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So how powerful IS a fifty cal?


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Seems I've taken out just about everything at one time or another with the old .50 Cal. but probably not the big cats like Panther or Tiger. Can't really remember the distance however. It's a powerful weapon though.

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Originally posted by MrSpkr:

Has anyone ever had it take out a medium tank - a Stug or mark IV, for example? How close do you have to get?

To put it in real-world perspective, the 7.62NATO round has about 2600ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle, and it can penetrate the sides of modern APC's with armour-core or even just full metal jacket.

The .50BMG has on the order of 14000ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle.

In game turns, rear penetrations of MkIV's are possible, as others have noted.

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Originally posted by CaSCa:

If I remember my History Channel, the .50 cal was designed during or just after The Great War as an AT gun. It also had AP rounds. I'm sure that a .50 cal grog will chime in soon to elaborate.

Balloon buster.
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...if anecdotes from a video game are what you seek, here is another:

...i once gawked at one of my 14th Cav. m20's sideswipe a hetzer on a muddy ardennes road - the gunner loosed several point blank bursts into the top/side/rear of the inadvertently attached tank destroyer knocking it out.

what's more, the m20 gunner, without hesitation, proceeded to cut down the german crew as they attempted to crawl from the hatch of their vehicle.

...christ, even in the antiseptic world of combat mission, the little scene was strikingly brutal.

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A true testament from the power of the Ma-Duce

From Black Hawk Down, page 147 paperback ed.:

There were plenty of targets to shoot at. Up in the turret, Pringle unloosed the .50 cal on a group of armed Somalis. Schilling watched as one of them, a tall, skinny man wearing a bright yellow shirt and carrying an AK-47, came apart as the big rounds tore through him. Deep read blotches apeared on his yellow shirt. First an arm came off. Then the man's head and chest exploded.
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I was in the infranty in the US Army the 50.cal is a bad weapon with AP rounds at 1200 meters it can penetrate up to 11/2 inches of steel if shot in one spot in the same area with AP rounds it could penetrate more but your gunner better be damn! good!!! smile.gif

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Originally posted by Lipperd98:

I was in the infranty in the US Army:)

So was I,who were you with? Totally agree on the effects of the .50.

[ May 15, 2002, 06:23 AM: Message edited by: Splinty ]

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That video clip is not valid reference material.

The URL is finnish which suggests that the 50cal was operated by a finnish crew.

ow, remember what the Suomi did to russian KV-1s armed with nothing but tree logs and woolen caps, and you might get a faint idea of what they're able to do when armed with a MaDeuce.

That lawn mower, model BFT-5000 "Voroshilovisko", would withstand anything except a finnish-operated 50cal. Don't be so naive to think that your 50cal could do the same.

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Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

ow, remember what the Suomi did to russian KV-1s armed with nothing but tree logs and woolen caps, and you might get a faint idea of what they're able to do when armed with a MaDeuce.

It's commonly thought that Hiroshima was due to an atomic bomb. The special weapons and tactics squad of the Finninsh army that volunteered for duty in the Pacific with Allied forces after the end of the war in Europe is strangely missing from accounts of the war...

Need I say more?

Michael

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