'Merit or Myth'
The Vickers Medium Machine Gun is now obsolete, a military museum piece, a has-been.
It had a long and effective period of service with the British and Commonwealth armies, most notably in the latter part of the nineteenth century, through to the Korean war, its most glorious, or inglorious episode being The War to end all Wars, The Great War, the 1914-1918 War. The war that was in many ways a ' Machine-gun ' war.
Second only perhaps to artillery, the Medium machine guns used by any of the armies involved, was the greatest taker of human life in that war.
The Vickers MMG was primarily a support weapon, not a forward position weapon, Its role was to lay down fields of fire over the heads of the forward troops, this it had the capability of doing on predetermined target areas at night as well as day. Its range using normal .303 ammunition (as used in the army issue rifle of the time) was about 1,700 yards, but using .303 Mk. 8z ammunition this range could be increased considerably when need be. The ammunition was fed into the weapon via a belt arrangement, with a tracer round in every 8th. or 10th. position. There were no Mk. 8z tracers, and although one did insert the normal .303 tracer into the Mk. 8z belt, they only served to indicate the direction of the fire not its point of impact, falling short if the range selected was in excess of 1700yards.
In the Korean war, because of the nature of the terrain, the role of the Vickers had to be revised. The trajectory of the gun made it impracticable for use in its accepted role, making it necessary for it to be used as an infantry weapon, positioned, more often than not, alongside,or,on occasions forward of the rifle platoons.
Vickers MMG instructors were a close knit group, jealous of their expertise, invariably holding the rank of sergeant, duty bound to teach those allocated to their charge the complexities, full range of uses, maintenance and effective application of the weapon, yet at the same time, holding back just enough of their know-how, in order to prevent those charges learning to the point where the mystique surrounding the weapon was penetrated and so rendering them mere mortals.
This long standing, in-built cliquish structure of the 'MMG Instructors Brotherhood' was more prevalent in the peace-time Army, diminishing somewhat in times of conflict, when outstanding students would be whisked off to active theatres and be less likely to be seen as prospective members of 'The Club', therefore posing little threat to its highly respected, influential status.
All this served to add to the mystery of the Vickers MMG, resulting in the exaggeration of weapon's effectiveness. It was a good weapon, but not the panacea it was given the status of.
Used on open flat terrain, on a 'sticky traverse' yes, its performance was quite impressive, as most other weapons in its category, a fact born out by the statistics in the opening paragraphs, in other curcumstances, questionable.
This brings me to a particular incident, one amongst several, where expectations of the Vickers MMG, were dismally and frighteningly unrealised.
This incident took place on the 'Hook' position in the spring of '51, when a sole figure was observed, his back towards our direction, preparing some defensive works on the forward slopes of the Chinese occupied hills opposite our gun-pits at a distance of about 2000 yards, well within the Vicker's range using Mk. 8z ammunition.
From his attire this individual was a member of one of the labour battalions that were a feature of the Chinese military set-up. Personel from these battalions were used to construct defensive works and communication trenches for the fighting troops and were adept at tunnel digging, which was an extensively used practice by the Chinese.
The man observed was dressed in a loosely fitting shirt-like tunic and baggy trousers to match and sported a Coolie type hat. Had it not been for the fairly conspicuous freshly dug earth resulting from his labours that spilled down the hillside, contrasting against the green of the ground cover in that area it is doubtful he would have been seen.
His precise activity was, lowering a wicker basket on a rope down hole in the hillside, to be filled with earth that was the being dug out by a second unseen worker and disposing of it by tipping onto the sloping ground creating a cone shaped feature that became more noticeable the more he tipped. It was this increasingly conspicuous pile of earth that gave away his presence.
Our initial reaction was to let him get on with it. It was a nice day, no hostile activity was in progress at that time and he didn't seem likely to interrupt the relative calm.
However, the powers that be, once the activity of this chap had been reported, decided his presence was a threat to our forces and that his digging should be discouraged.
They baulked at using 20lb Centurion tank rounds,or 25lb artillery shells to 'take him out' for obvious reasons, that type of response on a relatively quiet day along that part of the line would have prompted inquiries from Brigade HQ. To justify that level of weaponry against one individual would have been difficult, however, it would certainly have put a stop to any similar activity, which as it turned out wasn't the effect of the method chosen.
We were ordered to transfer one of our two Vickers from its gun-pit, positioned where its traverse area did not encompass the target to be dealt with, to one that did and on the command to open fire, once the range finder had established the distance, commenced to give this 'chap' a 'seeing-to'. After four or five, three minute bursts, with the section sergeant observing the 'consequences' through his binoculars and relaying the results of the 'devastation' to all those who had gathered to witness the man's demise, it transpired, he had ceased his hoisting, turned to face our direction, put his hand to his brow as a shield against the sun, surveyed the general area in front of him for a minute or two, then returned to his hoisting and tipping occupation. We continued to fire for another ten to fifteen minutes, altering the range setting of the gun several times, but gave up when the intrepid chinaman refused to fall down in a heap and continued his allotted task.