I think some brutality match would be much better. Especially in such division he was in in the last Finnish Brutality, having to run 5km (or something, don't remember the exact value) after each stage in full load.
Yes, but as any NCO worth their salt should know: those pesky recruits we consider to be our children from a mother we never fraternised with, but which we have to care for anyways _will_ always find a way to misuse such things to e.g. nap on duty. Because let's be honest: the majority of us senior/retired NCO's do know all of those tricks for one reason - because we did them ourselves when we were still young and stupid, but were lucky enough to get away with it until the powers that be (in their infinite wisdom) did promote us high enough to understand at long last that with great power comes great responsibility, innit?
The “Eve of Destruction” is a modified 5 ton truck used in Vietnam for convoy protection. The M60 was authorized to be used on it, but one of those soldiers must have had prior naval service because they Strategically Transferred Equipment to an Alternate Location and had one of these naval dual 50 pedestal mounts in the back of their truck, so that when their convoys were ambushed they’d just turn their truck sideways and give the forest (and the VC hiding in it) a broadside.
@@johndododoe1411 Not a "Broadside" unless you're sideways. But seriously turning sideways would mean you could use the full elevation of the guns... otherwise the guys in the cab would be less than pleased.
Perhaps the most acrobatic Forgotten Weapons video I have seen. I must commend Ian for his willingness to go below and above and around and below and across the floor and beyond on this one.
Hopefully they let you know take it out to the range. My grandfather served it wwII. He was assigned to a quad 50 crew. I saw pictures of him with it when i was a kid. It was probably the most impressive gun I have ever seen.
@@JohnSmith-yv6eq dunno man, it's much more top-heavy (and heavier in general, that armor plate isn't light at all) than the average MG mounted on a toyota pickup
I live in the Philly area, and sometimes I forget how important this area was to America's industrial and military growth throughout the industrial revolution.
I'm from the west coast and did a driving tour of the east coast. Out of all the cities I went to Philly seemed just depressing. Despite being an old city the downtown was not lively like Chicago or New York. The architecture is nice and I love the history but I would not want to live there. Still better than Baltimore!
This is one of the beautiful parts of massed standardization when you went to make this kind of modification you only have to do it for the one system so you can do it right in fewer total tries.
Ironically they weren't that useful. Heavier AA like the 40mm Bofors were much more effective, or even the 5" dual purpose with proximity fused ammunition. It was discovered fairly early on that light AA wasn't that good. You could eventually take out an enemy aircraft, but likely after it had dropped its bombs.
I find it funny that the M2 Browning evolved from the M1919 which again was based on an air-cooled version of the water-cooled M1917 machine gun. And now it feels like we're back again to the water-cooler M1917 except in .50 BMG.
Much of air cooled or water cooled is a function of rate of fire and sustainability. The water cooled guns typically have lighter barrels, which with water cooling allows them to fire faster, for longer. The air cooled guns have heavier barrels, which slows the rate of fire. The .30 water cooled guns can be man carried, at least for short distances, but by the time you get to 50 cal, the gun and the mount need either a vehicle or a ship to carry them.
There were a small number of water cooled .50s in Army service. Airborne had a few, oddly enough, they were used in a single mount for AA use. Light barrel and bolt for high rate of fire, water cooled barrel for sustainable fire.
My grandfather was part of the 102nd Coast Artillery Brigade (Anti-Aircraft), When I looked it up a while back, his company was armed with the M2(WC) and they had 72 of them in the company. The armory he was stationed at is still in service on Staten Island
Please, please let Morphy's wheel that out to their range so we can see Ian blaze away on it. Though I know that'll never happen, thanks to them for letting Ian show it to us. It's beautifully restored & looks factory mint bar a few dings on the water jackets. Whoever buys it is going to be very, very happy indeed.
In the Blues Brothers when they broke into city hall with every cop in Illinois chasing them the national guard showed up and pointed one those guns at the building for some reason. It's only onscreen for a second but you can clearly see it.
If I bought this, I would take better care of it than my family. 😂😂😂 No, seriously, it would definitely be babied. Like the Pharaohs of old, it would be buried with me and join me in the afterlife.
The army would also pair the twin 50s with a semiautomatic 37mm as a halftrack mounted CGMC ( Combination Gun Motor Carraige) antiaircraft gun. The first ones used the water cooled guns, as the M15 CGMC. Later versions switched to the air cooled .50s as the M15A1 CGMC.
@@traitorouskin7492 on the same mount. I've seen 2 configurations. One with the 50s to the side and slightly above and one with the 50s to the side but slightly below.
