Browning Model 1917
Browning Model 1917A1 water-cooled machine gun
Type	Heavy machine gun
Place of origin	United States
Service history
Used by	See Users
Wars	World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War
Production history
Variants	1917A1
Specifications
Weight	103 lb (47 kg) (gun, tripod, water, and ammunition)
Barrel length	24 in (609 mm)
Cartridge	.30-06 Springfield
Action	Recoil-operated automatic
Rate of fire	450 round/min, 600 round/min for M1917A1
Muzzle velocity	2,800 ft/s (853.6 m/s)
Feed system	250 round fabric belt

The M1917 Browning machine gun is a heavy machine gun used by the United States armed forces in World War I, World War II, Korea, and to a limited extent in Vietnam, and by other nations. It was a belt-fed water-cooled machine gun that served alongside the much lighter air-cooled Browning M1919. It was used at the battalion level, and often mounted on vehicles (such as a jeep). There were two main iterations of it; the M1917, which was used in World War I, and the M1917A1 which was used after. The M1917 was used on the ground and some aircraft, and had a firing rate of 450 round/min; the M1917A1 had a firing rate of 450 to 600 round/min.

  Design and development

  Val Browning, the inventor's son, demonstrates the M1917.

  US Army 2nd Lieutenant Valmore A. Browning firing a Browning Machinegun. This gun was used in the Argonne Sector and is being tested by 2nd Lt. Browning at Thillombois, Meuse, France, October 5, 1918.

  Marines push back a Japanese counterattack during the Battle of Cape Gloucester in 1944.

In 1900, John Moses Browning filed a patent for a recoil powered automatic gun^[1]. Browning did not work on the gun again until 1910, when Browning built a water-cooled prototype of the 1901 weapon.^[2] Although the gun worked well, Browning improved the design slightly. Browning replaced side ejection with bottom ejection, added a buffer for smoother operation, replaced the hammer with a two piece firing pin, and some other minor improvements.^[3] The basic design of the gun was still the 1900 design.

The Browning is a water-cooled heavy machine gun, though some versions that did not use a water jacket were experimented with; the air-cooled M1919 was later developed as a medium machine gun. Unlike many other early machine guns, the M1917 had nothing to do with Maxim's toggle lock design. It was much lighter than contemporary Maxim type guns such as the 137 lb (62 kg) German Maschinengewehr 08 and the British Vickers machine gun, while still being highly reliable. The only similarities with the Maxim or Vickers are the principle of recoil operation, T-slot breechblock, "pull-out" belt feed, water cooling, and forward ejection. Its sliding-block locking mechanism saved weight and complexity, and was used in many previous Browning designs. The belt fed left-to-right, and the cartridges were stacked closer together than Maxim/Vickers (patterns copied by most guns later.)

The Army Ordnance Department showed little interest in machine guns until war was declared in April 1917. At that time, the U.S. arsensal included only 1,100 machine guns, and most of those were outmoded.^[4] The government asked several designers to submit weapons. Browning arranged a test at the Springfield Armory in May, 1917.^[5] In the first test, the weapon fired 20,000 rounds without incident. The reliability was exceptional, so Browning fired another 20,000 rounds through the weapon without any parts failing. The Ordnance Board was impressed but was unconvinced that the same level of performance could be achieved in a production model. Consequently, Browning used a second gun that not only duplicated the original trial, but it also fired continuously for 48 minutes and 12 seconds (over 21,000 rounds).^[6]

The Army adopted the weapon as its principal heavy machine gun, utilizing the M1906 .30-06 cartridge with a 150-grain, flat-base bullet. Unfortunately, production was a problem. Several manufacturers started producing the gun, but they had to set up the assembly lines and tooling. By June 30, 1918, Westinghouse had made only 2,500 and Remington had made only 1600. By the time of the Armistice, Westinghouse had made 30,150, Remington 12,000, and Colt 600.^[7]

Until the start of World War I, the Army had used a variety of older machine guns like the M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun "Potato Digger" (which Browning had also designed) and weapons like the Maxim Gun, Benet-Mercies M1909, and the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun. Although the Model 1917 was intended to be the principal US Army heavy machine gun in the war, the Army was in fact forced to purchase many foreign weapons - the French-produced Hotchkiss 8 mm machine gun was actually the most numerous heavy machine gun used by the American Expeditionary Force.

