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Help identify a WW II machine gun

5K views 17 replies 9 participants last post by  Grizzley1 
#1 ·
The photo attached shows two heavy machine guns. It seems to me that the gun body and the mount do not match. The story goes that the gun came from an aircraft that was shot down and later was put on a different mount. The photo was taken in 1945 and is displayed at a museum in eastern China. Thanks. Haibin
 

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#4 ·
I'm not sure it's a 1919. They came with a pistol-grip trigger setup. And, as mentioned, feed from the left.



That looks to have double-spade grips, like a Ma Deuce. And it feeds from the right, although the negative coulda been flipped.

I did a search on tripods, and that one appears to belong to a Colt. That big U-shaped piece where the gun attaches.


I just found that, according to Wiki, during WW2 there was a version of the 1919 that could be fed from either side. But that was probably too late in the war for this to be one of them.

This section I've circled looks like the cocking handle rides in a curve, instead of straight like the Browning.

Circle


What I'm saying is, I don't know what the hell it is, but I'm pretty sure what it's not. :p
 
#6 ·
First thought was a spade handle M1919 but the curved cocking device (like Alpo describe above) does not ad up.
Second thought was a Ma Deuce with the cocker pulled backwards but than the sights are not correct and it feeds from the left but it can be configured to feed from the right. (Not that strange if it came from an aircraft)
 
#12 ·
Yes. Depending on which side of the aircraft the gun was mounted on would determine which side it was fed from. Both the 1919 and the big duece could be altered for aircraft application.
 
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#17 ·
I think we have a winner.And after blowing up photo-I also think I was wrong when about the mount,it could very well be a PD mount.The Japs didn't make anywhere near the quantity of MGs that other countries did in WW2,they made a lot of cool copies-Bren,etc.One of the neatest I've seen was a Thompson captured on IwoJima....pretty exact copy.
 
#18 ·
Yeah, the Japanese bough aircraft mount air cooled Vickers machine guns in the 1920's and started copying them in the late twenties. The gun in the Op's picture is either an air cooled Vickers supplied by the allies or the Japanese model 89 Vickers copy scavenged from a downed plane.
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