M2 Browning

What makes it so good that it's been in service for 89 years?

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Improvements to weight mean very little in the roles where its used, so most modernizations are unimportant.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It does everything it needs to very well.

      This, the thing is so big it's not going to be used on anything but a tripod or from a vehicle, but there's also massive industrial base for producing and maintaining these things, and since they're already doing such a good job, there's just no good incentive to make something which is only very slightly better while throwing away a significant logistical advantage.

      You can swap the feed in the other direction for things like dual mounts, you can attach an optic, and changing the barrel is quick and easy, and flash hiders are available. I don't know what else you want out of a gun which very reliably chucks high speed .50

      There are apparently 3 million

      And they all work fantastically.
      Oh yeah, most allies have these things as well, so you've got that commonality thing as well.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    one of those things if its not broke dont fix it

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What can we even do to improve upon the M2 .50 HMG?

    Less weight would be nice, but what's even the point of that and you'd loose durability with less material..

    Maybe perhaps a more 'sealed' system so it'll work longer in exposed environment before you have to service it? That's the only thing I could think of that would perhaps improve the system.

    picnotrel

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Pic.
      That looks uncomfortable.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Apparently the cows really dont mind it.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Tbh this type of weapon will always be crew served. So while it might be able to be made lighter, which is better. It doesn't need different materials other than steel. Steel on steel with lube can last a long time and will make the logis happy. With proper balancing of factors, a steel mechanism won't ever break, unless stresses exceed that which steel can manage.

      There are a lot of aircraft cannon that the next 50 could take inspiration from. The GSH301 is pretty cool. But tbh, it makes no sense to replace the M2 with another 50. It would likely be replaced by a 30mm cannon or something similar to fulfill the roles of both the mk19 and the M2 at once.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Maybe perhaps a more 'sealed' system so it'll work longer in exposed environment before you have to service it?
      oh, so all of the grit and other garbage is trapped inside the sealed part? brilliant
      >no just make it perfectly sealed up somehow idk
      Frick off, moron

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah just have your gun super open to the environment, it worked in WW1 and 2.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Make It .75
      Bigger bullet, better bullet

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It was a logistical flex by america during ww2. We were making nearly a Mil+ of these shits annually, and our pseudo command economy wrangled a dozen manufacturing companies to stop making consumer shit like sewing machines and tractor parts and pressed them into making machine guns.
    We had so goddamn many of these things by 1945 that it was unreal.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There are apparently 3 million

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >theres a chance you may come across the possibility of snaking one

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    good rate of fire and good shells the most important thing is the disintegrating link.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because it's literally perfect at what it needs to be and any other improvements are really minor shit that isn't really necessary. HMGs are a well developed weapon technology.
    It only makes sense that JMBs genius lives on 38 thousand years into the future

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Easily hose down something at 400-1000m and see for yourself
    t. Qualed expert

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's enough, but not too much.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Cheap
    Reliable
    Reasonably accurate
    Comfortable RoF
    Powerful cartridge

    simple as

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It exists because "it's fine". The US could easily start pumping out better design, it would just be expensive to make the change.

    It’s heavier than it needs to be and the need to set headspace and timing every barrel change is annoying. If you get the headspace wrong, it can dump shredded brass casing out the bottom of the gun. It also uses a 2-step feed system that means there’s often a casing or perhaps live round left inside if you aren’t careful. it's not some mystical perfect HMG.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Didn't M2A1/QCB upgrades remove the headspace issue?

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's just good enough. Is it perfect? No. Is it worth the massive financial, time and logistical investment to replace it? No. And so it endures.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No meaningfull improvement in balistic and gun mechanism since the spitzer bullet.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >good
    Lol, lmao

    It's jamomatic garbage. Should have bought a real hmg like dshk or NSVT.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >its jamomatic garbage
      >one youtube video
      lol.
      lmao, even.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        cope

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It's not actually jamming. It isn't performing its full cycle of operations, probably due to the belt being janked up and catching on shit. Quite a number of machine guns are made so that if the belt is being pulled on too hard or being pulled at a weird angle it will fail to advance to the next round instead of trying to force the situation and potentially causing a malfunction.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      dshka has a really bad reputation for being immaculate and jamming. It’s one saving grace is that it’s light

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >another moron who fricked up the belt

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    One important reason is that while the gun has changed little, the ammo has. The armor piercing rounds can chew through a house, an IFV, an artillery position, and light it on fire as a bonus. It does things one used to need a cannon for, and at a vastly higher speed. The gun is still fine because noone has still found an antidote to it for most situations where it is used.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Who here has felt the raw feeling of power when you got to be behind this monster
    >little micro adjustments here and there, burst of bullets, a correction, and then hosing down target ripping it apart, at distances from 400m to 1200 meters

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      God the M16A4 fricks.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You type like a plebbit.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          is that a problem?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I had an opportunity to dump some leftover ammo at a Gunnery Range

      The erection I had after racking the charging handle is indescribable.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      They were mounted on my M109 when I was conscripted. I loved standing up on the commander seat and just shoot away.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I'm the guy who reenlisted because they gave me 400 extra rounds and told me to have fun

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >good
    It's not that great. It's ok but it's more that it serves in an unimportant but common role: something stationary guard posts or non-main-combat vehicles can use to overpower attackers who have even weaker weapons.

