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Why did the Brit/Lend Lease Shermans Not Have the .50s?


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I remember watching an old, old TV show called Navy Log...

I loved that show.

...(supposedly based on true WW2 stories)...

There were also episodes dating from the more recent past, like Korea.

...where a sailor took a Japanese 20mm round from a strafing plane; the round failed to explode and the episode's drama was about the poor Navy doc and medic that had to operate to extract the live HE round from this fellow's torso, without blowing all 3 of them up in the process.

I remember reading an article in a magazine some time in the late '50s about that incident. The guy got hit in what sounded like the prostate from the description. The operation occurred in the surgery of a ship (I don't recall if it was a hospital ship or not). I do recall that when the shell was extracted, it was place in a cotton wool-lined box and the nurse very gingerly carried out on deck and dropped it over the side.

Michael

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Sure, a lighter 12.7mm MG would be great, and I'm sure some other modest improvements could be made as well. But no matter how light the gun gets, once you add the weight of the ammo a 12.7mm MG is never really going to be a man-portable weapons system

The last I heard is that a light-weight/low-recoil 50 cal MG is supposed to come out this year. Not meant to be man-portable, IIRC, but instead mounted on light vehicles.

Google: XM806. Now scheduled for 2013-4. I didn't see anything about it being canceled. Seems intended to supplement the M2 more than replace it. Though I'd guess a gun based on the 806 is supposed to eventually replace the M2.

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The last I heard is that a light-weight/low-recoil 50 cal MG is supposed to come out this year. Not meant to be man-portable, IIRC, but instead mounted on light vehicles.

Google: XM806. Now scheduled for 2013-4. I didn't see anything about it being canceled. Seems intended to supplement the M2 more than replace it. Though I'd guess a gun based on the 806 is supposed to eventually replace the M2.

Yeah; I know about the XM806/LW50MG. We'll see. The XM806 is the latest of the proposed M2 replacements. Several of the previous have been put on the schedule for deployment on at least a limited basis, but none of them have actually gotten there. See e.g. the XM806's immediate ancestor, the XM312.

I'm also bemused by the idea the military needs a lighter weight, lower recoil 12.7mm MG for use on "light vehicles". Irregular forces around the world have been mounting the M2 on civilian vehicles like Toyota Hiluxes for decades, and it also works just fine in the roof mount of a Hummer, and on small helicopters like the OH-53. For vehicle mount purposes how much do we really need a lighter M2? I mean, I understand that all other things being equal, lighter and less recoil is better, and there may be synergies here because a lighter, lower recoil weapon also can use a lighter mounting structure on the vehicle. But is this really a priority? Are there vehicles currently in the inventory upon which it would be advantageous to mount a 12.7mm MG, for which M2 is too heavy? Are we trying to mount a 12.7mm MG on a dirt bike er sumfink? I guess maybe for those lightweight dune buggies SF recon uses. Maybe on smaller inflatable boats used for ship-to-shore insertions. But overall, seems like a "gee, that's nice, but the money would have been better spent on any of a several dozen other things" purchase...

Also worth noting that the XM806 design has some trade-offs relative to the M2 in order to achieve that low weight and recoil. Most notably, it has roughly half the cyclic ROF. In a man-pack deployment, the lower ROF can actually be an advantage given the weight of the ammo. But on a nice, stable vehicle mount with lots of ammo, a 50% cut in ROF is a real trade-off.

And then there's the mechanical complexity -- the XM806's recoil-damping feed and fire mechanism is considerably more complex than the M2's. This makes me wonder how reliable it will actually be under field conditions. Again, in a man-pack situation where weight is critical, maybe the additional complexity is worth it to get the system down to a weight where a single man can carry it (without ammo, at least). But if it's going to be mounted on the roof of a Hummer or Stryker, this trade-off seems much less worthwhile to me.

