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Colt Vickers M1915 Machine Guns are inspected at an Ordnance Depot in the UK by Female Personnel after their arrival from the USA - 1941
In 1940/41 a total of 7,071 Colt Vickers M1915s were purchased by the UK to help re-equip their forces due to equipment losses during the Dunkirk evacuation.
In British Service; some Colt Vickers M1915s were issued to the Home Guard in their original US 30.06 calibre, while others were converted to British .303 for general issue, it is unknown exactly how many were converted.
The Colt Vickers M1915 has an interesting story, abeit not one that is well known;
In 1913 the US Military embarked on a search for a new standard Machine Gun, the Vickers easily won in competitions held in 1913/1914 against other machine guns such as the M1904 Maxim and M1909 Benét–Mercié.
Colt's Manufacturing Company obtained a license from Vickers and the new machine gun was designated “Vickers Machine Gun Model of 1915, Caliber .30, Water-Cooled”.
However, due to numerous delays, by the time the USA entered WW1 in April 1917, Colt had not produced a single M1915 besides prototypes. Production rapidly began with shipments to US Troops on the Western Front beginning in 1918. The first twelve US Divisions to reach France were given French Hotchkiss M1914 MGs, but the next ten were issued Colt M1915s. Subsequent arriving Divisions were mostly issued the new Browning M1917 machine gun which had also been adopted, but due to delays with M1917 production some were issued Colt M1915s.
In addition over 2000 Colt M1915s were converted for aircraft use in a similar fashion as the British Vickers aircraft machine guns.
Post WW1, the US Military had around 8,000 Colt M1915s which were put into storage in favor of standardizing on the Browning M1917.
The remainder of the M1915s not sent to the UK in 1940/41 were mostly sent to the Dutch East Indies & the Philippines, where they were subsequently lost or captured by the Japanese.
Vickers MG Collection & Research Association
NARA - 196325