The Story of the Machine Gun

This episode looks at the invention and evolution of the machine gun, and how the weapon that changed the art of war was adopted and adapted by war factories around the world. The Maxim Gun was developed by a British-based American inventor called Hiram Maxim and was the first fully automatic machine-gun. The only problem was that it weighed a whopping 136 lbs. British company Vickers acquired Maxim's company and moved on the design.