The Lewis Gun was lighter, weighing 26 lbs, and more mobile and could better support the infantry in attack than the heavier Vickers guns.
In return the infantry received an ever increasing number of Lewis Light Machine Guns – two guns per company by the summer of 1916 and at least one per platoon by 1917. However, by 1916 the use of machine guns had evolved rapidly and in October 1915 the Machine Gun Corps was formed with the infantry’s Vickers guns being transferred to their command. Captured examples were even used by the German Army.Īt the beginning of the war the British Army equipped its infantry battalions with just two Vickers Machine Guns. Invented by an American, Colonel Isaac Lewis, the Lewis Gun was the most used light machine gun of the war with Belgium, the Russian Empire, the US Marine Corps and most famously by the British & Commonwealth forces all fielding the weapon.
