First Use of the M1917 Browning Machine Gun

On this day in 1917 the M1917 Browning machine gun was used in action for the first time.  The occasion was the American offensive on the Meuse Argonne.

Val Browning, whom we recently saw demonstrating his father's Automatic Rifle, is demonstrating his father's heavy machine gun here.  Val, one of eight surviving children of John Browning, would go on to head the Browning Arms Company following his father's death.

John Moses Browning entered the heavy machine gun field in 1900, with this gun.  That was the era of the Maxim, and even though the Browning gun was lighter, and Browning had a proven track record of firearms design (mostly civilian, however, at that time), the Army showed little interest in it.  He improved the design in 1910, but again the Army, which was equipped with a Maxim gun, like nearly every Army in the world, wasn't really interested.  By that time, the Army had equipped itself with the heavy, originally Vicker's made, Model M1904 Maxim.

Model M1904, a great, but very heavy, gun.  As not water source is connected in this photo, it's clearly staged.

Then came World War One.

It's commonly asserted that the US lacked arms for a modern war and even lacked the capacity to make them, but this is really not completely true.  The US certainly had adopted some very fine small arms prior to the Great War, including the M1904. But the demands to equip an Army the size of that which the Great War required but everything in new light. And that put the Browning design back into consideration. After all, if the Army and Marine Corps were going to be buying thousands of machine guns, why not get an American design that was as good, if not better, than what they were then using . . .particularly if they only had 1,100 of the thing they were then using.

The spotlight came on to the M1917 due to an Army requirement that resulted in the testing of several guns, with the M1917 not surprisingly being the best.  Remington, Westinghouse and Colt were assigned contracts, but by June of 1918 less than 5,000 had been built.  Production would increase in earnest after that, but the gun was arriving late in the war.  Given this, the gun would see only limited use in the war, with less than 2,000 arriving in time to be put into action. For the most part, therefore, the United States relied upon French machine guns, with forces serving under the British relying upon British guns.  The US did not deploy its existing Maxim guns to France, which would have made little difference in any event, given the small numbers.

The M1917 would go on to be heavily used by the Unites States thereafter, even though production ceased upon 68,000 having been made. At that point, the gun was basically replaced by an updated version termed the M1919, which had a quick detachable barrel.  That gun was mechanically identical, but the quick detachable barrel designed for the M1919 dispensed with the need for the water jacket and the extremely heavy quantities of water that had to be transported along with it.  For that reason, the M1919 was termed a "light machine gun" and the M1917 was a "heavy machine gun".  Use did vary after the introduction of the M1919 with the M1917 being assigned out at the battalion level.

Marine Court heavy machine gun crew, Cape Gloucester, 1944.  The Marine in the foreground is armed with a M1 Thompson submachine gun and the one in the bacground with a M1 carbine.

In spite of the M1917 being an extremely good gun its weight put it at a disadvantage as compared to the its mechanically identical sibling the M1919, so those guns that remained in service after the first production run were primarily suitable for the static defense role that they were assigned and, therefore, its somewhat surprising that they remained in service as long as they did. They last saw active service during the Korean War, where their requirement for water proved to be a problem in the winter months.  They were phased out of service in the late 1950s as the M60 General Purpose Machine Gun came into use, ultimately replacing the M1917, the M1919 and the BAR in some of its roles.  The last ones actively used by the U.S. Army were used at Ft. Benning in the 1960s for training, with their role being that of the gun that fired over the heads of trainees as they advanced under barbed wire.

M1917 in Korea.

Of course, stopping the story of the M1917 with the M1917 is a bit unfair and incomplete.  The M1919, which basically replaced it in production, was a M1917 action with a quick detachable barrel, with quick detachable coming in the context of 1919.  The replacement barrel screwed in and was headspaced with a series of "go/no go" keys.  This system allowed for the water jacket to be completely dispensed with making the gun much lighter.  The advantages of this conversion were obvious and after the M1919 was adopted in the year of its nomenclature, production of the M1917 ceased.  The designation of light was accordingly applied to the M1919, although the M1917 was "heavy" and the M1919 "light" mostly in context.  Having said that, the M1919 was issued further down the organizational chain leaving the M1917 for more of a sustained fire role, for which it was truly more suited.

M1919 in action in Aachen, Germany, during World War Two. The gun looks smaller than the M1917, but the action is exactly  the same.

The M1919 was made in much greater numbers, in more than one cartridge over the years, and served seemingly forever.  The gun remained the main American "light" machine gun through the Korean War and was officially slated for replacement with the adoption of the M60. Even at that, it continued to see active deployment as a light machine gun in the Vietnam War and saw additional use mounted to vehicles well through the Vietnam War.  The gun was adopted to armored vehicle use and helicopter use late in its service life, extending it out for many years.  7.62 NATO versions served in various armies, including the Canadian and Israeli armies, for many years.  I saw a U.S. Army tracked vehicle sporting one in the mid 1980s.

The basic M1919 design was additionally developed by John Browning into the giant M2 .50 caliber machine gun which has never been replaced in some roles in the U.S. Army.  Browning started working on the adaption of the M1917 in July 1917 pursuant to a request from Gen. Pershing.  Basing the cartridge for the weapon on the anti tank cartridge developed by the Germans for their large anti tank rifle, the gun was adopted in a water cooled fashion in 1921 as the M1921.  The gun had some functioning problems that were not fixed prior to Browning's death in 1926 and thereafter further work was undertaken by S. H. Green which lead to the M2.  Made in several varieties for a variety of roles, the M2 has proven so highly adaptable and effective that its never been replaced in its basic heavy barreled role, that of the M2HB.

M2HB on anti aircraft mount in Normandy, 1944.

And so the basic Browning design that first saw action on this day in 1919, in its later developments, really carries on to this day.  Just recently the U.S. contracted, for the first time since World War Two, for newly manufactured M2HBs.  And its certainly not impossible that a M1917 carries on somewhere.

M2HB mounted to an armored vehicle in Marine Corps use, November 2002.