@@traitorouskin7492 on the M15 CGMC, the water cooled .50s were mounted above the 37mm. The M15A1 reversed this, and placed the .50s below. I believe this was at least in part to reduce stress on the mount. The air cooled guns also eliminated the need to provide water, as well as the maintenance requirements of the cooling jackets.
Wow! That's the same gun my father used during the war. He later moved to the air cooled type. He almost never used the sights, he instead used the tracers and the round sight to get on target. He also put washers in the guns to speed up rate of fire. He shot down a number of Japanese with the guns.
It won't be airbrake hoses.Like hydraulic hose, the airbrake hose is too unyielding to offer up ANY comfort to a shoulder. Almost any non-reinforced Heavy-Duty hose would offer sufficient cushioning and therefore do the job.
These were effectively obsolete for naval AA use when the war started. The .50 cal is too short ranged in an AA role to reach an aircraft before it has dropped whatever explosive payload it is carrying. Even the 20 mm Oerlikon gun (which Texas has in abundance) is mostly good only for shooting at planes as they drop. If you want to prevent a plane from dropping explosive items on you, you want a quad 40mm Bofors gun mount or better yet (though too late for WWII) a 3 inch/55 automatic twin mount with VT proximity fused ammo.
I was always curious about this version, after Ian told in a video that the M2 had heavy barrel (the standard one), air cooled (seen in airplanes), and water cooled configurations. Now it's here, and it's glorious
Great content as always, but I can’t wait for you to get your hands on and film one of the quad .50 mounts! I’d love to see the mechanical elements that make that work!
I mean, isn't that what a sling is, technically? A strap of material to keep the gun and the operator attached to one another, and to assist with the ergonomics of aiming?
This is one of the best explanations I have seen on an antiaircraft ring sight. The ring sight, combined with the adjustable crosshairs and tracers loaded as every fifth round in the belt, made calculating the lead much more intuitive and less reliant on precise sights and math that went into teaching gunners and making sights. Since most of the planes were attacking the ship, lead was often not the problem it could be for ground-based antiaircraft guns pass shooting high-flying planes. Dad told me in WW II some duck, and bird hunters had high hit rates the first day and got better fast, while some never hit a target.
A lot of the air gunners who shot waterfowl and skeet during civilian life proved very adept at deflection shooting of enemy aircraft from their bombers. Your dad probably met a few similar anti-aircraft sharpshooters.
Oh man....gonna keep my eye on this auction cause it comes with that mount and 2 fully transferable water cool .50's this is gonna be awesome to see!! Hopefully we can get some footage of this setup roaring away from either you or the new owner. 400 round mag dump!!
I remember reading that the water cooled 50 cals you were able to have water continuously pump in instead of relying on a condensation can I guess that was an option for the Navy being on ships I wonder if they had the same type of setup for the 1917 Browning water cooled 30 cal.
I remember a bit of mind-bending when I first saw a water-cooled .50... I wish you had gone a bit into the cooling system; was there an evaporator can on the mount??
Those are designed to be used on ships, they just pump sea water right trough the cooling jackets. When they were mounted on land they pumped water from the sea, in the case of coastal defenses, from rivers or even out of the local water pipelines.
Every time I see a certain auction house is having an Extraordinary Gun sale, I always take a look at the catalog to see what I hope Ian does videos of. This is definitely one I had marked.
Yestertech is always fascinating. Everything is thought out, the engineering is detailed and precise, the quality of manufacture is high, which are all typical of American industry during this era.
Wow I guess I assumed that it was just the mount. With the 2 transferable M2s is crazy. I guess if you can afford this you might actually be able to shoot a volume of .50 cal worthy of a water cooled MG
Pretty cool. I've never seen one. As a former Navy Gunner's Mate, I don't remember one of those at the gun school in Great Lakes Illinois. My gun for eight years was a "Ma deuce". Been in a hot gun situation a couple of times. I'm curious what the sustained fire rate is with the water jackets.
Browning demonstrated them to the Army by firing two sets of 20,000 rounds without a jam. He then fired them continuously after that for 48 minutes and 12 seconds. If watered properly the sustained fire rate AND service life is practically indefinite. The air-cooled service life is a recommended 3,000 rounds.
As a former Coast Guard Gunners Mate and Army Cavalry Armorer I think this is a FANTASTIC weapon for ships or light armored tracked vehicles! I know military leaders always want to make their "mark" with new designs BUT I think the water cooled jackets should NEVER have been discarded. The principle is still used on the 76mm deck gun so why not the .50 and 25mm and 30mm deck guns! Thank you for a review of an incredible weapon system that should still be around!