Then again, it seems that the total XM806 contract is currently $9 million (though I'm sure there will be overruns and bloat added long before it gets to deployment). This is barely a drop in the military budget -- that's something like 1/6 the cost of a single F-18. So maybe something like the XM806 is worth it as a limited-run alternative to the M2, at least for units like SF, Airborne and Mountain that often have to go into places where logistics are difficult.

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Same thing happened in the ground convoy during the Black hawk Down incident. Except it was an RPG, not a 20mm.

Friend of mine saw this happen in Iraq. Didn't know it was possible, but it is. RPG's can and have done some mighty strange things. Suppose when you have a weapon system that gets used so often every possible malfunction and mishap will happen at some point.

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We can only hope.

Of course, if this weapon system has a good enough lobby at Congress, then they'll pitch "well every squad needs to have one, because most of our future opponents have body armor" or "because the threat is evil terrorists we need lots of light vehicle killers in the force, hand-held rockets and missiles or the section SAW won't cut it."

And then, if US forces just happened to be involved in a counter-insurgency war, the inevitable will happen and the bad guys will get the weapon. Which arguably would be a huge force enhancer for them; if I was taking on US troops I would love to have access to a portable, easily concealable MG that could kill vehicles and punch through flak jackets.

And of course if we field one then sooner or later so will the Russians and Chinese and Brazilians and maybe even Israelis. I'm not sure that's a long-term good for US forces.

I kinda doubt the developers thought that one through though. And maybe everything will turn out great.

That might be your answer.

Michael

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We can only hope.

I kinda doubt the developers thought that one through though. And maybe everything will turn out great.

Hell we've already inflicted McDonalds, American Idol and reality TV on the world. At least now they'd have a really cool weapon to shoot themselves.

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We can only hope.

Of course, if this weapon system has a good enough lobby at Congress, then they'll pitch "well every squad needs to have one, because most of our future opponents have body armor" or "because the threat is evil terrorists we need lots of light vehicle killers in the force, hand-held rockets and missiles or the section SAW won't cut it."

And then, if US forces just happened to be involved in a counter-insurgency war, the inevitable will happen and the bad guys will get the weapon. Which arguably would be a huge force enhancer for them; if I was taking on US troops I would love to have access to a portable, easily concealable MG that could kill vehicles and punch through flak jackets.

And of course if we field one then sooner or later so will the Russians and Chinese and Brazilians and maybe even Israelis. I'm not sure that's a long-term good for US forces.

I kinda doubt the developers thought that one through though. And maybe everything will turn out great.

Eh. I take your point regarding procurement -- I'm sure General Dynamics will try to convince the Pentagon that every platoon and vehicle in the U.S. force needs an XM806. Ain't the Military-Industrial complex great? :rolleyes:

But as to the other side getting their hands on a system like this, if I was a U.S. Ground Commander in Afghanistan right now, I'd like nothing better than for the insurgents to start carrying around a 40 lb. weapons system with ammunition that weighs over 4 oz. per cartridge. Sure, it's a big weight savings from an M2HB or a 12.7mm DshK, but it's still hardly the weapon of a hit-and-fade guerrilla, except perhaps for low-level air defense. But in this role, the lower ROF it offers relative to the M2 or DshK is a substantial deficit -- unguided low-level air defense weapons are all about volume of fire, and you need roughly two XM806 systems to get the volume of fire of one M2 or DshK.

If I were a Taliban ground commander, I'd much rather get my hands on some Barrett .50 sniper rifles (or similar), or even just some really good quality AP ammo for 7.62mm-class sniper rifles. Even better, get me a man-portable, fire-and-forget missile system like the Spike or Javelin; as a guerrilla commander, if I'm going to weigh a guy down with a 30+ lb. weapons system, that's what I would want.

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And if there are more than 2 targets per Switchblade (and I think we can probably assume that the publicity video has picked an ideal situation)? Its "ammo" may be light, but it's bulky. Different purpose. But a great way of winning a gunfight with a knife.

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