Coupled anti-aircraft plant of machine-guns Maxim 1/72 UMmT 646

Coupled anti-aircraft plant of machine-guns "Maxim" 
1/72scale plastic model kit
UMmT 646

Manufacturer: UMmt (Ukraine)
Scale: 1/72
Material: Plastic
Condition: New in Box

The Maxim gun was the first recoil-operated machine gun, invented by the American-born British inventor Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884. It has been called "the weapon most associated with [British] imperial conquest".A prototype of the Maxim gun was given by Hiram Maxim to the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition in 1886–1890, under the leadership of Henry Morton Stanley. More a publicity stunt than a serious military contribution, in view of the main financier of the expedition,William Mackinnon, "merely exhibiting" the gun was likely to "prove a great peace-preserver". And in fact the gun was used on several occasions, especially during the expedition's retreat from central Africa, not because of its devastating effects, but as an effective means to scare off native attackers. The same prototype was brought back to central Africa by Frederick Lugard, where it played an instrumental role in the establishment of a British protectorate over present-day Uganda (then Buganda), which is a strong testament to the sturdiness and reliability of the weapon and its prototype.

The first unit in the world to receive the Maxim was the Singapore Volunteer Corps in 1889. This was a civilian volunteer defence unit on the then-British island.

The Maxim gun was first used by Britain's colonial forces in the 1893–1894 First Matabele War in Rhodesia. During the Battle of the Shangani, 700 soldiers fought off 3,000 warriors with just four Maxim guns. It played an important role in the swift European colonization of Africa in the late 19th century. The extreme lethality was employed to devastating effect against obsolete charging tactics, when native opponents could be lured into pitched battles in open terrain. As it was put byHilaire Belloc, in the words of the figure "Blood" in his poem "The Modern Traveller":

Whatever happens, we have got

The Maxim gun, and they have not.

However, the destructive power of the Maxim gun in colonial warfare has often been overegged by popular myth. Modern historical accounts suggest that, while it was effective in pitched-battle situations such as the Matabele war or the 1898 Battle of Omdurman, its significance owed much to the psychological impact the weapon had.

A larger-calibre version of the Maxim, firing a one-pound shell, was built by Maxim-Nordenfeldt. This was known in the Second Boer War(in South Africa) as the Pom-Pom from its sound and was used on both sides. The Maxim gun was also used in the Anglo-Aro War (in present day Nigeria) of 1901–1902.