Machine Guns

This is the 4th in a series of illustrated Handbooks portraying the men of the British Army in the wars and campains of the 20th century. This book tells the story of light machine guns with the emphasis on illustrstion - full-colour paintings, photographs, drawings and technical illustrations.

The machine-gun is one of the iconic weapons of the Great War - indeed of the twentieth century. Yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. During a four-year war that generated unprecedented casualties, the machine-gun stood out as a key weapon.

First adopted in 1917, the rugged and reliable Browning .30-caliber machine gun remained in US service into the Vietnam era, and is still occasionally found in use elsewhere even today. Produced in both water-cooled and air-cooled versions, it has been employed in every imaginable role for a machine gun – antipersonnel, antiaircraft, mounted on aircraft as both defensive and offensive armament, defensive armament aboard vehicles (armored and soft-skin), mounted on watercraft, and others. Employing gripping first-hand testimony and featuring specially commissioned illustrations and detailed photographs, many in color, this lively study of the Browning .30-caliber machine gun reveals the origins, combat history and legacy of this versatile and dependable weapon.

On this episode of Lock n' Load, veteran warrior - Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee "Gunny" Ermey takes the audience on a journey that looks at the engineering development of the machine gun from the first weapons used in the Civil War through to the technological masterpieces in use today.

Some of the amazing moments from the episode feature "Gunny" setting a car on fire with a machine gun from over 1000 feet away! He'll also cut down a forest of timber with a Nazi Machine Gun and paint a picture, with a gun known as "the devil's paintbrush!" Some of the other weapons "Gunny" demonstrates are the classic Gatling Gun, the Maxim Gun, the massive Browning M2 .50 cal and the electronically operated Mini-Gun