Lewis gun drum magazine loading question

[Justin Moretti]

A few questions, for novel research.

Background: I've seen a video showing how it's done (Source

).

Questions:

1) Is there a more automated way of doing it? (By way of contrast, I've seen another vid with a really neat machine that loads Hotchkiss trays with little effort beyond feeding in the strips and pouring more rounds in.

)

2) How long does it take a practised person to load a full drum, assuming all rounds are ball to make things simpler?

3) Assuming "no" as the answer to (1), how long would it take for the average soldier to get thoroughly weary of doing this and want to do something else for a bit? (In my story, they cart Lewis drums up to the defenders as a break between loading sessions.)

Thanks heaps.

[Deerhunter]

There's no easier way of loading the magazine than is shown here (using the loading tool). To load a full mag took me approx ten minutes, bearing in mind you load the rounds in two "layers", i.e. you rotate the loading tool, feeding one round at a time, complete the first layer of 24 rounds. You then continue to rotate the loading tool to move the aluminium inner feed element of the mag and complete a second 23 round "layer". Due to the number of rounds in the magazine it gets progressively more difficult to rotate the tool and magazine inner - expecially if there is any damage to the outer edges of the magazine (dents, etc).

This process is difficult using a clean magazine. In adverse conditions, with dirty hands, dirty rounds, and dust / mud / grit, etc. it would have been a nightmare.

Rgds,

DD

[centurion]

In adverse conditions, with dirty hands, dirty rounds, and dust / mud / grit, etc. it would have been a nightmare.

Which is why it was rarely, if ever done. In attack the gunner's supports would carry preloaded magazines. In a defensive position there would be a stack of loaded mags available. Nothing unusual - I doubt if many Vickers belts got loaded at the gun position either.

[TonyE]

I agree with Centurion, magazines were loaded prior to action and carried forward by members of the team. Like Deerhunter, I have loaded a few Lewis mags in my time and there is no easy way. I hate to think how hard it must have been to load the 97 round aircraft magazines!

Incidentally, I don't see why it would make any difference whether ball, tracer or AP was being loaded. Admittedly a dgree more care would be nooded with Pomeroy or RTS.

It was only at the very end of the war that pre-belted ammunition was available for Vickers guns. prior to that the belts were all loaded within the unit behind the lines.

Regards

TonyE

[centurion]

I hate to think how hard it must have been to load the 97 round aircraft magazines!

There is a photo somewhere of RFC armourers in a hut with boxes and boxes and boxes of 303 ball and a stack of Lewis mags doggedly loading the latter. It must have been their equivalent of spud bashing. Incidentally I've seen somewhere that mixed round mags were loaded if not just in time then pretty close to when they would be likely to be needed. Possibly some pilots had a preference as to the mix?

[TonyE]

Some pilots actually liked to load their own magazines apparently, and specified the mix in both Lewis mags and Vickers belts.

It was the same in WW2. Some fighter pilots liked to have all incendiaries loaded in one gun on each wing whilst others preferred mixed loads in all guns. Similarly, Bomber gunners often insisited on their own load mix, many preferring not to use tracers as even dark ignition tracers tended to blind at night.

There are very few surviving packaging labels from WWI air service ammunition, but this one from WW2 illustrates the point about all incendiaries in one gun.

Regards

TonyE

[Justin Moretti]

The video didn't make clear that it's a two layer thing, so thank you for that clarification. Ten minutes? Good heavens, some rewriting shall be required.

TonyE, my point relating to ball only was mostly in relation to relieving the loaders of having to think which type to load next, i.e. they just have to keep on reaching into the boxes of ball.

The scene takes place in an armoury in a fortress so the drums are all free of damage, the ammo is all up to spec, and there is no significant mud or grit. At least from that perspective, the loaders' position is optimal. I will bear the field conditions in mind!

47 round mags are being used.

Thanks, everyone.

ETA - TonyE, your latest post just overlapped with mine. IIRC some of the more careful pilots even liked to work every round through the breech of their guns, in order to ensure there would be no bulged-from-the-factory cases jammed in the breech.

Edited 16 December , 2011 by Justin Moretti

[jhill]

I can add a few numbers to the discussion. Attached is a page from the operation order for one of the last Passchendaele attacks of November 1917 for one of the Battalions of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade. This lists the contents of the Brigade dumps from which munitions would be sent up to the three assaulting Battalions (and the one holding the line!). We see there are 200 lewis gun pans (filled). Each lewis gun section of eight men carried forward 26 filled pans among them. This did not leave very many pans in reserve if fighting was heavy, so I presume it was assumed that sections would be prepared to refill pans themselves if necessary.

