Dan Snow Tests One Of The World's First Machine Guns

In this video, Dan Snow joins British firearm historian Jonathan Ferguson to test fire a Vickers Machine Gun from the First World War. And the results are truly shocking.

This video is an extended trailer for the History Hit TV documentary 'The Sharp End: Testing Weapons of War Part 2'. Watch the full episode here: https://access.historyhit.com/what-s-...

What was it like to be on the frontline of a historic battlefield?

Filmed at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, Dan Snow gets hands on with the weapons that helped define history, handled by ordinary soldiers on the frontline - from Anglo-Saxon swords to World War I machine guns.

In part 2, Dan gets to grips with the rifles and machine guns that would come to define the British military campaigns of the 18th & 19th centuries and first truly global conflict, WW1. Each weapon is explained in detail by Jonathan Ferguson, British firearm historian, author and Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum.

Taking aim at targets deep underground at the Royal Armouries shooting range, Dan first gets to grips with the Brown Bess Musket, a rifle that remained in use for over 100 years and would accompany British troops across countless battlefields of Europe including Waterloo before moving on to the infamous Vickers-Maxim Mark I machine gun, the machine gun whose unmistakable rattlings became a mainstay across the western front during WW1.

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