forces’ Vickers Guns. With the help of the Vickers MG Collection & Research Association we recreated a platoon line consisting of 4 Vickers Guns to recreate the Pepperpot tactics used during Operation Veritable – the western Allies’ invasion of Germany.

In this video we examine how Vickers Medium Machine Guns were used en masse to soften up enemy positions before Operation Veritable began and during the subsequent advance into the Rhineland. The Vickers was used alongside artillery, mortars and even anti-aircraft guns in what was known as a ‘pepperpot’ fire plan – where the focus was on weight of fire. The Vickers supported the advance through out the campaign and in this video we aimed to capture some of the feel of what those pepperpot bombardments might have been like – albeit on much, much smaller scale.

Using contemporary photographs and footage we recreated the gun pits, complete with overhead cover, pits dug to the original manuals and plenty of empty belts and belt boxes. Right down to the gun crews being badged up as Middlesex Regiment. Check out the comparison of our shoot and a contemporary photograph taken during the battle for Goch, 20 February 1945.

Below are some behind the scenes photos from the shoot taken by myself and Robbie McGuire:

A huge thank you to everyone who made the shoot possible, I’m very proud of what we were able to achieve with this shoot.

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