Created by a long-forgotten Austrian nobleman, Adolf Odkolek von
Augezd, the air-cooled Hotchkiss machine gun was the first to
function effectively by tapping propellant gas from the bore as the
gun fired. Although the Hotchkiss would be overshadowed by the
water-cooled Maxim and Vickers Guns, it proved its effectiveness
during the Russo-Japanese War. The gun, quirky though it was, was
successful enough to persuade Laurence Benet and Henri Mercie to
develop the Modele Portative: a man-portable version which, it was
hoped, could move with infantrymen as they advanced. Later mounted
on tanks and aircraft, it became the first automatic weapon to
obtain a 'kill' in aerial combat. Though it served the French and
US armies during World War I (and also the British in areas where
French and British units fought alongside each other), the
Odkolek-Hotchkiss system was to have its longest-term effect in
Japan. Here, a succession of derivatives found favour in theatres
of operations in which water-cooling could be more of a liability
than an asset. When US forces landed on Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima,
battling their way from island to island across the Pacific, it was
the 'Woodpecker' - the Type 92 Hotchkiss, with its
characteristically slow rate of fire - which cut swathes through
their ranks. Supported by contemporary photographs and full-colour
illustrations, this title explores the exciting and eventful
history of the first successful gas-operated machine gun.
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