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The propaganda of the war was one thing, the reality different (as always).Īt the battle of Mukden, which began on 21 February 1905, when the Japanese attacked Russian positions over a wide front, and proceeded to encircle them, the Russians employed their Maxims in batteries of eight, with one gun undergoing overhaul for each battery in action – the defenders were expending machine gun ammunition at the height of the battle at a rate of over 200,000 rounds per day. In less than two minutes they fired about a thousand rounds, and the Japanese firing line was literally swept away. The Russians held their fire until the range was only 300 yards and then the two machine-guns were brought into action.

A Japanese company about 200 strong was thrown forward in skirmishing order. The Japanese attacked a Russian redoubt defended by two Maxim guns. In an engagement dear Lin Chin Pu, in January, 1905, a German observer reported: More important than the role of supporting attacking infantry, though, was the machine-gun in static defence. Shades of things to come the same tactics were to be used on the Western Front during the First World War, but not at first. Initially, both sides deployed their machine-guns like miniature artillery, laying down indirect fire from rear positions, over the heads of their own infantry observers (and, just as during the American Civil War, there were many) reported that the Maxims, in particular (they were chambered for a heavier around than the Japanese Hotchkisses) were actually more effective in this role than the artillery they mimicked. Later, the Japanese switched their allegiance to the Hotchkiss, and the Mle’00 was the gun which armed most front-line units of the Japanese Army by the time of the outbreak of war with Russia. Maxim Nordenfelt and later VSM 1 supplied both protagonists – the Japanese bought four 8mm Maxims in 1893, and later nine ” New Pattern” Model 1901s the Russian Navy bought almost 300 guns of various types between 18, while the Russian Army obtained perhaps as many as 1000 guns from Loewe/DWM between 18.

Japan shares with Russia the dubious distinction of having fought the first major war of the 20th century, and the first in which machine-guns on both sides played a prominent part in significant numbers. But the Russo-Japanese war fully foreshadowed the Great War to come. Apart from the MG, all of these had seen some use before. The Russo-Japanese war was the first war to introduce all the nightmares of 20th-century warfare: barbed wire entanglements, recoil-carriage artillery, and of course Mr. And, given the established subject of this blog, you know that our reference is to machine guns, not to the products of Morris Garages.