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Colleoni machine gun — 6.50×52mm Mannlicher–Carcano: Ammunition belt Italy: 1908 Colt Machine Gun: Colt's Manufacturing Company — 5.56×45mm NATO: Ammunition belt United States: 1965 Colt Automatic Rifle: 5.56×45mm NATO: Detachable box magazine United States: 1982 Darne machine gun: Hotchkiss et Cie: 7.50×54mm French 8.00×51mmR French ...
A general-purpose machine gun is usually a lightweight medium machine gun that can either be used with a bipod and drum in the light machine gun role or a tripod and belt feed in the medium machine gun role. DShK in the heavy role. Machine guns usually have simple iron sights, though the use of optics is becoming more common.
Machine gun, automatic weapon of small caliber that is capable of sustained rapid fire. Machine guns can continue to fire as long as the trigger is held back or until the supply of ammunition is exhausted. The machine gun was developed in the late 19th century and has profoundly altered the character of modern warfare.
Early light machine guns like the Lewis Gun, the Chauchat, and the BAR brought magazine-fed machine guns to the front lines. French soldiers with an FM Chauchat, Somme, 1918. They offered a portable source of fire that didn’t require mules to move. World War I also saw machine guns take to the skies mounted in early fighting planes.
The first successful automatic machine gun was invented by Hiram Stevens Maxim, an American working in Europe.Beginning about 1884, he produced a number of weapons in which the bullet’s recoil energy was employed to unlock the breechblock from the barrel, to extract and eject the fired case from the gun, and to store sufficient energy in a main spring to push the bolt forward, pick up a ...
The Navy uses M2 machine guns as deck-fired weapons to repel small boats, aircraft, and drones, while the Air Force uses them from the HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopter, and in a base defense role.
The concept of a rapid-firing gun dates back centuries, but it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the first practical machine guns were developed. In 1862, Richard Gatling patented his famous Gatling Gun, a hand-cranked weapon with multiple rotating barrels that could fire up to 200 rounds per minute.
The machine gun revolutionized combat efforts and quickly drove out nations with their horse-drawn carriages into submission. From its bare roots beginnings to the evolution of this iconic weapon that is still in use today, this infographic takes a look at how the machine gun came about, how it managed to almost single handedly change the ...
Machine guns have had a hand in dissolving nations, repressing revolutions, overthrowing governments and ending wars (and, in the hands of certain individuals, resulted in immense tragedies). In no uncertain terms, the machine gun is one of the most important military developments in the history of man.
The machine gun—often called the killing machine—revolutionized modern ground combat, brought an end to the traditional infantry and cavalry charge, and changed the battlefields of war forever.This volume in the Weapons and Warfare series describes the history of machine guns from the mid-19th century to the present, following both the evolution of small arms technology and the impact of ...