this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
85 points (98.9% liked)

HistoryPhotos

1287 readers
164 users here now

HistoryPhotos is for photographs (or, if it can be found, film) of the past, recent or distant! Give us a little snapshot of history!

Rules

  1. Be respectful and inclusive.
  2. No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
  3. Foster a continuous learning environment.
  4. No genocide or atrocity denialism.
  5. Photos MUST be at LEAST 10 years old, and ideally over 20. We appreciate that we are living through events which will become history, but this is ultimately not a comm for news or current affairs, but events which have occurred some time in the past.

Related Communities:

founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
 
top 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] bravesilvernest@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 days ago

"This will definitely prevent wars in the future" - Maxim

[–] Enkrod@feddit.org 10 points 2 days ago

Smokeless powder changed the world

[–] jaycifer@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Good thing his name was Maxim, can you imagine how lame a Minim gun would have been?

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

:-( So this is for...what? hunting bunnies?

[–] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 27 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Making it impossible to wage war because one man could hold off an entire companies advance. Clearly no one would even consider attacking a position held by such a weapon. You could never convince millions of men to just throw their lives away by charging machine guns just because their leaders told them to.

That was the actual reasoning.

[–] ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People make fun of him for it, but honestly, that's a reasonable conclusion. He was an educated man, reaching the logically obvious conclusion based on reason. I have a hard time blaming him for not accounting for how crazy wartime tactics would be.

[–] balderdash9@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Too bad he couldn't foresee how European colonizers would kill tens of thousands of Africans with these weapons. And they called the Africans barbaric...

[–] Slovene85@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

SUPPRESSING FIRE!

[–] johsny@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

The Maxim machine gun enabled like three boats full of people to take over a country, which world powers were very into at that time.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Pistol brass works as expedient earplugs.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

And lookin’ sharp!