Jake Holman Jr.'s Articles Tagged 'machine gun' (13)

Light machine guns have for the past 40 years been primarily belt-fed. While in the first half of the last century magazines were just as common, if not more, in light machine gun designs. Every nation seemed to come up with its own indigenous light machine gun design. From Sweden we have a magazine fed light…

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In 1919 America was gripped by a Communist scare and Boston was no different. Coupled with the rampant paranoia of a vast infiltration of the United States by Red agents, the City of Boston was facing a peril from within, a strike of its entire police force.

Boston raised the United States'…

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Small-arms designers have from day one sought innovative or just plain different ways to create a a light, efficient weapons design. Reliable, a must. Light weight, whenever possible. Interoperability with other weapons systems, the Holy Grail. During World War II, Japanese…

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During World War II, the fighting forces that were Allied and Axis paratroopers were the cutting edge of warfare. Today, special operations have the cache, but 70 years ago, the swagger and elite belonged to the paratroopers. And along with that stature, came a series of special weapons designed specifically for…

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When machine guns were first mounted to aircraft at the dawn of aviation, tacticians quickly realized that in order to score kills any weapon needed to get the maximum number of rounds on target as fast as possible. High rates of fire were the natural solution, but they also proved to be bullet…

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After a century, an automatic rifle that has long remained in the small-arms shadows has reemerged. The Madsen Light Machinegun, fielded in 1902, has battled from the tundra of winter Norway in the 20th century to the steamy ramshackles of…

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Looking at the "Stinger" of Corporal Tony Stein and it'll seems a piecemeal weapon. Not quite a World War II general purpose machine gun, not quite a rifle. Stein- a pre-war machinist from Dayton, Ohio- turned war hero charged into battle with this Frankenstein of a rifle.

 

You see, from a small arms…

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Weapons were needed in massive quantities with unerring reliability. Nations under the British Commonwealth, participants in the war against the Axis,like Australia, India and Canada were expected to produce their share of weapons for the fight. And with the Bren Gun, the premiere light machine-gun of the…

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During the year of these weekly weapons features, the small arms designers of Czechoslovakia have time and again risen to the top as innovators in the field. And this week, the Bren Gun will be profiled, but this British weapon has its roots in Eastern Europe.

 

Like the FN MAG, the Bren gun is an…

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I was watching the news from Libya last month and amid the cruise missiles and precision guided weapons, the rebel forces on the ground wielded any number of small arms, from pistol to large caliber. And amid the crowd, one rebel hoisted a weapon that immediately caught my eye, the Degtyarev machine gun. A weapon first…

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When it comes to the FN MAG, nicknamed 'Gimpy' by the Brits and the Israelis wielding it are known as' Magists,' excellence means longevity on the battlefield. And after decades of vehicle mounting, even the United States got around to adopting the FN MAG for ground troops. When put up against more modern medium machine…

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Recently, director Michael Mann (father of the crime epics Heat and Thief) put to celluloid the story of John Dillinger in Public Enemies. In the movie we see very briefly a weapon that captured the imagination of Americans as Dillinger and fellow gangsters blazed their way across the country.



The weapon: the baby machine gun.



Nothing more than… Continue

The Lewis Gun, dubbed the ‘Belgian Rattlesnake’ by the Kaiser’s forces, was a revolutionary gas-operated light machine gun fielded during the Great War. Notably, the Lewis was credited with being the first weapon to shoot down a Zeppelin during the War to End All Wars.

Oh and if you’ve ever seen Star Wars, then you’ve seen the Lewis Gun. Totted around Mos Eisley by…

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