In 1926, the Browning's rear sight was revised to incorporate scales for both the new M1 Ball (172-grain boat-tail bullet) and the M1906 (150-grain flat-base bullet) ammunition.^[8] With M1 ball, the M1917 had a maximum range of about 5,500 yd (5,000 m); with M2 ammunition, about 3,500 yd (3,200 m).).^[8] The rear sight had a battle sight as well as a raised leaf-type sight suitable for employment against either ground or air targets.^[8]

  Service

The M1917 saw limited service in the later days of World War I. Because of production delays, only about 1,200 Model 1917s saw combat in the conflict, and then only in the last 2½ months of the war. Some arrived too late for combat service. For example, the sixth machine gun battalion, fourth brigade, U.S. Marines second division, didn't exchange their Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns for Browning M1917 machine guns until November 14th, three days after the armistice. ^[9] The U.S. equipped about a third of the divisions sent to France; the others were equipped equally with machine guns bought from the French or the British Vickers machine guns built by Colt in the US. Where the Model 1917 did see action, its rate of fire and reliability were highly effective.^{[citation needed]} The M1917 weapon system was inferior to the Vickers and Hotchkiss guns because the British and French cartridges had about 50 percent longer range than the .30-06 service cartridge used in World War I.^[10]

  A U.S. Marine firing his Browning M1917 machine gun at the Japanese at Battle of Iwo Jima

  A Browning M1917 in action during the Korean War.

The Model 1917A1 was again used in the Second World War, and was primarily used with the M2 ball, tracer, and armor-piercing ammunition introduced just prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Some were supplied to the UK for use by the Home Guard; all production of the .303 Vickers being needed to resupply the equipment abandoned during the Fall of France. The M1917's weight and bulk meant it was generally employed as a fixed defense or battalion or regimental support weapon. At the fierce battle of Momote Airstrip in the Admiralties, the US Army's 5th Cavalry machinegunners killed several hundred Japanese in one night using their M1917 Brownings; one gun was left in position after the battle as a memorial to the desperate struggle.^[11]

The Model 1917 was called to service again in the Korean War. On at least one occasion, soldiers in the Korean War urinated on the gun when water-cooling had failed.^[12] The Model 1917 was slowly phased out of military service in the late 1960s in favor of the much lighter, and more suitable for modern warfare, M60 machine gun. The attributes of the Model 1917 and similar weapons such as the Vickers machine gun—continuous fire from a static position—had been rendered useless by the movement to highly mobile warfare. Many of the 1917's were given to South Vietnam. The gun did continue to see service in some Third World armies well into the later half of the 20th century. Some are still in use today by irregular military forces because its water cooled barrel allows for long periods of sustained fire.

  Variants

  US military variants

  M1917

Suffered from a weakness related to the design of the receiver. The original bottom plates were dovetailed into the Left side plate and right side plates of the gun. Because of this and the metallurgy the bottom plates were failing from the dovetails tearing out of the sideplates under field conditions. Also reported were bulging side plate probably from stresses put into the sideplates during the swaging process of peening the dovetails closed to hold the bottom plate in place. An early fix for the weakness of the bottom plate was for a bracket of steel that was attached roughly horseshoe shaped that came up both sides of the very rear of the receiver to the top of the receiver. A later fix for the problem was to rivet "stirrups" that were 90 degrees angles of steel to the side plates and bottom plate. The stirrup fix became the standard to reinforce the bottom plates until a more permanent fix for the problem was developed.