    IMO, the M2/Mk19 combo are ultimately going to be replaced by the M230 30x113mm RWS.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >IMO, the M2/Mk19 combo are ultimately going to be replaced by the M230 30x113mm RWS.
      What makes you think that?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Not that anon, but the role of the M2 is in a weird place. It was made to be anti vehicle, but it's an anti-personnel MG at this point

        If you're going strictly anti personnel, you could step down to 338 or 6.8 and carry way more ammo. If you're going anti-vehicle, better to go up to 30mm

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          In the box it was suitable for antivehicle and anti material because of the less durable material most buildings are quarried of

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's a shame the XM307 and XM312 didn't work out. It looked cool.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It just works.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Obligatory

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Its honestly a huge piece of shit that doesn't work properly in the field if you leave it outside for a day

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      too many openings and oiled parts?

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >the answer
    we already have them, and buying something new would mean less in our christmas bonus

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yeah?

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's mechanically frickin brilliant, mostly moron proof. It's chambered in a cartridge that kills: people, cars, airplanes, helicopters handily. What it can't kill it can still easily damage: optics, viewports, sensors, wheels, tracks.

    The only way to really improve the M2 is to marry it with more advanced optics or target acquisition systems. Next gen networked sighting systems kinda shit. Using drones+gps to get a picture of the "downrange" and extrapolate the beating zone for the gunner at their station. That way the gun could be used more effectively at longer range or in low visibility conditions. From a mechanical perspective, the gun and cartridge are more than capable of exceeding the performance achieved by a human hand and eye.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's... Not mechanically brilliant... It's mechanically obsolescent, it's just in a role the US doesn't doctrinally care about much (HMG are very unimportant to US operations and are used primarily as a defensive weapon for vehicles).

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Wasn't KRISS working on a .50cal HMG? Whatever happened to that?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Who cares? Kriss is a meme company.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        They planned to reduce the weight of the M2HB by 50% and the recoil by 90%. That is an impressive improvement if they could. But as I said

        Dead, Jim.
        >KRISS .50 Development Program: Adaptation of KRISS System technology to a .50 machine gun platform with goals of 90+% reduction in recoil and 50% reduction in weight versus the M2HB platform. Status: Development in cooperation with the US Army ARDEC Picatinny Arsenal.

        it looks like it is dead unless it's gotten hidden somewhere or forgotten or some shit.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It will be like the Vector's recoil reductions, which is to say not actually a reduction just a method of causing the recoil to be in a direction that a recoil testing setup doesn't measure.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah the weight was more the important part. Going from 38kg to 19kg is quite an improvement. You could get another one on the same set-up :^) But yes I too remember when the redirector bolt of the Vector was suppose to be the future and it wasn't.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Dead, Jim.
      >KRISS .50 Development Program: Adaptation of KRISS System technology to a .50 machine gun platform with goals of 90+% reduction in recoil and 50% reduction in weight versus the M2HB platform. Status: Development in cooperation with the US Army ARDEC Picatinny Arsenal.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The feeder was changed after ww2 when they copied the MG42's.
    The PIG, 240 and 249 all utilize the German design.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It is fit for purpose, and though there are better
    HMGs, they are not '3 billion dollars over 5 years better' to actually replace the existing weapons and logistics chain. Modern weapons have gotten lighter, arguably easier to maintain, and with better ammunition - but extra weight doesn't matter when it's only really used on a vehicle or a tripod, extra maintenance is not a big deal when it is attached to a whole vehicle of maintenance or used in bases when you can swap the whole thing out while it gets worked on, and the significant improvements to ammunition shoot just fine through this. The one obvious candidate for upgrades would be a barrel that's just change-and-shoot, but it's not that useful.

    Now if they did something genuinely impressive with a HMG candidate, like halving weight while reducing recoil, or doing kraut space magic so it only needs a barrel change at 200,000 rounds instead of allegedly 200, that would be worth actually considering.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Reliability, it's a very simple weapon.

    Weight is not a concern when it's mainly used on vehicles.

    Easily adapted to be remotely fired with a solenoid. It can feed from both sides with very little work.

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *