Hotchkiss machine gun

Troops of 1 Kings Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), 9th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, firing a captured Hotchkiss machine gun during street fighting in Caen, 10 July 1944.

The Hotchkiss machine gun was any of a line of products developed and sold by Hotchkiss et Cie, (full name Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie), established by United States gunsmith Benjamin B. Hotchkiss.^[1] Hotchkiss moved to France and set up a factory, first at Viviez near Rodez in 1867, then at Saint-Denis near Paris in 1875 manufacturing arms used by the French in the Franco-Prussian War, and later the U.S. government, who deployed them in the 1879 Mill River Campaign against Sitting Bull.

Variants

At the turn-of-the-twentieth-century, the company introduced the gas-actuated Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon which was widely used during World War I and thereafter by the French Army. Weapons manufactured in the Hotchkiss machine gun line include:

• Hotchkiss M1909, light machine gun also known as the "Hotchkiss Mark I" in British service and the "Benét–Mercié" in American service.
• Hotchkiss M1914, medium machine gun
• Hotchkiss M1922, light machine gun
• Hotchkiss M1929, heavy machine gun
• 25 mm Hotchkiss anti-aircraft gun, autocannon but sometimes referred to as a machine gun
• The Modified Hotchkiss machine gun, a Greek modification used in World War II
• Hotchkiss Type Universal submachine gun

References

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