re: #41 kirkspencer

From memory so the usual caveats apply…

In WWI the Brits had both the Lewis and the Vickers - a light and a (so-called) medium machine gun. In the interwar period the powers that be decided they wanted a single weapon that would fulfill both roles. The Bren is the weapon they selected.

From what I recall reading the Bren did well enough for replacing the Lewis, but there were things the Vickers did at the heavier end the Bren just didn’t meet. And of course WWII upset the whole plan leaving all three systems in play (plus more later). But that was the basic plan.

it wasn’t only in the British Empire that the Lewis saw service in WWII. USN small craft still used the Lewis gun during the Guadalcanal campaign. By 1943, however, the Lewis gun’s time in combat had ended.