Reloading procedure for the lMG14 Parabellum.

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Reloading procedure for the lMG14 Parabellum.

Reloading a Lewis gun was pretty easy. Take off the old magazine, add a new one (making sure the notch on the magazine lines up with the notch on the magazine post) and cock the gun. Done.
In fact, the paragraph for loading a Lewis in the 168 page 1917 US Lewis Gun Manual (Van Nostrand) consists of two lines.
“Place a full magazine on the magazine post, with the catch on the right, and draw back the charging handle.
If the trigger is pressed, the gun will commence to fire.”

Does anyone know how the Parabellum was reloaded? I’m guessing that once the old drum was removed, and a new one placed in its spot, the end of the belt was located and fed through the side onto the feed plate. Once the first round had been pulled through until it was vertically inline with the barrel, does the end of the belt need to be held or have the feed palws engaged and are holding the belt? Does the gun then need to be cocked twice like any other Maxim derived gun? What happens to the free end of the belt? Does it just wave in the breeze or is it wound onto a spool like German fixed guns?

If anyone could help, it would be appreciated.

Tim

[Ransom E. Olds]

I think the belt just flapped in the breeze after passing through the gun. Everyone figured that if you were man enough to climb into one of those machines you wouldn't much mind being slapped a bit by the belt. There was, of course, a bag to catch the fired brass. As far as the Maxims are concerned, the belt isn't really wound, it just falls down through a chute into the spent belt box. Ransom

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Thanks Ransom,

I've never seen any sort of device fitted that could secure the free end of the belt, but then I'm not sure what I should be looking for. The only problem I have with letting the free end of the belt whip in the wind is that those ammo belt were very long. After you had fired 200 rounds out of your 250 round spool, you'd have meters of empty belt hanging out of the side of your gun, getting wiped around in the airstream. The chances that it could get caught in the elevator/rudder would be significant.

As the belts were only made of webbing, I wonder If they just cut them off. If you'd fired 125ish rounds and still had about the same to go after a fight, cutting off the couple of meters of empty belt hanging out of your gun would have to make the next fight easier.

Just thinking out aloud.

Tim

[Ransom E. Olds]

Tim: Actually I'd thought of just cutting off the flapping end myself. If so, it might be one of those bits of business that practitioners (in this case German aerial gunners) don't think worth mentioning afterwards. Ransom

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I found a video on youtube showing the loading of a Vickers machine gun (The Parabellum was closer to the Vickers than it was to the LMG08 or LMG08/15) and it clearly showed the belt being passed through the onto the feedplate with the right hand, and then held with the left hand while the charging handle was cranked twice. Based on this, I believe the loading procedure for both guns was.


Changing Magazines on Lewis gun.

1. Press catch in centre of magazine and remove empty mag.
2. Drop empty mag on cockpit floor for collection later (a)
3. Unstrap a new 97 round magazine (4kg)
4. Making sure the notch in the magazine is pointing to the right, fit the magazine to the magazine post on the lewis gun.
5. Cock the gun.
6. Commence firing.

(a) Complaints from DH4 gunner that the empty magazines were jamming auxiliary flying controls mounted on the gunners cockpit floor indicates this was standard practice.


Changing Spools on a LMG14 Parabellum

1. Release and remove the empty spool from the gun
2. Drop empty spool on cockpit floor for collection later (??not sure if the German did this or just threw them overboard as they're much larger than a lewis drum??)
3. Unstrap a new 250 round spool (~7.5kg) (b)
4. Making sure the spool is up the right way, clip the spool into its mounting.
5. Pull 20-30cm of belt out of the spool
6. Feed the end of the belt into the right side of the Parabellum with the right hand until the first round is lying on the feed plate in line with the barrel.
7. Now holding the end of belt with the left hand, cock the charging handle twice with the right hand.
8. Commence firing.

(b) The Typenprufung (19 June 1918) for the Pfalz D.XII give the weight of 1000 rounds in a two hole webbing belt as 25.6kg. This means a 250 round belt of the same would weight 6.4kg. The steel spool itself with convered slides would have to weight at least a 1kg gived a total weight of approximately 7.5kg. Does this sound about right?

If anyone has more definative information, I'd love to be proved right/wrong.

Tim

[Ransom E. Olds]

Tim: I make 250 rounds of 7.9 m/m cartridges to weigh about 6 kg. (figuring each round to weigh 24 g., give or take), 6.4 kg. seems a reasonable figure for the fabric belt with cartridges. A thought on the idea of tossing Lewis pans and Parabellum belt spools overboard: the pan is a precision-made component and essentially a part of the gun, but the Parabellum spool is really nothing more than a spindle around which the belt is wound. I'm sure one Lewis pan cost as much to make as a wheelbarrow full of Parabellum belt spools. Ransom