Development
The Vickers K was a development of the Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine gun, adopted in 1932 by the Indian Army. The VB, like the Bren gun, used a tilting locking breechblock. However, unlike the Bren, the VB locked its breech only at the last moment of forward travel and this fact enabled the development of the Vickers K or Vickers Gas Operated (VGO). With lighter moving parts and the VB locking design, the Vickers K had an adjustable rate of fire between 950 and 1,200 rounds per minute; faster than the German MG34. The weapon was adopted for British service as the VGO. It was test-flown with a large 300-round drum, and beat the .303 Browning in reliability. However, the wide drum would have caused problems to accommodate, since it would have interfered with wing structures. When the Browning Model 1919 machine gun was selected as the standard machine-gun armament for RAF aircraft, the VGO became redundant for the RAF. It continued to be used by the Fleet Air Arm until 1945.
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