In this operation the situation with the Vickers guns was different, as all belts were refilled at the gun positions. The report of the Corps Machine Gun Officers suggested something should change in future, as many casualties were suffered because of the number of gunners concentrated at the batteries filling belts, as well as the difficulty keeping the belts clean.

[Black]

Hello all,

Just add to the discussion of loading Lewis guns under difficult conditions, here's an account of the Australian 19th Battalion, 5th Brigade (plus some elements of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers from the left flank who reached the same position) in action at Flers in November 1916. It was an attack on the the trench system known as The Maze, east of the Butte de Warlencourt on the Albert-Bapaume Road. According to the Australian war historian Charles Bean, this attack was made under possibly the worst weather conditions experienced by the AIF on the Western Front during the coldest winter in living memory.

The supporting artillery barrage was negligible and the right flank Australian battalions became bogged down in the waist-deep mud, not reaching their objectives. The 19th managed to break into The Maze and hold it, unsupported, for 24 hours before being relieved. Their initial attack was successful because it caught the Germans in that sector by surprise. Many fled northwards using the support trenches, probably caught unawares not thinking that the British would be so stupid as to launch an attack in such foul weather conditions.

This extract comes from the recently published unit history "Fighting Nineteenth":

"While the efforts to launch supporting attacks on both flanks faltered throughout the day, the 19th and its attached parties under Captain Scott held on against growing German efforts to hurl them out of their position. One of the Lewis gun teams was led by Lance Corporal Louis Lewis. He and his two men were in an advance post in front of Gird Trench where they spent the day taking pot-shots at any Germans who approached the position. Perhaps the only thing the defenders had in their favour, besides raw courage, was the amount of materiel left behind by the previous occupants. The Australians passed their own .303ammunition to the Lewis gunners holding the blocks at each end of the trench so they could refill their magazines. They took up the Germans' rifles, bombs and flares to use against them. They also 'ratted' his rations, his water and anything else they could find, using his trench stoves to make coffee, which they laced with captured schnapps.

During the night of 14/15 November the Germans launched two strong counter-attacks at 10.15 pm and 2.15 am, but these were both spotted by the defenders because they used flares to signal the point of their advance to their own side. They were beaten off with the Lewis guns, especially the second attack where the Germans came up to the right hand barricade in Gird Trench. The Australians allowed them to get within 40 yards before opening fire. This strongpoint was commanded by Lieutenant Trenerry, but the Lewis gunner credited with sweeping away the German attackers was 335 Private Frank Thompson, an original battalion member, from Oatley in NSW who remained awake at his post for almost 48 hours watching this obvious attack route. Scott's defenders continued to take casualties from German artillery fire as well as the constant rifle and machine-gun fire from enemy positions further north."

Grim stuff, this! Imagine handing over all your ammo to fill the Lewis gun drums with frozen fingers in the mud and sleet. But this enabled the gun teams to hold the two flanks of the T-shaped salient that they had captured, knowing that there would be no ammuntion or ration reupply and no casualty evacuation until a sap was pushed forward to them a day later. Just as well there was captured coffee and schnapps to ward off the winter chill!

Black

[Robert Dunlop]

I can add a few numbers to the discussion.

Thank you very much for that. An interesting line item: 'SAA armour piercing'. What did this comprise?

Robert

[jhill]

Thank you very much for that. An interesting line item: 'SAA armour piercing'. What did this comprise?

Robert

I presume "armour piercing" ammunition was the stuff provided to try to get through sniper plates once trench lines were established. We have had various threads on this to which have posted our many ammunition experts (of which I am not one!).

[TonyE]

Thank you very much for that. An interesting line item: 'SAA armour piercing'. What did this comprise?

Robert

Robert - the .303 inch armour piercing SAA would probably have been Mark VIIW or perhaps still the earlier and less effective Mark VIIP. These were used against enemy loopholes and sniper shields, usually by our own snipers. Both types consisted of a hardened steel core in a thin lead sheath withing the normal bullet jacket. The complete sectioned cartridge in the picture is a Mark VIIW and the sectioned bullet is the Mark VIIP. You will see that the VIIP has a narrower "heeled" core whilst the VIIW has a wider and heavier core.

