M1919 Browning machine gun
The emergence of general-purpose machine guns in the 1950s pushed the M1919 into secondary roles in many cases, especially after the arrival of the M60 in US Army service.The United States Navy also converted many to 7.62 mm NATO and designated them Mk 21 Mod 0; they were commonly used on riverine craft in the 1960s and 1970s in Vietnam.The cocking handle was then pulled back with the right hand, palm facing up (to protect the thumb from injury if the weapon fired unexpectedly, which could happen if the barrel was very hot), and then released.When it was decided to try to lighten the gun and make it air-cooled, its design as a closed bolt weapon created a potentially dangerous situation.As a company support weapon, the M1919 required a five-man crew: the squad leader; the gunner (who fired the gun and when advancing carried the tripod and box of ammunition); the assistant gunner (who helped feed the gun and carried it, and a box of spare parts and tools); two ammunition carriers.[5] The original idea of the M1919 was to allow it to be more easily packed for transport and featured a light barrel and bipod when first introduced as the M1919A1.It saw wide use in World War II mounted on jeeps, half-tracks, armored cars, tanks, amphibious vehicles, and landing craft.This, along with the M37 (another M1919 variant) and the Browning M2 machine gun, was the most common secondary armament during World War II for the Allies.The M1919A6, with a wooden buttstock, handle, pistol grip and bipod directly mounted to the body of the weapon was in fact one pound heavier than the M1919A4 without its tripod, at 32 lb (15 kg), though its bipod made for faster deployment and enabled the machine gun team to dispense with one man (the tripod bearer).The US Navy later converted a number of M1919A4s to 7.62mm NATO chambering and designated them Mk 21 Mod 0; some of these weapons were employed in Vietnam War in riverine warfare patrols.From the 1960s until the 1990s, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used ground tripod and vehicle-mounted M1919A4 guns converted to 7.62 mm NATO on many of their armored vehicles and M3 personnel carriers.The receiver walls and operating components of the M2 were made thinner and lighter, and with air cooling provided by the speed of the aircraft, designers were able to reduce the barrel's weight and profile.[10] The M2 also appeared in a twin-mount version which paired two M2 guns with opposing feed chutes in one unit for operation by a single gunner, with a combined rate of fire of 2,400 rpm.[11] The same basic weapon, albeit modified to fire from an open bolt to prevent cooking off of cordite, was also chambered for the British .303 round, and was used as the United Kingdom's primary offensive (fixed forward firing) aircraft gun in fighters such as the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane and as fixed armament in bombers like the Bristol Blenheim, the Fairey Battle, Handley Page Hampden and Martin Maryland, until the widespread introduction of the larger 20mm caliber Hispano-Suiza Mk.II cannon, and throughout the war as defensive turret weapons in bombers.British night fighter de Havilland Mosquitoes used quartets of .303 Brownings in the nose and Bristol Beaufighters used six in the wings, supplementing the main armament of four 20mm Hispano cannon in ventral fuselage mounts.Soviet airmen compared them to their own, rapid-firing (at up to 1,800 rounds/min) ShKAS machine gun in terms of reliability: "But they often failed due to dust", recalled pilot Nikolai G. Golodnikov.They were of low efficiency when fired from distances of 150–300 m."[13] The M1919 was manufactured during World War II by three different companies in the United States: Buffalo Arms Corporation, Rock Island Arsenal, and the Saginaw Steering Gear division of General Motors.[17] During the war it became clear to the US military that the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, while portable, was not sufficient as a sustained fire weapon due to its fixed barrel and 20-round magazine.Realizing that producing an entirely new replacement machine gun would take time, the military decided that a stop-gap solution would be best and adapted an existing design.