| Maschinengewehr 08 | |
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MG 08 on a sledge mount |
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| Type | Heavy machine gun |
| Place of origin | German Empire |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1908–1945 (Germany) 1911-1960s (China) |
| Used by | See Users |
| Wars | Xinhai Revolution World War I World War II Second Sino-Japanese War Chinese Civil War Vietnam War Finnish Civil War |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) Spandau and Erfurt arsenals Hanyang Arsenal |
| Number built | 173,000+ |
| Variants | lMG 08 (aircraft) MG 08/15 (lightened,infantry) LMG 08/15 (aircraft) HMG Type 24 (infantry,Chinese variant) |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | Total 69 kg with water, Total 65 kg without water 26.5 kg gun body, 4 kg of water, 38.5 kg tripod |
| Length | 1175 mm |
| Crew | four man crew |
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| Cartridge | 8x57 IS 13x92 TuF mm (TuF variant) |
| Action | Short recoil, Toggle locked |
| Rate of fire | 450-500 rounds/min |
| Muzzle velocity | 900 metres per second (3,000 ft/s) |
| Effective range | 2,000 metres (2,200 yd) |
| Maximum range | 3,500 metres (3,800 yd) |
| Feed system | 250-round fabric belt |
The Maschinengewehr 08, or MG08, was the German Army's standard machine gun in World War I and is an adoption of Hiram S. Maxim's original 1884 Maxim Gun. It was produced in a number of variants during the war. The MG 08 remained in service until the outbreak of World War II due to shortages of its successors, the MG 13 Dreyse and the MG34. It was retired from front-line service by 1942.
The Maschinengewehr 08 (or MG08)—so-named after 1908, its year of adoption—was a development of the license made Maschinengewehr 01. It could reach a firing rate of up to 400 rounds per minute using 250-round fabric belts of 7.9mm ammunition, although sustained firing would lead to overheating; it was water-cooled using a jacket around the barrel that held approximately one gallon. Using a separate attachment sight with range calculator for indirect fire, the MG08 could be operated from cover. Additional telescopic sights were also developed and used in quantity during the war.
The MG08, like the Maxim Gun, operated on the basis of short barrel recoil and a toggle lock; once cocked and fired the MG08 would continue firing rounds until the trigger was released (or until all available ammunition was expended). Its practical range was estimated at some 2,000 metres (2,200 yd) up to an extreme range of 3,600 metres (3,900 yd). The MG08 was mounted on a sled mount (German: Schlitten) that was ferried between locations either on carts or else carried above men's shoulders in the manner of a stretcher.
Pre-war production was by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) in Berlin and the government arsenal at Spandau (so that the gun was often referred to as a Spandau MG08). When the war began in August 1914, approximately 12,000 MG08s were available to battlefield units; production, at numerous factories, was however markedly ramped up during wartime. In 1914 some 200 MG08s were produced each month; by 1916—once the weapon had established itself as the pre-eminent defensive battlefield weapon—the number had increased to 3,000; and a year later to 14,400 per month.
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A lightened and thus more portable version of the MG08 was tested as a prototype in 1915 by a team of weapon designers under the direction of a Colonel Friedrich von Merkatz—the MG08/15. The MG08/15 had been designed to be manned by four trained infantrymen spread on the ground around the gun and in the prone position. To accomplish that purpose the MG08/15 featured a short bipod rather than a heavy sled mount tripod, plus a wooden gunstock and a pistol grip. At 18 kg, the MG08/15 was lighter and less cumbersome than the standard MG08 since the MG08/15 had been designed to provide increased mobility of infantry automatic fire. It nevertheless remained a bulky water-cooled weapon which was quite demanding on the quality and training of its crews. Accurate fire was difficult to achieve and usually in short bursts only. It was first introduced in battle during the French "Chemin des Dames" offensive in April 1917 where it contributed to the very high casualty count among the French assailants. Its deployment in increasingly large numbers with all front line infantry regiments continued in 1917 and during the German offensives of the spring and summer of 1918. The MG08/15 became, by far, the most common German machine gun deployed in World War I (Dolf Goldsmith, 1989) since it reached a full allocation of six guns per company or 72 guns per regiment in 1918. By that time, there were four times as many MG08/15 light machine guns than heavy MG08 machine guns in each infantry regiment. To attain this goal, about 130,000 MG08/15 had to be manufactured during World War I, most of them by the Spandau and Erfurt government arsenals.
An air-cooled and thus water-free and lighter version of the MG08/15, designated as the MG08/18, was battlefield tested in small numbers during the last months of the war. The MG08/18's barrel was heavier but it could not be quick-changed, thus overheating was inevitably a problem. It would take the much later MG34, yet to come, to achieve that indispensable flexibility.