In this thread http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=172986 I posted a picture of a packet label for Mark VIIP which has an oversticker marked "SPECIALLY SELECTED FOR SNIPERS",

What is also interesting, and also relevant to that thread, is the issue of 500 rounds of tracer in the Brigade dump. 500 rounds is not very much in the context of a brigade attack so perhaps these were intended either for snipers of for indicating targets to machine guns as suggested in that thread.

Regards

TonyE

[Robert Dunlop]

Thanks Tony. I was aware of the SmK German bullet but not the British equivalent. With regards to tracer, my grandfather mentioned its use in night firing of the their Vickers machine guns.

Robert

[Deerhunter]

Which is why it was rarely, if ever done. In attack the gunner's supports would carry preloaded magazines. In a defensive position there would be a stack of loaded mags available. Nothing unusual - I doubt if many Vickers belts got loaded at the gun position either.

OK, belted ammunition for the Vickers is one thing as the guns themselves, certainly later in the War, were not deployed so far forward as to make "reloading under fire" a necessity (but I bet there were instances when this was done). With the guns then being in a Sustained Fire / Indirect Fire role, it would be possible to provide sufficient ammunition relatively easily.

Lewis Guns (or any Light Machine Gun at platoon-level and below): slightly more of an issue, that being resupply. Light Machine Guns in the attack would be provisioned at gun-team level, but what then happens when you run short of full mags? Do you think the gun team would be looking absent-mindedly at the pile of empty mags, feeling safe in the knowledge that more full mags would be brought up? I suggest that ammunition would almost immediately be redistributed within the platoon according to requirements, and that individuals' 150-round bandoliers would be filled into Lewis magazines, according to the Lewis' weight of fire compared to the individual rifleman.

[centurion]

OK, belted ammunition for the Vickers is one thing as the guns themselves, certainly later in the War, were not deployed so far forward as to make "reloading under fire" a necessity (but I bet there were instances when this was done). With the guns then being in a Sustained Fire / Indirect Fire role, it would be possible to provide sufficient ammunition relatively easily.

Lewis Guns (or any Light Machine Gun at platoon-level and below): slightly more of an issue, that being resupply. Light Machine Guns in the attack would be provisioned at gun-team level, but what then happens when you run short of full mags? Do you think the gun team would be looking absent-mindedly at the pile of empty mags, feeling safe in the knowledge that more full mags would be brought up? I suggest that ammunition would almost immediately be redistributed within the platoon according to requirements, and that individuals' 150-round bandoliers would be filled into Lewis magazines, according to the Lewis' weight of fire compared to the individual rifleman.

Unrealistic. Provisioning was at the Lewis gun section level (2 or 4 teams) and the battalion machine gun officer would be responsible for ensuring that adequate stores of filled magazines were available and/or could be brought up from stores in the support trench. Having an ammunition whip round under fire and then sitting down to refill magazines appears ludicrous. There are examples of Officers in offensive positions sending back urgent requests for ammunition boxes and filled magazines. Trying to fill a magazine under such conditions would get you a jammed gun. There's a difference between what you can do on a range and what happens in action.

[bmg17a1]

GThe small post style Lewis drum loader is adequate for casual loading of the drums. There was also a faster loader that mounted into the center hole of the drum and had a cartridge guide that would handle either stripper clips or loose rounds and the action was effected with a long handle that when levered against the drum, indexed the drum as the rounds were inserted. It is considerably faster and more efficient than the small post loader, but could not replace loaded drums at hand for combat. These loaders are quite scarce, but that may be due to field use and loss rather than low production numbers.

IMA sells a poorly constructed and basically non-working replica of these loaders that can be seen on their site under British Machine Gun listing. It is good for display from reports by Lewis shooters who have tried to use it.

Unfortunately there is no really fast/efficient way to load Lewis drums.

Bob Naess

Black River Militaria CII

USA

[Justin Moretti]

BRMCII, thanks for that. This rapid loader sounds like the sort of thing that might reasonably be available in a fortress with a large stock of ammunition and a well equipped armoury, yes?

[Robert Dunlop]

Having an ammunition whip round under fire and then sitting down to refill magazines appears ludicrous.

An unfortunate turn of phrase that could make the poster feel as though he or she was 'ludicrous'. There is evidence, some already quoted, that this was done. Every effort was taken to ensure that pre-loaded drums were available before and during battle. This does not, however, preclude the contingency of loading empty drums on the battlefield, as the evidence has already shown.

