Weapon Type
Machine Guns
Automatic or semi-automatic crew-served weapons.
Machine Guns
Firearms — Subcategory
Overview
A machine gun is an automatic firearm capable of sustained fire — cycling through load, fire, and eject automatically as long as the trigger is depressed and ammunition is fed. Machine guns transformed 20th-century warfare by creating a firepower density impossible with bolt-action rifles: a single machine gun could cover a wide sector with accurate, sustained fire that required dozens or hundreds of riflemen to match. The machine gun was the defining weapon of World War I and remained central through World War II and beyond.
Early Development
Mitrailleuse (1866)
The French mitrailleuse was a multi-barrel volley gun — 25 barrels fired simultaneously or in sequence by turning a crank:
- 150 rounds per minute; devastating in theory
- Squandered in the Franco-Prussian War due to tactical ignorance — deployed as artillery rather than infantry support
- The lesson: technology alone doesn't determine effectiveness
Gatling Gun (1861)
Richard Gatling's rotating-barrel design was the first practical rapid-fire weapon:
- 6 rotating barrels; each cycled through loading, firing, and ejecting in turn
- Hand-cranked; 200+ rounds per minute
- Used in limited numbers in the American Civil War and Indian Wars
- The concept returned in the 20th century as the electrically-driven minigun
Maxim Gun (1884)
Hiram Maxim's recoil-operated machine gun was the first fully automatic weapon:
- Recoil operation — The force of each fired round cycles the action automatically
- Water-cooled — A water jacket around the barrel allowed sustained fire without overheating
- .303 British or 7.92mm depending on user nation
- 400–600 rounds per minute; belt-fed
- Colonial warfare — The Maxim gun was the decisive factor in European colonial conquest; Hilaire Belloc's line: "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not"
- WWI — The Maxim and its derivatives (MG 08, Vickers) produced the Western Front stalemate
World War I Machine Guns
German MG 08
- Maxim derivative; water-cooled; 400 rounds/minute; on a heavy sled mount
- One MG 08 could cover 100 meters of front effectively; the primary cause of Day 1 Somme casualties (57,000 British in one day)
British Vickers
- Maxim derivative; water-cooled; extremely reliable; .303 British
- Fired 1 million rounds in 12 hours at the Battle of High Wood (1916) — requiring barrel cooling changes every 2 hours
Lewis Gun (1914)
The first practical light machine gun:
- Air-cooled; 47-round drum magazine; 500–600 rounds/minute
- Carried by infantry; the first truly portable automatic weapon
- Used on aircraft as well as infantry
World War II Machine Guns
German MG 34 / MG 42
The German MG 42 was the most influential machine gun design in history:
- 1,200 rounds per minute — the fastest military machine gun; the tearing sound earned it "Hitler's buzzsaw" and "Bonesaw" from Allied soldiers
- Quick-change barrel (in 6 seconds) for sustained fire without overheating
- Belt-fed; could use tripod (sustained fire) or bipod (assault)
- Influenced virtually every post-war machine gun design; the Bundeswehr MG3 is a direct derivative still in service
American Browning M1919 and M2
- M1919 — .30-06; air-cooled; the US squad machine gun through Korea
- M2 .50 BMG — The "Ma Deuce"; .50 caliber; 450–600 rounds/minute; vehicle-mounted, aircraft-mounted, and on tripod; in continuous US military service since 1933
Modern Machine Gun Categories
- GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) — FN MAG, M240; 7.62×51mm; vehicle and infantry use
- LMG (Light Machine Gun) — M249 SAW, Minimi; 5.56mm; squad automatic weapon
- HMG (Heavy Machine Gun) — M2 .50 BMG; vehicle-mounted; anti-materiel and anti-aircraft
This article is a stub. Contributions covering specific machine gun models, tactics, and battles are welcome.
