Another ol' radio saved from the dump!

[cb123]

No tolivac, I'm talking about this kind of BAR, well, if you were holding it with an oven mitt...sure, it could be a rifle. Check this out, it's only two minutes and fourteen seconds, but well worth the watch!

 

[tolivac]

Good little clip-but the gun is not a "fifty" it is a water cooled Browning 30 cal medium machine gun.The water jacket of the gun is connected to a 5 gal jerry can of water.Yes,the "oven mitt" was used to change barrels on a Heavy "fifty" One of my collector freinds has one.The asbestos mitt is part of the kit.The barrel will overheat after so many belts fired-forget how many it was-then you did the "hot" barrel swap.A good gun crew can do a barrel change within a minute.The real fifty would be too big and heavy to put on a bartop.Some snipers used to use the heavy 50 as a makeshift "sniper" rifle.A high power scope would be mounted on it and the skilled shooter would "blip" the trigger paddles for a burst or even one shot.Took considerable skill to to do that.Than the Barrett was born.Lighter,and more practical for sniper use than the heavy 50 cal machine gun.The 50 gun by itself can weigh upwards of 100 pounds.The base is another 75 pounds.3 solders were needed to carry the gun alone-dissassembled.Then there would be the ammo.Those 100round and 500 round cans are HEAVY!!!

 

[cb123]

It was a pretty funny vid, it kinda reminded me of the Kids In The Hall! Why, it's a mighty hard thing to beat the devil's paintbrush. There's a very interesting background story behind Edison paying off Maxim to leave the U.S. to live abroad in Europe, thus eliminating one of his greatest rivals. Whilst Maxim was in Europe he was giving a wager, and that's how the Maxim machine gun came into existence. The first gun you could position an idiot behind, and all you would have in front of it was but death upon the entanglement of Constantine wire. The BAR was really the completion of that first idea, to have a one man fire crew. The French first tried and failed miserably with the Chauchat. Could you imagine walking across Flanders' Field with five or six other Frenchmen, waiting for your left foot to hit the ground before you squeezed a short volley, bearing in mind, whilst you were under enfilade fire, unmasked upon open ground with a gun so crude that it was unable fire. I think the German MG42 had the fastest barrel change out time. You just pop one off and pop a cool one back on, and it was just about that quick. The only problem was, if you maintained a suppressing fire for more than twenty seconds you could warp the barrel. That is why the Germans always used short controlled burst.     

 

[tolivac]

Yes,remember that infamous Chauchat-Horrible gun!!Certainy something you don't want to trust your life or others for that matter,to.Note how our present M60 gun is very similar to the German MG42!The short bursts were always better-and not only easier on barrles-but more accurate than spraying the target area with fire.

 

[cb123]

Very true! One well aimed shot is always better than confused fire, but on D-Day there was a lot of warped MG42 barrels. Just like the fliers said which were dropped by the Americans: Pressed from the front, cut off by the rear, and written off by Hitler! Saint Petersburg all over again.