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Old 09-04-18, 02:38
Mike Cecil Mike Cecil is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Cody, Wyoming, USA
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Default Vickers MMG spent cases

Hi Colin,

Yes, makes much more sense now. The belt feeds from the ammo box in the centre tray attached to the mount which, as you have said, moved with the gun's elevation, thereby retaining the correct belt feed-belt port angle as the cloth belt feeds through the gun, and into the catch tray/box on the left side which fits into the bump-out in the turret wall.

Vickers MMG spent cases were ejected downwards from the centre line of the weapon, and would normally be collected in a canvas catch bag attached to the underside of the gun or down a short chute into a box. They would not be allowed to free-fall into the lower reaches of the turret for obvious reasons.

As I understand it, the Vickers .50 HMG was essentialy an MMG on steroids - ie fed the same way, so both weapons in the MkVIA fed from the right, ejected spent cases from the underside, and fed the empty cloth belt out the left side. NOPE - see edit.....

EDIT: I've just had a look at some images of Royal Naval use of the .50 inch Vickers (common in the early stages of WW2 as a close-in AA weapon on ships), and it shows drum magazines feeding from either left or right, so maybe the .50 in the tank fed from the left side (from the ammo box in the tray fixed to the mount) and the empty belt fed out the right side into the box mounted in the holder mounted on the turret wall, as visible in the AWM RYPA image. That would make the most sense given the configuration of the ammo box holders in the various images.


Mike

Last edited by Mike Cecil; 09-04-18 at 02:51.
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