The Machine Gunners

Product Information

The Bully: Boddser Brown, the Garmouth Grammar School bully and Chas' most avid rival in the great game of collecting war souvenirs. First published in 1975, I read this in the late seventies, aged 9 or 10. I've since read it twice more as an adult and am always gripped by the excitement, the suspense, the build-up and the action. As an adult I can see new aspects to the book, tales of friendship and evolving relationships, heartwarming and heartwrenching at the same time. It's the middle of the night when three church bells ring; the Germans are raiding Garmouth on foot. Chas, Audrey, and Cem, much to their parents worry, run out of the bomb shelter to fort Caparetto. Self priming and discharging Canon invented with 30 to 40 shots-per-minute". 27 October 1846. p.2 – via British Newspaper Archive.

Although subdivided into " light", " medium", " heavy" or " general-purpose", even the lightest machine guns tend to be substantially larger and heavier than standard infantry arms. [2] Medium and heavy machine guns are either mounted on a tripod or on a vehicle; when carried on foot, the machine gun and associated equipment (tripod, ammunition, spare barrels) require additional crew members. After school, Chas and his friends “Cem” (short for Cemetery, his dad is the local undertaker) Jones and Audrey Parton return to the wood to retrieve the machine gun. Taking turns sawing it off, they finally free the gun and sneak it out of the wood up the leg of Cem��s Guy Fawkes effigy.* They get caught in an air-raid by Chas’ father, who takes the Guy and puts it in his greenhouse for safe keeping. The next morning Chas hides the machine gun in an old drain pipe. A few days later, Cem tells Chas he had returned to the plane and found four thousand rounds of ammunition clips for the gun. the language layout, it was like old English, for example Yee harty ol' feed. insted of what we say now ' mean harty feed bro ' Rudi starts to gain a liking for the children. They tell stories to one another, and start treating Rudi more like a friend than a prisoner. The children and Rudi add much more on to the base, making it an intricate network of tunnels and rooms. They seal the floors with carpets and rugs, and add shelves and doors. Machine gun invented by John Steuble that fires up to 204 shots-per-minute". 23 November 1836. p.5 – via British Newspaper Archive.

Contains Examples of:

So naturally I went from remembering it to owning it within the hour. And then it was but a short year or so before I rose to the top of my ever-growing To Read list. Song, Yingxing; Sun, E-tu Zen; Sun, Shiou-Chuan (1997). Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century. Courier Corporation. p.271. ISBN 978-0-486-29593-0. a b Original patent claim reproduced in: Francis Bannerman Sons, Bannerman Military Goods Catalogue #28 (1954) p. 103 Willbanks, James H. (April 10, 2004). Machine Guns: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851094806– via Google Books.

Emmott, N.W. "The Devil's Watering Pot" United States Naval Institute Proceedings September 1972 p. 72 While technical use of the term "machine gun" has varied, the modern definition used by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute of America is "a fully automatic firearm that loads, fires and ejects continuously when the trigger is held to the rear until the ammunition is exhausted or pressure on the trigger is released." [5] This definition excludes most early manually operated repeating arms the Gatling gun and such as volley guns like the Nordenfelt gun. The Machine Gunners was adapted by the BBC for television in 1983 and again for radio in 2002. A stage play by Westall also exists and had a run at the Polka Theatre in London, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum. The book won the Carnegie Medal in 1975 and was voted in 2007 as one of the ten most important children's novels of the last seven decades by the Carnegie Medal panel. In 1828, a swivel gun that did not need cleaning or muzzle-loading and was capable of being made to any dimensions and used as an ordinary cannon at a moment's notice and firing 40 shots a minute was invented by a native of Ireland. [54] Provisional Specifications Not Proceeded with". The Mechanics' Magazine. R. A. Brooman. 1855. p.259.Also in 1775, a breech-loading volley gun, similar to the later mitrailleuse, was invented by a Frenchman called Du Perron which was worked by 3 or 4 men and capable of discharging 24 barrels 10 times a minute for a total rate of fire of 240 shots per minute. [34] The children work on the base a lot, and make many improvements to it. They steal and scavenge. Cem gets blueprints for the machine gun, and finds out how to work it. Hearne, Betsy. "Review." Booklist (November 1, 1976): 412-413. This reviewer finds Westall's book to be a convincing observation on human nature. French artists invents ordnance that can fire 90-times-a-minute". 24 August 1792. p.2 – via British Newspaper Archive. In his attempt to realistically portray the lives of schoolchildren during World War II, Westall includes some harsh language, sexual innuendos, violent behavior, and religious allusions. Because the occasional use of unpleasant language by the young characters is usually in response to stressful or frustrating situations, these realistic lapses should be of little concern to most parents and teachers.

Collection of old machine guns in the Međimurje County Museum ( Čakovec, Croatia). From rear to front: Austro-Hungarian Schwarzlose M7/12, British Lewis, German MG 08.

See also

Sands, Brymer, Murray and Cochran (1775). "Scots Magazine, and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany, Volume 37". {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link) Westall creates a cast of characters you love and care about - apart from the ones you're meant to hate – and occasional unnecessary descriptive aside (the size of the woman pushing the push chair is totally immaterial), a world you almost wish you were living in. A group of school aged children in a small coastal Northeast English town join the fight against the Germans in WWII. Their adventure begins when Chas, the main characters, finds a downed German plan with its machine gun intact. With the help of some friends, they remove, transport and hid this still operational weapon. In 1864, in the aftermath of the Second Schleswig War, Denmark started a program intended to develop a gun that used the recoil of a fired shot to reload the firearm though a working model would not be produced until 1888. [81]

In 1792, a French artist known as Renard invented a piece of ordnance that could be operated by one man and fired 90 shots a minute. [44] [45] Breech-loading canon demonstrated to King of Denmark". 27 February 1750. p.4 – via British Newspaper Archive. Ellis (F.L.S.), Robert (April 10, 1851). "Index and introductory. Raw materials. Machinery.-v.2. Manufactures. Fine arts. Colonies.-v.3 Foreign states". Spicer brothers – via Google Books. Overall I think that this book is one of the best and most interesting books that I have read, I wonder what happens next in chapter 6.The novel begins the morning after an air-raid. Before school starts, Chas (Charles) McGill, 14, goes off to collect souvenirs, things like bits of shrapnel or incendiary bomb fins from the raid. Chas has the second best collection in school, so when he stumbles upon the engines of a German plane, he thinks he has hit pay dirt, until he discovers that one has been claimed by a boy and the other engine is being guarded by the Constable Fatty Hardy, who starts chasing him.