[citation needed] It had a metal buttstock assembly that clamped to the backplate of the gun, and a front barrel bearing that incorporated both a muzzle booster and a bipod similar to that used on the BAR.[citation needed] The M1919A6 was used by Springfield Armory in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a testbed for an interim general-purpose machine gun.[18] The "Stinger" was a field modification by Marines in the Pacific Theater during World War II and used on the ground as a light machine gun.Later more extensive modifications led to six being fitted with a custom trigger, M1 Garand buttstock, M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle bipod and rear sights to allow for use without a tripod or other mount.[19] The resulting weapon was a belt-fed, 40 in (1.0 m) long, 25 lb (11 kg) gun and fired three times as fast as the M1919A6's of the day.[27] The Browning .303 was used as the RAF and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) primary fixed forward firing aircraft armament before the war, both in synchronized mounts (firing through a spinning propeller) on pre-war biplane fighters (Gloster Gladiator, Hawker Fury) and on the UK's new 'eight-gun fighters' the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire and the naval Fairey Fulmar, and as secondary weapons in mid-war variants of the Spitfire, as well as being fitted in single, double or quadruple mounts as offensive weapons for the Bristol Blenheim, the Fairey Battle, Handley Page Hampden, Martin Maryland/Baltimore, Fairey Swordfish, Lockheed Hudson, Douglas Boston, Blackburn Skua and Bristol Beaufort.There is pictorial evidence of the .303 Browning being placed on improvised bipods for ground use during the early campaigns in Burma and Malaysia.The M37E1 was a M37 machine gun converted by Rock Island Arsenal and Springfield Armory to chamber the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge and feed the M13 disintegrating belt.It shipped in a variety of calibers, including the basic .30-06 Springfield and popular 7mm Spanish Mauser, and was available in left- or right-hand feed.The inflation of prices that followed, and the availability of parts from surplussed and scrapped machine guns, led to the development of semi-automatic versions of the Browning M1919.Typically, these are built using a new right sideplate (the portion legally considered the "firearm" under US law), which has a raised "island" protruding into the interior of the receiver.
Medium machine gunWorld War IIChinese Civil WarKorean WarFirst Indochina WarIndonesian National Revolution1958 Lebanon crisisCuban RevolutionAlgerian WarSecond Taiwan Strait CrisisGreek Civil WarVietnam WarLaotian Civil WarBay of Pigs InvasionCambodian Civil WarPortuguese Colonial WarLebanese Civil WarRhodesian Bush War1982 Lebanon WarSouth African Border WarIran–Iraq WarIraq WarMexican Drug WarMilitias–Comando Vermelho conflict (2010–present)John M. BrowningRock Island ArsenalSaginaw Steering GearGeneral MotorsBarrelCartridge.30-06 Springfield7.62×51mm NATO.303 British7.92×57mm Mauser6.5×55mm7.62×54mmR8×63mm patron m/327.65×53mm Argentine7.5×54mm FrenchActionRecoil-operatedshort-recoilclosed boltRate of fireMuzzle velocity.30 caliberinfantrycoaxialaircraftanti-aircraftWorld War Igeneral-purpose machine gunsUS ArmyUnited States Navy7.62 mm NATO.30-06M1 linkBattle of AachenM1917 Browning machine guncook-offopen boltrecoiled to the rear of the gun upon firingPeleliucompanyhalf-tracksarmored carsBrowning M2 machine gunAllieslight machine gunIsrael Defense Forces8×57 mmAviation OrdnancemanNaval Air Station Corpus Christiflying boatFabrique Nationale de Herstal.50 caliber AN/M220mm AN/M2synchronizedfighter aircraftcooking offcorditeUnited Kingdom'sSupermarine SpitfireHawker HurricaneBristol BlenheimFairey BattleHandley Page HampdenMartin MarylandHispano-Suiza Mk.IIde Havilland MosquitoesBristol BeaufightersGloster GladiatorFabrique NationaleEastern EuropeCarl Gustaf SGF8×63mm7.65×53mmHawker HurricanesSoviet Air ForcesShKAS machine gunpercaleMark VII tanksrecoil boosterM1918 Browning Automatic RifleM60 machine gunSpringfield Armoryfixed and flexible/turretedSaburō SakaiSBD DauntlessesF4F Wildcat"Stinger"Pacific TheaterM1 GarandTony SteinIwo JimaMedal of Honorgunpod6.5x55 mm8x63 mmtail gunAvro LancasterRoyal Air ForceVickers machine gunVickers ArmstrongBritish .303 inch (7.7 mm)Fleet Air Arm