Vickers (7.7 mm)

Description

The Vickers (7.7 mm) machine gun is a water-cooled British .303 machine gun. Dating back to 1912, before the First World War, the Vickers machine gun is an improved version of the Maxim Gun (an early machine gun invented in 1884). In the game, the Vickers machine gun is only found on a few early British Tanks, being replaced with the BESA (7.92 mm) which became the British Army's standard tank-mounted machine gun from the start of World War Two. Due to being only a 7.7 mm machine gun, it, unfortunately, is largely ineffective against all but the most weakly armoured, or open cabin vehicles.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

The Vickers machine gun was only outfitted on a few inter-war tanks, of which include the following:

• A13 Mk I
• A13 Mk.I (3rd RTR)
• A13 Mk II
• A13 Mk II 1939
• A1E1 Independent

General info

The Vickers machine gun has a low rate of fire compared to other tank-mounted light machine guns in the game. It also has worse ballistic performance than other light machine guns used on British tanks, such as the BESA, L3A1 and L8A1.

Available shells

The Vickers machine gun can only be equipped with one ammo belt consisting of one Incendiary Tracer (IT) bullet, followed by two Armour Piercing (AP) bullets. Neither bullet has much penetration (maximum of 10mm), however, the AP bullet performs much better than the IT bullet.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Penetration in mm @ 90°
	10m	100m	500m	1,000m	1,450m	1,500m
IT	3.5	3.3	3.2	3.0	0	0
AP	10	9	7	4	1	0

Shell details
Ammunition	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Fuse delay in m:	Fuse sensitivity in mm:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):	Normalization At 30° from horizontal:	Ricochet:
							0%	50%	100%
IT	920	0.0091	N/A	N/A	N/A	??°	??°	??°	??°
AP	853	0.0108	N/A	N/A	N/A	??°	??°	??°	??°

Comparison with analogues

The Vickers machine gun performs poorly compared to other light machine guns in the game. It has the lowest rate of any tank-mounted light machine gun in the game. Although the AP bullet has the same ballistic performance as other light machine guns used on British tanks, the IT bullet is worse than the tracer bullet found in the belts of other British tanks, giving the weapon worse overall performance.

Usage in the battles

Due to the very low penetration of this weapon, it is largely ineffective against enemy armour (although you may be able to penetrate some vehicles with extremely thing armour). The gun is primarily useful for killing exposed crew members in open-topped vehicles, and SPAA, which are fairly common at the low battle ratings this gun is found. The gun can also be used for ranging, as well as marking enemy vehicles and obscuring the view of enemy players (shooting at their gun sight). You can use the gun against aircraft however it does minimal damage, has a low rate of fire and is usually co-axially mounted, making hitting aircraft difficult.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Gets two AP bullets for everyone (near useless) IT bullet (some guns have a 50/50 split)

Cons:

• Lowest rate of fire of any low calibre tank machine gun
• Low penetration
• Low damage
• Incendiary Tracer bullet performs worse than the Tracer bullet used by other machine guns

Historical part

The Vickers machine gun (sometimes simply called the "Vickers gun") is a predominantly water-cooled (however, there are also air-cooled variants) .303 (7.7 mm) British machine gun produced by Vickers Limited. Its heritage dates back to the Maxim Gun, which was invented by Hiram Maxim in 1884, and was one of the first recoil-operated weapons ever built. After Vickers purchased the Maxim company in 1896, they worked on an improved version of the Maxim gun, reducing it's weight and increasing reliability; creating the Vickers machine gun in 1912. The British Army formally adopted the Vickers gun as its standard machine gun on 26 November 1912. The Vickers gun served through the First World War and second world wars as an infantry gun, as well as being fitted to many tanks and aircraft. It was withdrawn from service with British forces 1968, last seeing operational use was in Aden Emergency in 1963. It was replaced in UK service with the L7 GPMG (seen in game as the L8A1, L8A2, L37A1 and L37A2), a British version of the FN MAG.

During the period before WW1 and WW2 the Vickers machine gun was fitted to a number of tanks, however with the outbreak of WW2 the BESA (7.92 mm) machine gun became the standard tank mounted weapon of the British Army (hence the Vickers gun is only seen on a few inter-war vehicles in-game).

Media

An excellent addition to the article would be a video guide, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.

Read also

• Maxim (7.62 mm)

Sources

• Wikipedia - Vickers machine gun

• Wikipedia - Maxim Gun

Tank machine guns
USA
7.62 mm	M37 · M60D · M73 · M240 · M1919A4 · Mk.52
12.7 mm	FN M3P · M2HB · M80 · M85
Germany
5.56 mm	MG4
7.62 mm	C6 · MG3A1
7.92 mm	MG13 Dreyse · MG34 · MG37(t) · MG42
12.7 mm	S.MG.50
USSR
7.62 mm	DT · PKMB · PKT · PKTM · RP-46 · SGMT
12.7 mm	DK · DShK · 6P49 · NSVT
14.5 mm	KPVT
Britain
7.62 mm	Browning MG4 · L3A1 · L8A1 · L8A2 · L37A1 · L37A2 · L94A1
7.7 mm	Vickers
7.92 mm	BESA
12.7 mm	L21A1
Japan
6.5 mm	Type 91
7.62 mm	Type 74
7.7 mm	Type 97
12.7 mm	Type 60 (B)
China
5.8 mm	QJT
7.62 mm	Type 55 · Type 59 · Type 86
12.7 mm	QJC88A · Type 54
14.5 mm	QJG02
Italy
7.62 mm	Beretta MG42/59 · FN MAG 60-40
8 mm	34/40M · Breda Mod. 38
13.2 mm	Breda Model 31
France
7.5 mm	AAT-52 · MAC 31
7.62 mm	A-A-F1N
8 mm	Hotchkiss Mle 1914
Sweden
6.5 mm	ksp m/14-29
7.62 mm	ksp 39 C · ksp 58 · ksp 94
8 mm	ksp m/36 · ksp m/39B
12.7 mm	ksp 88