Gallery Title
Gallery Title
Machine Gun
Accession Number NWHRM : 2748
Description
Maxim .45 Machine Gun, 1893, of the type used by members of the Machine Gun Detachment of the Norfolk Regiment, 1st Battalion, in Tibet. Lt Hadow, responsible for the Maxim detachment, described it in a letter ' I don't know whether you have seen a maxim gun. It works automatically and is capable of firing about 450 shots a minute. The gun is mounted on a tripod and is so fitted that it can be taken to pieces and carried on a mule. I have 12 mules altogether for the two guns'
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The two maxims had a devastating effect. Hadow wrote of the battle at Thuna: '..I opened fire with both my guns, one of which I fired myself. The Tibetans broke out of the encloseure and moved at a fast walk along the foot of the hills straight across my front. As soon as my guns got to work the slaughter became terrible as the Tibetans fell in heaps where the Maxims struck them. I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, though the General's order was to make as big a bag as possible.' ...'They have put great faith in their charms to protect them from bullets and apparently they have no conception of the power of modern firearms. '
