welcome to the world of weapons: April 2013

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Salvator-Dormus M1893

Salvator-Dormus M1893

Salvator-Dormus M1893

The Salvator-Dormus M1893 also known as Skoda M1893 was a heavy machine gun of Austro-Hungarian origin. It was patented by Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria and Count George von Dormus and was manufactured by Skoda Works Plzeň. The Salvator-Dormus was chambered in the 8x50mmR round fed from an overhead magazine and was water-cooled with an oil lubrication device. There was also a pendulum adjustment in the trigger mechanism that allowed the operator to select the cyclic rate of fire, anywhere from 180 to 250 rounds per minute. The M1893 was cheaper than the Maxim gun but was gradually replaced by the Schwarzlose MG M.07/12. The M1893 machine guns were mounted aboard the SMS Zenta during the successful defence of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Peiking.

Monday, 29 April 2013

RMG .50

Rheinmetall RMG.50

RMG .50

RMG .50 Ammo

The RMG.50 machine gun is under development by the company under contract to the Bundeswehr as a replacement for the Browning M2HB recoil-operated heavy machine gun of the same calibre. According to a company representative, work on the RMG.50 started in 2008 and the first firings took place at the end of 2009. A second prototype has since been completed and is planned to have started trials in August 2010. A third prototype will be delivered in 2011 for internal qualification and pre-series weapons are due to be delivered to the German Ministry of Defence test authority in 2012.

Sunday, 28 April 2013

Breda M37

Breda M37

Breda M37

Breda M37 Ammo

The Breda Modello 37 was an Italian heavy machine gun (Mitragliatrice Breda MOD.37) adopted in 1937. It was the standard machine gun for the Royal Italian Army during World War II. The M37 was meant as company/battalion support as compared to the more troublesome M1930 meant for squad/platoon support, and proved far more effective in combat, though possessing some of the same problematic features of Breda 30.
Design and Operation
The Breda M37 was a gas-operated, air-cooled heavy machine gun. The Breda used a larger cartridge than its rivals, the 8 mm x59RB Breda. Unlike other infantry machine guns, the Breda lacked a camming mechanism for initial extraction of the cartridge case after firing, and this meant that each cartridge had to be oiled via an oiling mechanism before being fed into the chamber. This attracted dust and debris, particularly in desert environments such as found in the Royal Italian Army's World War II campaigns in Libya and the Western Desert.
Another drawback was that the gun was fed by 20-round strips of cartridges. This limited continuous fire, as the gun could only be fired rapidly when a second crew member fed in one ammunition strip after another. The rounds still had to be oiled to stop the cases sticking in the chamber, with all the disadvantages this entailed. Another peculiarity of the design is that the spent cases were reinserted in the strip as each round was fired. The mechanical energy required to perform this function substantially reduced the rate of fire, and the weapon tended to jam whenever a case was reinserted even slightly out of line. It also meant that in the event the metal clips had to be reused, the gunner's assistant had to first remove the empty cases from the strips.
Service Use
In service, the M37 and M38 Bredas proved to be fairly reliable heavy machine guns. Perhaps because the heavy support weapons received more attention from their crews, field reports were generally positive except for jams caused by desert sand and dust, which in the Western Desert affected all infantry machine guns to some extent. The M37 Breda's slow rate of fire helped prevent overheating during continuous fire, and its powerful, heavy-bullet cartridge had excellent range and penetration. The weapon remained in first-line service with Italian forces throughout the war, and captured examples were used in combat by British and Commonwealth forces, including units of the SAS[citation needed].
The M37 was also adopted by the Portuguese armed forces, who placed it into service as the Metralhadora pesada 7,92 mm m/938 Breda heavy machine gun. The Breda saw extensive service in Portugal's African colonies during the early stages of the Portuguese Colonial Wars
The Breda Modello 38 was intended for vehicle use, and was fed from a top-mounted box magazine. The Modello 38 used a pistol style grip, rather than the twin firing handles of the Modello 37. This was the main vehicle-mounted machine gun used in fighting vehicles by the Royal Italian Army.
Production ended in 1943. It was still used as a standard machine gun after the war, until it was replaced by more modern machine guns.