The word 08/15 lives on as an idiom in colloquial German, 08/15 (pronounced German: Null-acht-fünfzehn), being used even today as an adjective to denote something totally ordinary and lacking in originality or specialness.
A lightened air-cooled version, the lMG 08, was developed by the Spandau arsenal as a rigidly mounted aircraft machine gun and went into production in 1915, in single-gun mounts, for use on the E.I through the E.III production versions of the Fokker Eindecker. A lower case letter "L" beginning the prefix meant luftgekühlt (air-cooled) rather than Luft (air)[1]. The lMG 08s were later used in pairs by the time of the introduction of the Fokker D.III and Albatros D.I biplane fighters in 1916, as fixed and synchronized cowling guns firing through the propeller. The Parabellum MG14 built by DWM was a lighter (22 lbs) and quite different Maxim system gun with a very high rate of fire (900 rounds/min). It was introduced in 1915, and was, but not without serious problems on occasion (as noted by Otto Parschau), first used as the synchronized forward-firing armament on the five examples of the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker production prototype aircraft, and soon afterwards served as a flexible aircraft observer's gun for rear defense. The initial model of the air-cooled "Spandau" lMG 08 front-firing cowling machine guns had lost the stocks, grips and bipods of the infantry MG08s, but the 103 mm diameter cylindrical sheet metal water jacket was initially over-lightened with cooling slots, and because the cooling jacket on the MG 08 series of guns was an important structural support for the barrel, the excessive slotting of the initial air-cooled lMG 08 rendered the gun as too fragile to the point of making it impossible to fit the muzzle booster that the water-cooled infantry MG08 guns could be fitted with.[2] The later model of lMG 08 air-cooled machine gun had the slotting omitted at the extreme ends of the cooling jacket's cylindrical member, with a 13 cm wide area of solid sheet metal at the breech end, and a 5 cm wide solid area at the muzzle end, giving the resultant gun much more rigidity. Also, the lMG 08 retained unchanged the rectangular rear receiver and breech assembly of the water-cooled MG 08 infantry weapon, which would be "stepped down" at its upper rear and lower forward corners as the more developed and lighter weight LMG 08/15 version, always used for forward-aimed synchronized firing in dual mounts on German single-seat fighter aircraft, and singly on German armed two-seat observation aircraft. The LMG 08/15 version was created basing on lightened, water-cooled MG 08/15 version for infantry use, and soon found its way into aircraft with a slightly smaller 92 mm diameter slotted cooling jacket as standard synchronized armament on all German single-seat fighters. A device, occasionally fitted to the rear surface of the LMG 08/15's backplate, told the pilot how much ammunition was left to fire, and later on a significant upgrade to the gun's aerial usability was the fitting of the Klingstrom device on the right side of the receiver, which allowed the gun to be cocked and loaded with one hand from the cockpit.
More than 23,000 examples of the LMG 08/15 and an unknown number of the lMG 08 were produced during World War I.[3]
A variant chambered in the same round as the 13 mm Mauser Anti Tank Rifle was introduced in 1918. It was known as tank and aircraft (German: Tank und Flieger, abbreviated TuF), and had a designation MG18. It was issued in limited numbers as it was late for World War I.
Because of the Sino-German alliance, the Germans supplied the Chinese with MG 08s. Later in 1935, the Chinese demanded to have machine guns produced by themselves, so they created the Type 24 Heavy machine gun.
The Type 24 Heavy machine gun, first introduced to the National Revolutionary Army in 1935, designed to replace the original MG 08. It was the standard heavy machine gun for all Nationalists, Communists, and Warlords from 1935. They were usually made in the Hanyang Arsenal. Like the original MG 08, because of transportation difficulties, the M1917 Browning machine gun and other machine guns slowly replaced the Type 24 for the NRA after the Chinese Civil War. The PM M1910, and the SG-43 Goryunov (or Type 53/57 Machine gun) slowly replaced the Type 24 Heavy machine gun after the Chinese Civil War, but it was kept in service with the PLA, KPA and the NVA until the 1960s during the Vietnam War.
The Type 24 heavy machine gun's tripod resembles the tripod of the MG 08. This gun is not able to be mounted on sledge mounts. When aiming at enemy infantry, it usually comes with a muzzle disk. When used as an anti-aircraft gun, it uses a metal pole to make the tripod higher and usually does not come with a muzzle disk. The gun's receiver is similar to the MG 08's gun body. Like the original MG 08, it needs a crew of four.
The Type 24 heavy machine gun is chambered with the 7.92x57mm Mauser round, the standard Chinese military rifle cartridge of Nationalist China. After the Chinese Civil War, the People's Republic of China developed its own version of the Type 24 HMG chambered with the 7.62x54mmR Russian cartridge.
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