Hotchkiss machine gun

Troops of 1 Kings Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), 9th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, firing a captured Hotchkiss machine gun during street fighting in Caen, 10 July 1944.

The Hotchkiss machine gun was any of a line of products developed and sold by Hotchkiss et Cie, (full name Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie), established by United States gunsmith Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss moved to France and set up a factory, first at Viviez near Rodez in 1867, then at Saint-Denis near Paris in 1875 manufacturing arms used by the French in the Franco-Prussian war, and later the U.S. government, who deployed them in the 1879 Mill River Campaign against Sitting Bull.

Variants

At the turn-of-the-twentieth-century, the company introduced the gas-actuated Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon which was widely used during World War I and thereafter by the French Army. Weapons manufactured in the Hotchkiss machine gun line include:

• Hotchkiss M1909, light machine gun also known as the "Hotchkiss Mark I" in British service and the "Benét–Mercié" in American service.
• Hotchkiss M1914, medium machine gun
• Hotchkiss M1922, light machine gun
• Hotchkiss M1929, heavy machine gun
• 25 mm Hotchkiss anti-aircraft gun, autocannon but sometimes referred to as a machine gun
• The Modified Hotchkiss machine gun, a Greek modification used in World War II
• Hotchkiss Type Universal submachine gun