LEWIS MACHINE GUN.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 273, 3 November 1916, Page 2

LEWIS MACHINE GUN.

The Germans for many months were superior in machine guns. But the British have now a gun which can beat theirs, and is beating it every day, says the “Daily Sketch.”

Invented by an American officer, Colonel Lewis, and made in Belgium almost- to the moment when the German scouts entered the city of its manufacture, the new invention narrowly escaped capture by the Teutons. Its killipg power may be gauged from the fact that in one trench recently one of these guns, manned by a crew of two men, accounted for 330 Germans in half an hour. It has been described as a ‘‘hose of death,” and whether in advance or retirement it is going to be the supreme battle arbiter of the coming year. Suppose that instead of a rifle carried by one man weighing ten pounds, and firing fifteen bullets a minute, one had a rifle carried by two men, weighing 25 pounds, and firing fifteen bullets a second. What would be the effect on any advance made by the enemy No troops could meet such a weapon. Not one, would live to raise his rifle to his shoulder. The new arm gives the greatest volume of fire in the least time. It is working nowin France and Flanders night and day, sending a steady sweep of lead across the far-flung German line. It is as if a comb of bullets were carding out the Teutons from their trenches.