12/3/2023 0 Comments Browning automatic rifle![]() ![]() In 1884 Hiram Maxim presented the world with its first recoil-operated, fully automatic machine gun, in which propellant gas from the expended round drove the bolt back against a spring to carry out the operations of reloading and firing. But smokeless powder, with its slower, even burn rate, spelled the end for hand-cranked weapons. It was not a bad weapon for the time, especially considering it could fire about 600 rounds per minute. Hand-cranked, it consisted of 10 barrels revolving around a central shaft-each barrel gravity-loaded during the first half rotation around this shaft, and spent cases ejected during the second. The first reliable machine gun to see general use was the Gatling, introduced to Federal forces in the very final days of the American Civil War. Perhaps a better designation would be “portable,” since most of the BAR’s forerunners required as many as four men to operate them. It was slightly lighter and liked by many because of its greater accuracy when fired in semiautomatic mode.īrowning Automatic Rifles fall into the category of so-called light machine guns, although considering that a BAR weighed 40 pounds with a full complement of 12 magazines, not many of the soldiers who lugged them across Normandy and the Rhineland would probably agree with that description. Of the BAR’s other competitors, perhaps only the British Bren gun was superior. They could be stripped in the field without tools, and the weapon’s simple design and reasonably low manufacturing tolerances meant that dirt and dust never presented BAR operators with the sort of problems that the MG34 presented the Germans, despite its superior belt feed system and sophisticated recoil-operated mechanism. ![]() BARs were well designed, well made, reliable and easy to use and service. The BAR was much more than just a psychological weapon for American GIs during World War II. The 30.06-caliber rounds went harmlessly between the Germans, but the BAR’s racket so unnerved them that they dropped their weapons and threw up their hands, which moved a friend of Petty’s, walking behind him, to comment dryly, “Hell, L-Rod, that’s a good way to save ammunition-just scare ’em to death.” Petty was right on top of them, but the sergeant instantly threw himself to the ground, firing his BAR as he fell. Undeterred, the Rangers pushed on to their second objective, the road between Grandcamp-Maisy and Vierville-sur-Mer, where Sergeant William “L-Rod” Petty suddenly found himself face to face-literally-with two Germans who had jumped up out of a deep shelter hole. Equipped with nothing heavier than mortars and Browning Automatic Rifles, or BARs, they managed to fight their way to the top, only to find telegraph poles substituted for the big guns, which had been removed but were later found some distance away. Army Rangers approached the coast of Normandy and prepared to carry out the unenviable mission of scaling a perpendicular cliff behind the beach and silencing a battery of 155mm cannons located in a series of massive reinforced concrete bunkers atop Pointe du Hoc. On the morning of June 6, 1944, a detachment of 200 U.S. ![]()
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