The Grim Reaper: Machine Guns and Machine-Gunners in Action

by Roger Ford

A dramatic narrative of machine guns since the 19th century, with detailed observations of their influence on warfare and continuing role as a force-multiplier with today's elite units.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1885119410
• ISBN13: 9781885119414
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Must Read for those Interested in modern Military History

This as a facinating read. It dispells myths and misconceptions perpetrated by Hollywood and most histories. It gives the reader insight into the development and tactical employment of a weapon that has and continues to change the modern world. As a reader well versed in military history, the chapters relating to the competitive development of the Maxim and Gatling were truly news to me, as was the impact of the Maxim on European colonialism. The DeBeer's diamond monopoly owes its existence to the Maxim gun...as a jingle went at the time.." whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim gun and they have not." The author's treatment of the evolution of tactical employment of the weapon is also very interesting and informative. Most modern non-military readers would not know what a machine gun barrage is, knowing only of it's use in direct fire mode. The machine gun barrage is firing the weapon at a high angle such that the resulting stream of projectiles plunge at a high angle in a parabolic curve, resulting a area known as "beaten ground". This is an area saturated by bullets that in practice is a lozenge shaped area. No aiming at individual targets is required. This technique was used as recently as the Falklands war where a section of medium machine guns expended hundreds of thousands of rounds in support of a single assault. This is a must read for anyone interested 20th century military history.

A remarkable introduction to machine guns history

This book is not (yet another) thick reference guide to machine-guns. Instead it is a remarkably comprehensive yet concise introduction to the history of machine gun development, production and usage from the earliest manual guns of the American Civil War to the sophistication of equipment in service of modern armies. Ford's favourite "pet" period is the 1900s-1950s era - a classic period in the refinement and perfection of recoil-operated machine guns (the "fifty-cal" Browning M2 circa 1928 is still in use throughout the world). From my humble perspective, the author is particularly successful in his bid to follow four separate aspects of machine-gun's history: - technological advances - production and logistics - tactical usage and strategic impact - "human factor" Most other books on the subject tend to select only one of those and discuss it at length. Ford's aim is much broader. He successfully manages to carry out those separate threads of argument at once. All four are seamlessly threaded into a single narration. It is a pleasure to see as complicated yet orderly mosaic of dependencies emerges. Suddenly lots of old historical facts start to make much more sense and cease being "strange things old generations did". You could see how human ingenuity, incompetence, politics and greed on one side and weather and mud on the other shaped machine-guns as we know them today. Throughout the narration, the author keeps precise balance between excellent readability and technical meticulousness. He never drools in extreme dry technicalities. On the other hand, quoted contemporary accounts are concise and well chosen to emphasize important technical or tactical arguments, not just fill the pages with military glamour or gore of warfare. Descriptions of selected important models are skilfully incorporated into narration. The performance details given are carefully constrained to important bits, so text does not deteriorate into a comprehensive yet boring enumeration of numbers and hardware components, the flaw many of Christopher Chant's books (for example) suffer from. By its very nature, such book cannot be encyclopaedic and include everything. Nevertheless, by putting particular machine-guns into historical context, it inspires reader to get back to related works and browse through them with a new interest. I quite recommend reading this book alongside some nice and heavy reference encyclopaedia of small arms. You will get lots of unexpected fun. Perhaps I should explain why I haven't given this book full 5 stars: This book only major drawback is utter and complete absence of drawings and/or action diagrams. Ford does a remarkable job of explaining the mechanism of action of particular guns and interesting technical arrangements using text only. However remarkable his control of language might be - such descriptions are sometimes hard to follow. For the person new to the subject this could be annoy

One of the Best MG books.

The Grim Reaper is an excellent machine gun book, and like some other people, I read it cover-to-cover in about four days. There are 22 pictures in all, and yes, there could have been more. Other than that, the text is easy to understand and it is very informative. The book starts with the beginning of the machine gun and ends with modern machine guns. The book described several military engagements with detail. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in machine guns or firearms in general.

Insiteful and Astounding and Objective review

The development of the machinegun and its effects on world politics, colonialization and warfare are incredibly well reviewed by Ford. This is not a field manual about how to service these weapons, but rather a look at how this (relatively) simple machine has changed warfare and politics and the world. I learned a tremendous amount about how this machine is used in combat and how those uses changed from WWI to Desert Storm. The technical review is adequate and the discussion of applications and deployment is phenomenal. The accounts of soldiers further illustrate the importance of this weapon to the modern battlefield. I read this book cover to cover in less than 5 days and plan to reread it soon. It is truly a must have for any serious military science or 20th century history library. Five stars don't rate high enough for this thoughtful review of Maxim's machine and its many children.

A very good account of this war winning weapon

I would agree with the earlier review that this is not a technical manual, its about machine-guns and machine-gunners in action and as such it offers a easy to read account of this weapon and its place in military history. The author offers enought technical detail about the various weapons so you obtain a firm understanding of how they work. He then places the weapons, their inventors and the people who had to use the weapons into their place in history. This was a very easy and enjoyable book to read and some of the accounts of the 'machine-gunners' were excellent. Overall this is a well researched and well presented book with over 300 pages of text and numerous black & white photographs which provides the reader with an overview of the machine-gun in history.