  M1917A1

In the 1930s the Ordnance bureau developed a new bottom plate that had side flanges that came up on both side of the bottom of the receiver and used rivets to attach the bottom plate to the side plates. This fixed the problem of the original bottom plates and became standard for all M1917 and M1919 series machine guns. The US Arsenal at Rock Island was a leader in converting the existing stocks of M1917 series guns over to 1917A1 configuration but other arsenals also converted M1917 over as well. In addition to replacing the bottom plates with the new improved bottom plate the rear sights were updated for the new ammunition and the new sights did away with the World War I multiple aperture disk on the rear sight. The top covers also had a stronger feed pawl pivot arm installed so the gun could handle the stress of pulling an ammunition belt the distance from the ground. Rock Island Arsenal also developed an all-steel water jacket that went into production around 1943 and was stronger than the earlier brass capped jackets. These steel components were interchangeable with the earlier brass ones to allow for repair of worn or damaged water jacket components. Other changes, some implemented in the war but not all M1917s received these updates. The pivot in the top cover is replaced with one that will be standard on all M1919 series guns starting in 1938. The World War I pattern top cover hinge pin appears to have been retained on most converted M1917s but later production M1917A1 had a positive locking top cover hinge pin that became the standard on all M1919 series guns. This allowed the top cover to remain open lessening the chance of it dropping closed on one's hands while working on the gun.

  M1918

Air-cooled aircraft version of the M1917. Developed during the First World War, the M1918 arrived too late, but became the dominant weapon of its type in US service until the development of the M1919. Features a heavier barrel, but lighter barrel jacket as compared to the M1917. A supposed sub-variant, the M1918M1, was developed a flexible version of the fixed M1918.

  International variants & designations

The M1917 pattern has been used in countries the world over in a variety of forms. In certain cases a new designation was applied by the user nation.

  Ksp m/36

Swedish designation for M1917s in 6.5 x 55 mm for infantry support or 8 x 63 mm for AA-use. In the mid 1970s all guns were rebarreled in 7.62 x 51 mm NATO.

  Ckm wz.30

The Ckm wz.30 was an unlicenced Polish-built clone of the M1917 chambered in 8 mm (technically 7.92x57 mm) Mauser.

  M/29

  Norwegian M/29 in anti-aircraft configuration on the Narvik front in 1940.

Norwegian designation for the Colt M1917 (mentioned in the following section) in 7.92 mm, used as the standard HMG and anti-aircraft weapon for the Norwegian Army from 1929 to 1940. The M/29 replaced the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun in Norwegian service.^[13] In all, 1,800 M/29s were in Norwegian service by the time of the 9 April 1940 German invasion.^[14] The M/29 saw sterling service in the 1940 Norwegian Campaign, often deployed as the only heavy weapon of Norwegian front line units.

  Commercial variants

Colt Model 1917 and Model 1928

Colt commercially produced the M1917, and also under contract to the Argentine government a number of slightly modified guns as the Model 1928.

The Model 1928 featured a thumb safety, Type A flash hider, and a mount for a panoramic sight unit.

Colt MG38, MG38B, and MG38BT

Derivatives of the Colt M1928 for general commercial sale.

The 38 and 38B were water-cooled with a barrel jacket threaded inside the trunnion, unlike the M1917 and Colt Model 1928.

The 38BT was a short heavy barreled air-cooled weapon resembling the Browning M1919A2, designed for use in tanks.

The 38 series also features spade grips, not found on the rest of the M1917 and the majority of the M1919 families.

  Derivatives

A simplified, air-cooled version of the weapon, the Model 1919 was adopted after World War I and saw action in World War II, the Korean War, and the Congo crisis.

  Users

•  Argentina
•  Republic of China (locally produced copies chambered for 7.92 mm Mauser rounds)^[15]
•  Norway
•  Philippines
•  Poland
•  Sweden
•  Thailand (designated as the Type 66)
•  United States
•  South Vietnam
•  Indonesia

  See also

• List of U.S. Army weapons by supply catalog designation SNL A-5
• M1919 Browning machine gun
• M2 Browning machine gun

  Notes

  External links

• Gothia Association for Weapon History on the Ksp m/36
• Segel, Robert G. (Fall 2009). "The Model 1917 Browning Water-Cooled Machine Gun". Small Arms Defense Journal: 60–69. http://www.sadefensejournal.com/images/browning.pdf. 

M1917 Browning machine gun derivatives M1917 M1919 M2 M73 Mk 19 Ckm wz.30 XM174

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