Ukraine Applying Planet 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 utilized a WWI-era machine gun on the front line to mow down the enemy.
• “It only performs when there is a enormous 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 utilized Maxim machine guns, a weapon frequently related with Planet War I, to mow down frontal assaults by Russian troops in the battle for Bakhmut.

“It only performs when there is a enormous attack going on,” a Ukrainian soldier identified as Borys, 48, not too long ago told BBC News of the Maxim gun. “Then it actually performs.”

“We use it every single week,” Borys added.

Ukrainian forces have discovered the Maxim M1910 — was initial introduced in 1910 (the initial version of the gun emerged in the 1880s) and employed by the Imperial Russian Army throughout Planet War I — beneficial 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 Activity and Goal. 

Hiram Maxim, a crucial inventor of transportable machine guns in the 19th Century, utilized 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 Planet 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 prevalent to Planet War I.

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

But even though the fight in Ukraine could have similarities to Planet War I, the modern day weaponry and surveillance also prevalent on the battlefield — specifically drones — have created it all the far more deadly by providing troops couple of areas to hide. 

The Ukraine war has primarily grow to be “Planet 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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