Why are all our machine guns throughout history so fucking heavy?
Why specifically is the M240 so fucking heavy? I hope you all go fuck yourselves.
Why are all our machine guns throughout history so fucking heavy? Why specifically is the M240 so fucking heavy?
they're made of metal
riveted construction (oh god remember that guy?)
M60 and PKM are way lighter
wasn't the M240 designed with the idea that it would exclusively be a vehicle-mounted gun?
No, it was always intended to be a GPMG.
It does make a far better coax than many "GPMG's".
Ever seen the coaxial M60?
Hide the kids! It's an ugly fucker!
it was a GPMG, meaning it could be used bipod, tripod, or vehicle mounted
though in practice, few people ever used it on a bipod
so its more of an MMG
Less felt recoil and more capable of continuous fire.
They overbuild them for reliability and sturdiness so they can endure thousands of rounds through them with only barrel changes. This also helps with felt recoil as some other anons have said.
And remember, Gary loves you.
There are newer designs that are lighter, but it’ll probably be a while before they’re adopted widely.
The majority of the weight in a machine gun comes from the barrel.
Because of the rapid fire of machine guns, the barrel has to take alot of friction and will heat up, thermodynamics will then break the barrel.
To make barrels more heat resistant, they are more massive.
You are basicallt carrying a thick hollow steel rod with an attached bullet box.
>The majority of the weight in a machine gun comes from the barrel.
t. nogunz neverserved
He's on the right page
It's like 1/3 the weight
Take your machine gun apart and tell me what part weights the most you double moron
Weight strongly correlates with heat tolerance and reliability in machine guns.
Why don’t we make machineguns out of super heat resistant materials like kevlar and glass fiber?
1) those materials resist heat just fine but they don't resist wear. machine guns need to deal with a fuckton of wear due to the volume of fire.
2) it's not so much about "resisting" heat as it is getting rid of heat. If you made the gun out of an insulating material some of the vital bits inside would quickly get so hot they'd cook off the ammo.
>Why specifically is the M240 so fucking heavy?
That's actually a light machine gun.
It's actually a general purpose machine gun.
Do you even lift, bro?
consider the alternative,
you are weak from a lifetime of vidya, onions, and HTR
>doesnt even lift
NGMI
>onions, and HTR
nta, but I'm pretty sure the site still automatically changes s o y to onions/onions, and I think he had a typo trying to put HRT
Literally no reason for machine guns today. The current US Army squad is divided into two equal forces. One of them suppresses with the machine gun the other advances. This halves the attack force potential. In the future the U.S. Army will use squad level drones instead, which will suppress the enemy far more effectively than machine guns. The drone operator will be in the command element of the squad along with the squad leader, so the attack is not slowed down or halved in strength.
How will a drone squad suppress trenches from 1.8km away to allow another platoon to attack the trenches?
Warfare does not stop at the squad level because life is not a squad based video game. Nearly all warfare is above the squad level and squads don't magically halve in size to provide suppression instead of assaulting. Machineguns are here to stay irrespective of anything that happens with drones.
Also, lurk moar gay.
A drone could easily cover 1.8km if not further. In addition a drone does not rely on line of sight with the enemy to deliver it's munitions.
>squads don't magically halve in size
In attack strength, yes. Again, the squad is divided into 2 teams, both equally armed. One team is to stop and suppress the enemy while the other advances. Out of 8 men excluding the squad leader, only 4 men are advancing, the other 4 are covering for them.
>Warfare does not stop at the squad level
Let's go up the platoon level. At the platoon level you would have 3 of those rifle squads and a weapons squad along with the mortar section. The mortar section probably would be deleted and replaced with the drone section. The weapons squad has another 9 people in it that are not contributing to an attack. The weapons squad has in it the medium machine gun team (M240 in OP) and the anti-armor team. The MMG team is for suppression which can be done more effectively by drones, deleted. The anti-armor team is to destroy vehicles, which can be done more effectively by drones, deleted.
Don't they give the SAW to the shortest manlet in the squad, just for the lulz?
>why MG heavy
machine guns get very hot and go under extreme firing schedules they need more material to survive, especially around the gasport gas block area. This also precludes the use of aluminum or polymer in the receiver, since those materials lose rigidity with heat.
On top of that, most MGs need a means to swap the barrel during combat operations. adding a mechanism to reliably do this is heavy.
M240 is a built to last design. PKM does all the usual weight saving shit, stamped receiver, fluted barrel. M240Ls with their titanium receivers are about the same as a PKM, and you can go lighter these days; although sacrifices end up being made. For example, most of the sub-15lb designs from recent years forgo quick barrel changes, the Evolys gets rid of it completely and the LAMG requires gripping the smoking hot gas block. They also both use pencil barrels, which is probably fine for the assault role they're apparently designed for but not really for the sustained fire role. In that sense, there's probably a mathematical hard limit on how light a 7.62 MG can actually be without compromises being made, probably 14-16 lbs.
Because they see the most continuous operation out of any firearm and you need it to be overbuilt so its intended use doesn't break it.