To my esteemed gollegue aka 'The filthy guy', I like your oppinions, and I'm very jealous about your helicopter, perhaps if I come to the US, and happen to be in you neck of the woods we can go for a ride, after going to do some shooting on a range on my dime???
But about the ww1 battle of the Somme, you have it a bit off old chap, the British army suffered almost (just under a fiew hundred), 60 000 CASUALTIES!
Now, you probably know that casualties is a word used for KIA, MIA AND WIA, THAT'S, killed, missing in action and wounded in action.
I have to 'dissapoint' you, in the fact that the actual KIA figure was 20 000, and the rest were mostly wounded and some missing in actions, that is about 40 000 wounded.
This mirrours a ususal breakdown of casualties in modern war, you tend to get about two to three wounded for every killed, ofcourse especially in ww1, many wounded died later in hospital. Unlike nowaday's.
And you are mistaken that it was 8 Maxim's, for even if it was the big killer after the artillery in ww1, the front of the Somme was tens of miles, and there was more than eight mg's there, and surviving riflemen too, I know, I have read a couple of books on the Somme, one was over 500 pages thick!
And some Brit infantry got into the german trenches, and exacted their revenge on the Germans there, actually although MOST of the casualties were in the first hour and a half, the total figure of 20 dead and 40 thousand wounded is the toll for the whole day... And one Scottish remains of a Battalion that had got through the killing fields, continued to remain in their bit of captured trench for almost two weeks, until starvation and their ammo ending forced them to give it up and surrender. Also, modern re examination of the battle of the Somme, which lasted about two and a half months, and resulted in about similar end total casualties for both sides, that being about 350 000 each, and yet strangely the total figure for the Somme, on both sides is one Million men as casualties in three months, from these about 80-85% were British and German, the rest were French, and the whole attack, was pulled as a mainly British event, because the French were in the similarly hellish battle of Verdun, put these both together, and you realize that the German high command was not happy after the 1916 battles, even if the French and Brits had suffered near a half million casualties each, the Germans had suffered double, and they had the Eastern front taking it's toll too!!!
Just so that people get the right impression. But as I said, in essence you wer e right.
btw, the Finnish army still used the maxims in it's heavy companies in ww2... As did the Soviets, and to a lesser degree the Brits and the Canadians, in defencive work, it was a honey, but that tripod, that wasnt nice to carry!!!
Thanks anyway for the reminder!
Mr Poundr.
p.s. as I'll be posting ww2 guns this time as my pic gift (where are your pic gents)?
I thought that anobody into ww2 would be interested in this site: OH, and I put the ULTIMATE GANSTA GAK pic existing, guess which?
http://www.cafepress.com/flumecreek.34739721