Robert

[Black]

Onya Robert! Bullseye!!!

Black

[Tom A McCluskey]

Hi All,

Though the preferred practice was to arrive in combat with filled Lewis-gun magazines, filling magazines under fire was a real combat exigency as this example shows:

From the book: True World War I Stories (previously published as Everyman at War – edited by C B Purdon)

“Stand-To” on Givenchy Road, Pages 225-226, by Lance Corporal Thomas A Owen, 1st Bn South Wales borderers

Suddenly a gun barked and a heavy explosion shook the trenches. The frantic rats squeaked and scuttled past us: men shuddered, and clattered their arms and sprang to attention. The barrage had started. I heaved a sigh and was almost glad the suspense was over. The barrage was pitched about 40 yards short of our line of trench. Evidently it would creep to us after first smashing the wire.

I placed five men on the fire-step and fixed one man with a Lewis gun and two men to fill containers for it. We waited with livid faces. The barrage crept nearer. Now it was 30 yards, now 20 yards. We were in a hell of din and slaughter. The trench was crumbling slowly to pieces. One of my men suddenly sank to his knees. A piece of a shell had torn at his middle and he sat down quietly to die a slow death. I shook with stark fear, but I held to my rifle and kept my place on the crumbling fire-step.

The barrage lifted again and moved nearer.

The man with the wound in his side moaned at intervals, and fixed his field bandage and held his hands to it as if to hold the very life in him. His groans, coming during the briefest lulls in the shelling, were unnerving us all. We crouched at the bottom of the trench, abject and trembling.

I passed the rum bottle round and took a long swig myself. Rum numbs you at times like these. It gives you Dutch courage and a lurching contempt for danger. You die more or less decently; neither whining nor squealing—which is as it should be. A moment later the machine gun to the right of us went up in the air and its team of men went up with it: a direct hit. The shells were dropping practically on the very brink of the trench. Now the worst had come. We were face down in the slime, with boot and finger and knee clutching and scraping for the veriest inch of cover; hiding our eyes, as we did once from childish terrors; now whimpering, now cursing, with bowels turned to water and every faculty at agonized tension.

... Who shall say where Providence came in?

Death grinned at us and yet not a shell hit full on our dozen yards of entrenchment. Still leaping forward, the barrage blundered over us and beyond us. It left us stunned and deaf and prostrate. The dying man mercifully breathed his last in the midst of it. Still we cowered in the mud and the slime. At nine o'clock in the morning the barrage started. It ceased as suddenly as it had begun, at exactly 11.30 a.m. It might have been a year of time.

The deadly stillness came on again but I ran among the others kicking right and left in a frenzy because I knew the attack was coming. The man would follow the machine. Looking over the top I saw the long grey lines sweeping along four hundred yards away. They were marching slowly, shoulder to shoulder, heavily weighted with picks, ammunition, and rations.

We scrambled to the fire-step. We fired madly and recklessly. The Lewis gun rattled and the two magazine fillers worked with feverish haste. It should have been horrid slaughter at the distance, for the Germans seemed to huddle together like sheep as they lurched over No Man's Land. But there were thousands of them and our aim was hurried and bad. We fired in abandonment rather than by design.

The impression now is that it would take ten minutes for a trained Lewis-gunner to fill a magazine. I don't think that this is the case. The chap in the video is a gun enthusiast; please do not confuse him with a competent Lewis-gunner [though even he is on track to do it in 5 minutes, even slowly, and with his detailed running commentary]. A Lewis gunner* would be able to do this drill fast and effectively (a lot faster than ten minutes), and would have had considerable practice - incentivized by stimulation of the central nervous system!

Hope this helps,

Aye,

Tom McC

*By Lewis-gunner I mean anyone in the Lewis-gun team.

[Tom A McCluskey]

Hi All,

For Vickers Gun-belts being filled at the Gun Position, See my post #23, second paragraph of the the excerpt. The piece is from George Coppard's book: With a Machine Gun to Cambrai. There was only a finite amount of Vickers belts, so on a big barrage shoot filling belts at (or near) the firing point would be neccessity:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=167355

Aye,

Tom McC

[Deerhunter]

There's a difference between what you can do on a range and what happens in action.

Thanks for that, Centurion, good of you to help me out

[DBAR1918]

Yep, it can be tough to reload a drum when not using a table and bench indoors. Take a look at the images I've just uploaded to the gallery.