Effectiveness as a weapon
The fate that many men met when they faced the machine gun.
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Throughout World War 1, the Maxim machine gun had become known
as one of the most deadliest and devastating weapons to make an appearance on the Western Front. Its shear ferocity struck fear into the souls of men and many who faced it came out to tell the tale. The Maxim machine gun can be labelled as both effective and ineffective for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the Maxim machine gun’s ability to quickly eliminate enemy forces was staggering compared to the casualty rate of regular rifles. The machine had the capability to fire 400-500 rounds per minute of which that was all that was needed to fully wipe out an enemy battalion. As well as this, the Maxim machine gun had a much further range than regular rifles had and allowed armies to eliminate enemy forces from a further distance than they previously had before. With this in place, it also restricted the number of friendly soldiers being killed as the enemy would’ve most likely been killed beforehand. The Maxim machine gun was so effective that the counter measure made for the machine gun was the tank which was a drastic measure to take. |