The Royal Sussex Regiment was an Infantry Battalion that would have had an MG Section as part of its Battalion Headquarters. These weapons would have been brigaded when the Machine Gun Corps was formed in 1915. The guns, and crews, would have been formed into a Machine Gun Company.
During the Great War, the dispositions of Battalions were distributed as follows:
The 2nd Battalion was part of the 2nd Brigade, attached to the 1st Division. It's MG Section was transferred on 26 January 1916 to form the 2nd Bde. MG Coy..
As a unit of the 1st Infantry Division, it will have taken part in the following battles and engagements.
| On the outbreak of War the 1st Division was quartered at Aldershot, and it mobilized there. The division crossed to France between the 11th and 15th August, concentrated around le Nouvion, and began to move forward on the 21st August. | |
| 1914 | |
| 23 and 24 August | Battle of Mons [I Corps] |
| 24 August to 5 September | RETREAT FROM MONS [I Corps] |
| 27 August | Etreux (1st Guards Bde) |
| 6 to 9 September | Battle of the Marne [I Corps] |
| 13 to 26 September | BATTLE OF THE AISNE [I Corps] |
| 13 September | Passage of the Aisne |
| 20 September | Actions on the Aisne Heights |
| 26 September | Action of Chivy |
| 19 October to 15 November | BATTLE OF YPRES [I Corps] |
| 21 to 24 October | Battle of Langemark [I Corps] |
| 29 to 31 October | Battle of Gheluvelt [I Corps] |
| 11 November | Battle of Nonne Bosschen [I Corps] |
| 20 to 21 December | Defence of Givenchy |
| 1915 | |
| 25 January | Givenchy |
| 29 January | Cuinchy |
| 9 May | BATTLE OF AUBERS RIDGE [I Corps, First Army] |
| Attack at Rue du Bois | |
| 25 September to 1 October | Battle of Loos [IV Corps, First Army] |
| 5 to 8 October | |
| 13 October | Hohenzollern Redoubt [IV Corps, First Army] |
In 1922, the Machine Gun Corps was disbanded and the guns returned to the Infantry Battalion as a Machine Gun Platoon and then formed as a Machine Gun Company in the early 1930s.
This remained until the formation of Divisional Machine Gun Battalions in 1936 where guns were brigaded once again.
Upon the disbandment of Divisional Machine Gun Battalions in the post-WW2 restructure of the British Army, the Vickers Machine Gun assets reverted to individual Battalions as part of the Support Company as a Machine Gun Platoon.