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Bren
The Bren was the light machine gun of the British and Commonwealth armies from 1938 until the 1990s: a Czech design from Brno, re-engineered at Enfield for the rimmed .303 cartridge and named for both towns. Gas operated, fed from a curved thirty-round magazine mounted on top, with a quick-change barrel and a bipod, it was accurate, reliable and light enough for one man to carry and fire from the hip. It armed every infantry section of the Second World War, went to Korea and Malaya, and as the 7.62mm L4 was still in British hands in the Falklands and the Gulf.
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Lewis Gun
The Lewis gun was the British Empire's light machine gun of the First World War: an air-cooled, gas-operated gun with a distinctive fat cooling shroud and a flat, rotating pan magazine on top. Designed in the United States but rejected there, it was built in huge numbers by BSA in Birmingham from 1914 and gave British infantry platoons their own portable automatic fire. It was also the first great aircraft machine gun, flown by observers and fighter pilots of both world wars, and it served in reserve and anti-aircraft roles until 1945.
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M1918 BAR
The Browning Automatic Rifle was John Moses Browning's shoulder-fired automatic weapon, adopted by the United States Army in 1918 and the backbone of American infantry squads through the Second World War and Korea. Firing the full-power .30-06 cartridge from a 20-round magazine, it sat between the rifle and the machine gun — too heavy for one, too light for the other — and it gave each rifle squad its base of fire. Around 350,000 were made, and it stayed in American service until the late 1950s and in allied armies long after.
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M1919 Browning Machine Gun
The M1919 Browning is John Browning's water-cooled M1917 machine gun made air-cooled: a short-recoil, belt-fed .30-06 weapon that armed American tanks, aircraft, vehicles and infantry from 1919 to Vietnam. The M1919A4 of the Second World War, thirty-one pounds on a fourteen-pound tripod, was the medium machine gun of every rifle company; the A6 with a shoulder stock and bipod was a makeshift light machine gun, and the aircraft AN/M2 fired at twice the rate. Simple, robust and endlessly reliable, it served the United States and dozens of allies for fifty years.
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M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon is the American version of the Belgian FN Minimi: a gas-operated, belt-fed 5.56mm light machine gun light enough to move with a rifle squad and firing the same ammunition as its rifles. Adopted in 1984 after a decade of trials, it gave each fire team a base of automatic fire the M16 could not provide, and it fought in Panama, the Gulf, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. It can feed from a 200-round belt box or, in an emergency, from a standard rifle magazine, and the shortened Para and Mk 46 versions serve special operations forces.
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M60 Machine Gun
The M60 was the United States' first general-purpose machine gun: a belt-fed 7.62mm weapon light enough for one soldier to carry on the assault and stable enough on its tripod for sustained fire, adopted in 1957 and made famous in Vietnam, where infantrymen called it "the Pig." It borrowed its gas system and bolt from the German FG 42 and its belt feed from the MG 42, and while its early quick-change barrel and feed tray drew complaints, it stayed the American squad machine gun for forty years and survives in improved forms with the Navy and allied armies.
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MG 42
The MG 42 was the German general-purpose machine gun of the Second World War and the most influential machine gun of the twentieth century. Designed by Werner Gruner at Grossfuss from stamped steel to replace the expensive MG 34, it fired 7.92mm Mauser from a recoil-operated, roller-locked action at 1,200 rounds per minute — a rate that produced the ripping sound Allied soldiers called Hitler's buzzsaw — with a barrel that changed in seconds. Some 400,000 were made, and as the 7.62mm NATO MG3 it is still in service and production eighty years later.
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Maxim Gun
The Maxim gun was the first true machine gun: a weapon that used the energy of each shot to load and fire the next, and would keep firing as long as the trigger was held and the belt kept feeding. Invented by the American-born Hiram Maxim in London in 1884, the water-cooled, belt-fed gun fired about 600 rounds a minute. It conquered African empires for Britain in the 1890s, and in its German MG 08 and Russian M1910 forms it dominated the battlefields of the First World War.