The US Marines were everywhere in those days and the Colt 1895 "Potato Digger" machine gun was standard for the Navy and the Marines prior to WWI so it went where the Marines went . The first diggers were used in the Spanish American War by the Navy and Marines in 6mm caliber and although the US Army still used Gatling guns, Teddy Roosevelt bought two privately for the Rough Riders in 7mm caliber who used them effectively. The Marines also used one in the defence of the Peking legation during the Boxer Rebellion. The one shown here is in .30 caliber, you can tell by the taller sights. A different version made by the Marlin company, after buying the rights from Colt, was commonly used by several countries in WWI with a finned barrel and the US Army in training although the Navy continued to use the old type on all sorts of small patrol craft during the war. Marlin redesigned the digger and it was going to be our standard aircraft (about 1/2 of our airplanes got them in the last few months of the war) and tank gun in 1919 but the war ended before these plans could be fully realized. From the looks of the belt the Corp has fired about 100 rounds from the 250 round belt. The elephant is probably not pleased. The tall tripods were changed to short tripods as WWI commenced.
