As America’s first “light machine gun,” the Model 1909 Benet-Mercie traded sustained fire for portability, fulfilling an important role, but it’s unreliability led troops to nickname it the “daylight gun.”
At the dawn of the 20th century, the U.S. military stayed abreast of other industrialized nations in the development and procurement of machine guns. In 1895, the United States adopted its first “true” machine gun, the Model 1895, invented by the legendary and prolific arms designer John M. Browning. Almost a decade later, the U.S. adopted the latest version of the Maxim machine gun as the Model of 1904.
The air-cooled Model 1895 and the water-cooled Model 1904 were both belt-fed machine guns capable of high rates of sustained fire. The major drawback of both designs, however, was excessive weight; approximately 91 pounds (including tripod) for the Model 1895 and more than 152 pounds (including full water jacket and tripod) for the Model 1904. While these guns played an important role in combat, such weight obviously restricted their battlefield mobility. An automatic arm with adequate firepower that was easily transportable would fill the void between the effective—but heavy and cumbersome—belt-fed machine gun and the bolt-action service rifle.
To this end, the U.S. Army Ordnance Dept. evaluated a number of automatic designs and favored one from France’s Hotchkiss. It was perfected by two Hotchkiss employees, an American arms engineer named Laurence Benet and the company’s chief experimental engineer, Henri Mercie. The gun, termed the “Hotchkiss Portative,” had recently been adopted by the French in 8 mm Lebel and by the British in .303 British.
The cartridges were fed into the action by 30-round metal strips, and the rate of fire was approximately 400 rounds per minute. The gun was air-cooled, gas-operated and weighed about 30 pounds, which was only a fraction of the weight of either machine gun then in U.S. military service. The Hotchkiss was 48.5-inches long with a 25-inch barrel, had only 25 major components, and a thin metal bipod was attached to the barrel near the muzzle. Shot-out or overheated barrels could be quickly changed—a novel feature for the time.
Full story: 1909 Benet-Mercie Machine Rifle: The Daylight Gun