pretty fancy for a boat anchor
Posted on 09/28/2016 7:40:24 AM PDT by C19fan
Not trying to hijack the thread, however, what little I know about the subject I learned on a pbs documentary. Apparently more Tigers were destroyed by their own crew because they were broken down and did not want the intact tank to fall into the hands of the Allies than the allies destroyed themselves.
I know little about them too. Other than what's been on the History Channel.
And, the way my grandfather found out the Germans had broken through at the Battle of the Bulge was that he rounded a corner in his jeep and came nose-to-nose with a Tiger Tank. Only thing that saved him was that his jeep's driver was just a little bit faster than the Tiger's gunner.
Pucker Inducing, I'd imagine.
In the ammo world, “light” and “heavy” refer to the cartridge used, not the weight of the gun firing it.
7.62x54 is a full-sized .30 caliber cartridge, roughly half-way between the .308 and the .30-’06 in terms of muzzle energy. For a machine gun, that is a “light” cartridge. OTOH, a .50 BMG-class cartridge would be considered “heavy.”
That all said, I hope that the gun itself is extremely heavy, prone to jamming, and not durable.
Oh, that’s funny, glad he lived to tell the tale...[Or tail of the Tiger?]
“Pucker Inducing, I’d imagine”
No doubt, woulda been more like undergarment soiling if it were me. :)
Sounds excruciating.
This is 7.62x54R. I have some for an M44 ( that I lost), and it’s pretty heavy. I wouldn’t want to lug around 200 rounds plus another 30 in the attached magazine.
The 240 uses 7.62x51. The cartridges are slightly smaller, weigh maybe 4-5 grams less. So they essentially weigh the same. Too much :p Infantry are stupid.
My uncle was in the 24th Division and was one of the first combat units to land in Korea from occupation duty in Japan. He carried an M1 carbine with two 30 round mags tapped together. When he got off the ship they were handing out ammo and some guy handed him five rounds and said try not to use them. WTH!
He ran across communist firearms all the time, mostly mosin’s and burp guns. He said he picked up a nice looking burp gun and lugged it around about two days and decided enough of this boat anchor and tossed it in a rice paddy and unslung the M1 again.
Who would deny the resemblance?!
pretty fancy for a boat anchor
Looks like a piece of crap.
“In the ammo world, “light” and “heavy” refer to the cartridge used, not the weight of the gun firing it.
7.62x54 is a full-sized .30 caliber cartridge, roughly half-way between the .308 and the .30-’06 in terms of muzzle energy. ...”
7.62x54Rmm patron vintovka obrazets 1891g is not between 7.62mm NATO and MIL STD 30-06 (formal nomenclature cal 30M2): the performance of the two US military rounds is identical, so there is no “between”. [civilian loadings of 308 and 30-06 are often higher velocity and are manufactured to slightly different dimensional tolerances than military cartridges. Do no fire civilian rounds in rifles marked 7.62 NATO, nor in US M1 Garands: serious safety risks and durability problems]
Late vintage (WWII onwards) 7.62x54R is pretty energetic, with higher muzzle velocity than US rounds and energy equivalent to German Gewehr S-patronen 7.92x57 [known in US as 8mm Mauser, but mildly loaded].
7.62x54R is now the oldest military cartridge still in military use.
The term “light machine gun” does indeed refer to gun weight. It was coined before the First World War, before anyone thought to design a mid-power “light” cartridge for military use. The US War Dept adopted the Benet-Mercie Machine Rifle in 1909.
Light is a relative term. That chunk of ordnance widely called the “Lewis Gun” (designed by Samuel Maclean, stolen by Isaac N Lewis, banned from US use by William Crozier, used by British) was widely regarded as the best light gun of WWI. It weighed more than the North Korean gun in the cited article.
Belt-fed guns firing a “full-power” cartridge were “heavy” during WWI, “medium” during WWII when heavier cartridges came in (as Ancesthntr noted - 50 cal Browning and 12.7x108 Soviet were the most common), and are now looked on as “general purpose” machine guns.
The GPMG typically weighs 21 to 27 pounds.
“Looks like a WW II Imperial Army MG.”
Imperial Japan did use a light gun like the Type 73 in the article - Taisho 92 or something. The British used the Bren Gun, which had a curved magazine very much like the one in the image: required to feed 303 British rounds.
All were descended from the ZB26 (original chambering 7.92x57 Mauser), designed by Vaclav Holek at CZ-Praha and produced at ZB. Various later versions were stolen by Nazi Germany when it took Czechoslovakia. The general design thus saw extensive action on both sides of WWII.
The Bren Gun was widely regarded as the best light gun of WWII. Many were converted to 7.62mm NATO and remained in British service well into the Cold War.
“I guess there is no cncern with accuracy, the 30 round magazine is in your field of view. It says you spray and pray the first 30 rounds, go prone and switch to belt feed ...”
The magazine does not interfere with the sight.
Sights are offset to the left (shooting right handed is the only position permitted). It would be much more obvious had the editors not cropped the image behind the front sight.
Offset sights were a feature of the original design, ZB26 of Czechslovakia. The offset carried on into Britain’s Bren Gun and Imperial Japanese versions.
The British have had a very long love affair with offset sights. Some Vickers guns have them, though they are not as badly needed on that design.
Though as an open-bolt gun it was not as accurate as closed-bolt guns mounted on a tripod, the ZB26 and its descendants enjoyed a reputation for accuracy.
“Didn’t the Russians have something like this in WWII? I just remember the top-feed.” [wbill, post 7]
“Russia had one that looked like the Lewis without the jacket, ...” [Bringbackthedraft, post 9]
USSR’s Red Army did use a light machine gun termed the DP, designed by Vasily Degtyarev. Very simple, rugged, few parts. It was fed by a circular magazine vaguely like the magazine of the Lewis gun in appearance. It can be seen in many Soviet propaganda films. Numerous modfications and updated versions were adopted; various later models served with USSR forces into the 1960s and some are still in inventory in smaller countries.
The efficacy of the aluminum cooling jacket on the Lewis gun was never confirmed. Guns for air service often dispensed with the jacket. The jacket was supposed to utilize the muzzle blast to draw ambient air forward, cooling the entire setup. But the only time I ever fired a Lewis gun, it worked the opposite direction and blew ammonia fumes back at me.
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