Ukraine Applying Globe War I-Era Machine Guns, Sniper Traps to Fight Off Russia

A Maxim machine gun in position close to Kharkiv, Ukraine. Mykhaylo Palinchak

• Ukraine has applied a WWI-era machine gun on the front line to mow down the enemy.
• “It only functions when there is a huge attack going on,” a Ukrainian soldier told BBC News.
• The brutal fighting in Ukraine, filled with trenches and heavy casualties, has often been compared to WWI.

Ukrainian forces have applied Maxim machine guns, a weapon generally related with Globe War I, to mow down frontal assaults by Russian troops in the battle for Bakhmut.

“It only functions when there is a huge attack going on,” a Ukrainian soldier identified as Borys, 48, lately told BBC News of the Maxim gun. “Then it seriously functions.”

“We use it each and every week,” Borys added.

Ukrainian forces have discovered the Maxim M1910 — was initially introduced in 1910 (the initial version of the gun emerged in the 1880s) and employed by the Imperial Russian Army for the duration of Globe War I — helpful in the fight against the Russians. Ukraine’s troops have modified the guns with modern day add-ons such as optics and suppressors, according to reporting from Job and Goal. 

Hiram Maxim, a crucial inventor of transportable machine guns in the 19th Century, applied the recoil force of a bullet to eject its cartridge and feed the subsequent round in from an ammunition belt.

The fighting in Ukraine has repeatedly garnered parallels to Globe War I, with each sides locked in a brutal war of attrition featuring trenches, relentless artillery barrages, and heavy casualties. In this atmosphere, even some of the weapons of that era have come in handy as Ukrainian troops face human wave attacks on the front line — techniques popular to Globe War I.

Ukraine has also apparently utilized a variety of Globe War I-era sniper decoy, employing dummies meant to fool enemy snipers. 

But although the fight in Ukraine could possibly have similarities to Globe War I, the modern day weaponry and surveillance also prevalent on the battlefield — specifically drones — have created it all the a lot more deadly by providing troops handful of areas to hide. 

The Ukraine war has basically turn into “Globe War I with 21st century ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance],” Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Research, told Insider in January. 

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