I’ve studied WW2, I think, since I was able to read. I knew all about ships’ armament, but I really never knew just how sophisticated these .50 cal. Guns were. I guess I just assumed they were only guns mounted on a traversing platform. And having served in the Army, I was used to the simple M2 guns standard to that service. I did not know, for instance that the “spider” sights had any kind of specific calibration. Thanks for sharing. P.S. What does an apparatus like this typically cost? I’m assuming-past the fact that there are not one, but TWO machine guns, that the bids will near the seven-figure threshold. Can you clue me in?
@@justforever96 I know someone who collects guns like these. The auction price of the item is only the beginning. There are two schools of thought here: "It was made to stand up to abuse, so let's go fire it;" and, "when it's gone, it's gone." The person I know belongs to the latter group and spends far more in a given year making sure their gun vault is temperature and humidity controlled like a wine cellar than they do on ammo. Taking a machine gun out was a special occasion to celebrate that item, not just an excuse to dump mags (although we did that too). God this was years ago though. My point is that someone who spends a quarter mil on an MG might easily spend another 100k or more on just the room that they store it in over the course of their lifetime depending on the type of collector they are.
In the Pacific against Kamikaze attacks you either knocked planes out of the sky or you went to the bottom of the sea. So people were pretty motivated. This is the smallest armament they'd be using. They'd also use 20 and 40 mm auto cannons and the 5" guns too. The 5" guns could score hits because they used proximity fuzes. For most of the war only the Navy got to use those. They were top secret.
Excellent video! This video in particular is right in line with the work I do researching and writing about the Pacific War. Thank you very much, Ian! You certainly do know your stuff!
Fired one at the last Albany machine gun festival in 2017. Being sprayed with this blackish water all over my face and clothing was a cool red badge of courage experience.
Looks awesome. I got to see one of the quad .50s on display at an air/military museum recently (it was dismounted). It is pretty impressive with 4 x Ma Deuces, but this dual mount is still impressive itself. The big jackets on the barrels do it for me.
Yup, someone is gonna end up paying over 100 grand for this and he's gonna love every minute of firing it. Too bad he probably won't have any aircraft to shoot at, but I guess if you can afford a pair of rare transferrable watercooled Browning .50 cal machine guns, you can afford a budget of target drones to shoot down with it as well. Where would it be safe and legal to fire something with the range and lethality of .50 BMG up into the air though? Seems like you'd need a spotting drone just to be sure your "range" was actually safe xD
I had a mark 22.5 hbt that was later reclassified as a mark 2.54 hat because they put shoe laces on the right rear side. Then a new general renamed it as a mark 1, KA which stands for 'kick-ass' but was later changed to....
Some people might never heard of this game but I think Brick Force got inspiration from this for their turrets in game R.I.P Brick Force. Shitty p2w game but still my childhood
Ian, I've only very recently become aware, probably Tank Chats or Inside The Chieftain, of dual .50s mounted atop tanks, we're all familiar with the single AA .50 mount but the videos I watched was the 1st time I'd seen that configuration, I doubt any are still around, but was wondering if you were familiar with them and would they be worth a video as I'd bet they're pretty likely forgotten
@@leewilkinson6372 If only this was a WW1 weapon instead of WW2, we could hope to see a certain someone use his patented plastic pokey part. Though I doubt this would fit in the light box.
I think an even cooler .50BMG mount was the quad M3s in B-52s controlled by the MD-9 visual and radar sight system. For the early models, the tail gunner sat back with the guns and, if the aircraft was going down, ejected the quad 50s before he could eject himself.
I cannot be the only person chanting to myself “range time, range time, range time…”, but perhaps my brain lost the plot some time ago?! Thank you Gun Jesus.
@@Lord_Ronin_The_Compassionate ammo ain't cheap. Sometimes you can't get it for any price. But yeah 50 cal rounds are stupid expensive to buy. They are very big. By the foot pound I guess they're in line with what everything else costs? Oh wow I found a guy selling them for $3.60 a round! I've seen them for $30 a round. Now at $3.60 they're a bargain. But you do have to buy 200 rounds to get that price. That brings the price of a mag dump down to a mere $1,800. Christmas comes early!
