https://www.rockislandauction.com/riac-blog/the-belgian-behemoth
Hey, they're also called "Jingals' as in "A jingal covered the clearing" in Kipling's "The Grave of a Hundred Head!"
Posted on 12/30/2020 11:50:32 AM PST by Onthebrink
Sometimes the military needs a little bit of nudging to determine it actually needs a new weapon. That might just be the short version of the history of the Barrett M82.
The U.S. military has a proven track record of sometimes not seeing the potential, and this was true initially of the machine gun – and more recently with a very high powered sniper rifle.
The concept of large rifles isn’t entirely new. Large caliber “wall guns” had been used since the 16th century in Europe, and remained in use throughout the 18th and 19th century in India and China – where oftentimes two or more men were required to wield the oversized weapons. During the First World War, the German military fielded its Tankgewehr M1918 anti-tank rifle – a 13.2mm bolt action rifle designed to take out enemy tanks.
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
What is a wall gun?., something that can shoot through a wall?
I had a 50-round belt of .50 Browning ammo hanging on my wall. Cost a couple bucks to put it together, but it was cool!
“What is a wall gun?”
Something that shoots out a wall of lead?
The concept goes back to the early days of firearms, when a lot of warfare was still conducted by means of siege of castles or other fortifications.
"Wall guns," were used by the defense and were intended to be fired from the battlements atop the fortress wall. Because they were more static and didn't need to be particularly mobile, they could be considerably larger and heavier than a long arm carried by soldiers in the offense who would need to be more mobile.
A wall gun was mounted on a swivel mount on a wall. It could be moved from place to place as needed. But it wasn’t something a arquebusier or musketeer could handle. I was between a large firearm and small artillery...
No wonder they were track mounted in Viet Nam.
I was thinking more like a swivel gun.
They could be used as bow chasers. There was a pic of one on the Bounty, but I couldn’t get it to display. It was on the starboard forecastle. Probably had one to port as well.
The future of sniper rifles is the DARPA EXACTO laser guided rounds out of a smoothbore .50 caliber. Beginners can hit moving targets at 2 miles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO
“What is a wall gun?”
My 2 cents:
Wall guns were large caliber smooth-bore muskets that were used in the 16th through 18th centuries by defending forces to break the advance of enemy troops. They were too heavy to be fired from the shoulder and so were usually rested on window ledges or low walls, hence the name. They were also known as Hackbuts, a name originally given to early medieval hand cannon. Many were fitted with a barrel hook to absorb shock. Some of these weapons had multiple barrels which enabled volleys to be fired much faster than a normal single shot wall gun.
A wall gun’s barrel could be over 54 inches (140 cm) in length with a bore of at least 1 inch (2.5 cm). This made them more accurate than the standard flintlock or matchlock musket. George Washington acquired several wall guns during the American War of Independence; tests showed that they were capable of hitting a sheet of common writing paper at 600 yards (550 m). Wall guns were part of the standard equipment of some artillery pieces at that time.
wy69
I was privileged to be able to fire a .50 sniper rifle.
I can truly say it is a moving experience. I was conscious the first time that I sat in a pocket of relative calm between the back blast of the muzzle brake and the combustion chamber which was next to my ear.(It was a bull-pup breechloader). Pulling the trigger took a degree of fortitude and quite frankly I cannot recall the rifle firing. And of course I did it again!
bro has one, it's like touching off a 1/4stick three feet in front of yer face... you can go deaf while smiling 8^)
Lucky you! I’d do it too!
It bears mention that the M82 was the first weapon ever formally adopted by any military service that was designed, developed, marketed and mass-produced exclusively by the same company (the M-16 wasn't mass-produced for DoD until after Armalite sold the rifle to Colt).
All because it occurred to some professional photographer with no engineering credentials (named Ronnie Barrett) that there might be a market for a man-portable .50 BMG rifle. So he recruited a professional machinist pal to work with him in his garage nights and weekends, and the M82 was what they created.
It also bears mention that the US Militaries have only 'standardized' two long guns since adopting the M-16 in the early 1960s, and the both of them were Barrett products, the M82/M107 and the MRAD, which was created (by Ronnie's son, Chris) expressly as a 'sniper' rifle.
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