Saturday, 27 April 2013

M1917 Browning machine gun

M1917 Browning machine gun

M1917 Browning machine gun

M1917 Browning machine gun

The M1917 Browning machine gun is a heavy machine gun used by the United States armed forces in World War I, World War II, Korea, and to a limited extent in Vietnam, and by other nations. It was a belt-fed water-cooled machine gun that served alongside the much lighter air-cooled Browning M1919. It was used at the battalion level, and often mounted on vehicles (such as a jeep). There were two main iterations of it: the M1917, which was used in World War I; and the M1917A1; which was used thereafter. The M1917 was used on the ground and on some aircraft, and had a firing rate of 450 round/min; the M1917A1 had a firing rate of 450 to 600 round/min.
Design and development
In 1900, John Moses Browning filed a patent for a recoil powered automatic gun.Browning did not work on the gun again until 1910, when Browning built a water-cooled prototype of the 1901 weapon.Although the gun worked well, Browning improved the design slightly. Browning replaced side ejection with bottom ejection, added a buffer for smoother operation, replaced the hammer with a two piece firing pin, and some other minor improvements.The basic design of the gun was still the 1900 design.
The Browning is a water-cooled heavy machine gun, though some versions that did not use a water jacket were experimented with; the air-cooled M1919 was later developed as a medium machine gun. Unlike many other early machine guns, the M1917 had nothing to do with Maxim's toggle lock design. It was much lighter than contemporary Maxim type guns such as the 137 lb (62 kg) German Maschinengewehr 08 and the British Vickers machine gun, while still being highly reliable. The only similarities with the Maxim or Vickers are the principle of recoil operation, T-slot breechblock, "pull-out" belt feed, water cooling, and forward ejection. Its sliding-block locking mechanism saved weight and complexity, and was used in many previous Browning designs. The belt fed left-to-right, and the cartridges were stacked closer together than Maxim/Vickers (patterns copied by most guns later.)
Service
The M1917 saw limited service in the later days of World War I. Because of production delays, only about 1,200 Model 1917s saw combat in the conflict, and then only in the last 2½ months of the war. Some arrived too late for combat service. For example, the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, fighting as part of the Second Division didn't exchange their Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns for Browning M1917 machine guns until November 14, three days after the armistice.The U.S. equipped about a third of the divisions sent to France; the others were equipped equally with machine guns bought from the French or the British Vickers machine guns built by Colt in the US. Where the Model 1917 did see action, its rate of fire and reliability were highly effective.[citation needed] The M1917 weapon system was inferior to the Vickers and Hotchkiss guns because the British and French cartridges had about 50 percent longer range than the .30-06 service cartridge used in World War
The Model 1917A1 was again used in the Second World War, and was primarily used with the M2 ball, tracer, and armor-piercing ammunition introduced just prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Some were supplied to the UK for use by the Home Guard since all production of the .303 Vickers were needed to resupply the equipment abandoned during the Fall of France. The M1917's weight and bulk meant it was generally employed as a fixed defense or battalion or regimental support weapon. At the fierce battle of Momote Airstrip in the Admiralties, the US Army's 5th Cavalry machinegunners killed several hundred Japanese in one night using their M1917 Brownings; one gun was left in position after the battle as a memorial to the desperate struggle.
US military variants
M1917
The original gun suffered from a weakness related to the design of the receiver - under field conditions, the bottom plates, which were dovetailed into the gun's two side plates, tore out. An early fix was to attach a roughly horseshoe-shaped steel bracket around the rearmost part of the receiver. A later fix was to rivet "stirrups" (right-angled steel pieces) to the bottom and side plates. The stirrup fix became the standard reinforcement until a more permanent fix for the problem was developed. [Another reported problem was bulging in the sideplates, which was probably caused by stresses put into the sideplates when hammering the dovetails closed.]

Friday, 26 April 2013

M2 Browning

M2 Browning

M2 Browning

M2 Browning Ammo

M2 Browning Ammo

The M2 Machine Gun or Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun, is a heavy machine gun designed towards the end of World War I by John Browning. It is very similar in design to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, which was chambered for the .30-06 cartridge. The M2 uses the much larger and much more powerful .50 BMG cartridge, which was developed alongside and takes its name from the gun itself (BMG standing for Browning Machine Gun). The M2 has been referred to as "Ma Deuce", or "the fifty" in reference to its caliber. The design has had many specific designations; the official designation for the current infantry type is Browning Machine Gun, Cal. .50, M2, HB, Flexible. It is effective against infantry, unarmored or lightly armored vehicles and boats, light fortifications and low-flying aircraft. The M2 has had the longest continuous service for a machine gun in the world.
The Browning .50 caliber machine gun has been used extensively as a vehicle weapon and for aircraft armament by the United States from the 1920s to the present. It was heavily used during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and during the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan in the 2000s and 2010s. It is the primary heavy machine gun of NATO countries, and has been used by many other countries. The M2 has been in use longer than any other small arm in U.S. inventory except the .45 ACP M1911 pistol, also designed by John Browning.
History
The United States did not have many machine guns when it entered World War I, and most were old technology. The machine gun was heavily used in World War I, and weapons of larger than rifle caliber were appearing. Both the British and French had large caliber machine guns. The larger rounds were needed to defeat the armor that was being introduced to the battlefield. Armor was also appearing in the skies. During World War I, the Germans introduced a heavily armored airplane, the Junkers J.I. The armor made aircraft machine guns using conventional rifle ammunition (such as the .30-06) ineffective.
Consequently, American Expeditionary Force's commander General John J. Pershing asked for a larger caliber machine gun.Pershing asked the Army Ordnance Department to develop a machine gun with a caliber of at least 0.50 inches (12.7 mm) and a muzzle velocity of at least 2,700 feet per second (820 m/s).U.S. Col. John Henry Parker, commanding a machine gun school in France, observed the effectiveness of a French 11 mm (0.43 in) incendiary armor-piercing round. The Army Ordnance Department ordered eight experimental Colt machine guns rechambered for the French 11-mm cartridge.The French had developed a prototype machine gun for an even larger caliber.
Design details
The Browning M2 is an air-cooled, belt-fed machine gun. The M2 fires from a closed bolt, operated on the short recoil principle. The M2 fires the .50 BMG cartridge, which offers long range, accuracy and immense stopping power. The closed bolt firing cycle made the M2 usable as a synchronized machine gun on aircraft before and during World War II, as on the early versions of the Curtiss P-40 fighter.
The M2 is a scaled-up version of John Browning's M1917 .30 caliber machine gun (even using the same timing gauges).
Features
The M2 has varying cyclic rates of fire, depending upon the model. The M2HB (heavy barrel) air-cooled ground gun has a cyclic rate of 450-575 rounds per minute.The early M2 water-cooled AA guns had a cyclic rate of around 450–600 rpm.The AN/M2 aircraft gun has a cyclic rate of 750–850 rpm; this increases to 1,200 rpm or more for AN/M3 aircraft guns fitted with electric or mechanical feed boost mechanisms.These maximum rates of fire are generally not achieved in use, as sustained fire at that rate will wear out the bore within a few thousand rounds, necessitating replacement. For the M2HB, slow fire is less than 40 rounds per minute and rapid fire more than 40 rounds per minute.
The M2 has an effective range of 1,830 metres (2,000 yd) and a maximum effective range of 2,000 metres (2,200 yd) when fired from the M3 tripod. In its ground-portable, crew-served role as the M2HB, the gun itself weighs in at a hefty 84 pounds (38 kg), and the assembled M3 tripod another 44 pounds (20 kg). In this configuration, the V-shaped "butterfly" trigger is located at the very rear of the weapon, with a "spade handle" hand-grip on either side of it and the bolt release the center. The spade handles are gripped and the butterfly trigger is depressed with one or both thumbs. Recently new rear buffer assemblies have used squeeze triggers mounted to the hand grips, doing away with the butterfly triggers.
When the bolt release is locked down by the bolt latch release lock on the buffer tube sleeve, the gun functions in fully automatic mode. Conversely, the bolt release can be unlocked into the up position resulting in single-shot firing (the gunner must press the bolt latch release to send the bolt forward). Unlike virtually all other modern machine guns, it has no safety (although a sliding safety switch has recently been fielded to USMC armorers for installation on their weapons). Troops in the field have been known to add an improvised safety measure against accidental firing by slipping an expended shell casing under the butterfly trigger.The upgraded M2A1 has a manual trigger block safety.
Ammunition
There are several different types of ammunition used in the M2HB and AN aircraft guns. From World War II through the Vietnam War, the big Browning was used with standard ball, armor-piercing (AP), armor-piercing incendiary (API), and armor-piercing incendiary tracer (APIT) rounds. All .50 ammunition designated "armor-piercing" was required to completely perforate 0.875 inches (22.2 mm) of hardened steel armor plate at a distance of 100 yards (91 m) and 0.75 inches (19 mm) at 547 yards (500 m).The API and APIT rounds left a flash, report, and smoke on contact, useful in detecting strikes on enemy targets; they were primarily intended to incapacitate thin-skinned and lightly armored vehicles and aircraft, while igniting their fuel tanks
Current ammunition types include: M33 Ball (706.7 grain) for personnel and light material targets, M17 tracer, M8 API (622.5 grain), M20 API-T (619 grain), and M962 SLAP-T. The latter ammunition along with the M903 SLAP (Saboted Light Armor Penetrator) round can perforate 1.34 inches (34 mm) of HHA (face-hardened steel plate) at 500 metres (550 yd), 0.91 inches (23 mm) at 1,200 metres (1,300 yd), and 0.75 inches (19 mm) at 1,500 metres (1,600 yd). This is achieved by using a 0.30-inch-diameter (7.6 mm) tungsten penetrator. The SLAP-T adds a tracer charge to the base of the ammunition. This ammunition was type classified in 1993

Thursday, 25 April 2013

W85

W85

W85

The W-85 heavy machine gun is a heavy machine gun designed in the People's Republic of China.

Monday, 22 April 2013

Type 77

Type 77 Heavy Machine Gun

Type 77

The Type 77 heavy machine gun is described as China’s first generation designed 12.7mm heavy machine gun. The Type 85 is a “product improved” version. The weapon is both gas (three settings) and recoil operated. The ammunition belt is the standard DShK metal non-disintegrating link.