@@1pcfred congratulations on finding Santa with an early potential pressie. That’s one huge fecking difference in price and very easy to appreciate that you can’t just drop a few $k on ammo for a bit of a blast! Hope you’ll forgive my ignorance and my extreme jealousy that you live in a country with less regulations concerning firearms, although I suspect there’s a happier compromise to be held between overbearing government nosiness and what currently appears like a Wild West free fire zone. Here in the UK the laws are so restrictive that it’s much harder to get a licence, especially as there aren’t many reasons to be using a .50 BMG - the UK just isn’t large enough. The laws over hand guns came about following two mass murders of children, one in Dunblane, Scotland, and the other in Hungerford, England. Although there was several years between each occurrence it didn’t stop our “brave” politicians from doing the usual knee-jerk response and Draconian laws were in place before we knew it. Here’s hoping you don’t just have an early visit from Santa but that he gets the Spirit of New Year to help out as well. All the best mate, David Burley in Wharfedale, Yorkshire
@@Lord_Ronin_The_Compassionate our founding fathers were some big brained blokes. The best England had to offer. Our 2A is based on English law even. You people still drive on the wrong side of the road today. That was so your sword arm would be presented to a passer by coming the other way.
You broke it, you bought it. I've seen this one for sale a couple pf times over the years. The Tombstones work great, shot them off my buddy's M-63 mounted M2.
Lol the scale of this video cracks me up. Usually Ian's hands are in frame with a gun. This one barely fits Ian's head in frame with how large this thing is hahaha
I know a lot of people are calling for you to take this to a BUG match, but surely it’s better suited to ‘two gun’ ?
Oh that is terrible. My wife must see this. She is the expert of terrible jokes.
I think some brutality match would be much better. Especially in such division he was in in the last Finnish Brutality, having to run 5km (or something, don't remember the exact value) after each stage in full load.
@@Jesses001 I hope she appreciates it 😂
I could see adding wheels to it a pushing it around. Yes.
@@anteshell pretty any match is a brutality match, when you bring twin water cooled .50 cal :)
Immensely disappointed that we didn't hear "tomorrow we'll be taking this to the range" at the end of the video.
This should be a pinned comment.
He forgot to bring the crane.
And a mag dump
Guess it just wasn't in the budget. ; )
Can you imagine what this thing would sell for at auction?? I'm thinking low to mid six figures... you can buy full-on _tanks_ for less.
A gun setup so cool it's sights have sunglasses.
Definitely an under appreciated comment.
Do be afraid of the guy in shades, oh yes!
The ammo boxes give new meaning to "be kind rewind."
My children would have no idea what that means. #gettingold
Think of the extra fee on these bad boys if you forgot.
in action its "be unkind, unwind" [dakka dakka intensifies]
@@thurin84 good one👍👍👍👍👍
Too soon 😭
you know your gun is badass when it comes with an integral seatbelt.
And sunnies
“Better fasten your safety belt, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!”
Hahahahaha
Yes, but as any NCO worth their salt should know: those pesky recruits we consider to be our children from a mother we never fraternised with, but which we have to care for anyways _will_ always find a way to misuse such things to e.g. nap on duty.
Because let's be honest: the majority of us senior/retired NCO's do know all of those tricks for one reason - because we did them ourselves when we were still young and stupid, but were lucky enough to get away with it until the powers that be (in their infinite wisdom) did promote us high enough to understand at long last that with great power comes great responsibility, innit?
@@drops2cents260 thats what safety belts are for!!!
The “Eve of Destruction” is a modified 5 ton truck used in Vietnam for convoy protection. The M60 was authorized to be used on it, but one of those soldiers must have had prior naval service because they Strategically Transferred Equipment to an Alternate Location and had one of these naval dual 50 pedestal mounts in the back of their truck, so that when their convoys were ambushed they’d just turn their truck sideways and give the forest (and the VC hiding in it) a broadside.
Why turn the vessel when you have a 360 turret?
@@johndododoe1411 Not a "Broadside" unless you're sideways. But seriously turning sideways would mean you could use the full elevation of the guns... otherwise the guys in the cab would be less than pleased.
@@Getpojke I was considering aft gunning during escape.
all of the equipment belongs to the US taxpayer. it was just their turn to use it..
@@johndododoe1411 Escape?! We just got here!
Perhaps the most acrobatic Forgotten Weapons video I have seen. I must commend Ian for his willingness to go below and above and around and below and across the floor and beyond on this one.
Lmao yeah I noticed that as well. Fantastic observation sir, bravo
The part where you explain the spiderweb sight system... They're so sophisticated, while looking so crude; I love it.
It's very similar to the rudimentary anti air sight on the MG3
Always wondered why it looked like that other than I thought it was for aesthetics. Purpose made and got the job done
It was absolutely not sophisticated as the guy makes you think. The circle is just the size of some pre establised speed/distance ratio.
Hopefully they let you know take it out to the range. My grandfather served it wwII. He was assigned to a quad 50 crew. I saw pictures of him with it when i was a kid. It was probably the most impressive gun I have ever seen.
He is gonna need a big forklift to take it anywhere
@@marcogenovesi8570
Anywhee else in the world...Toyota Hilux......oh what a feeling......
@@JohnSmith-yv6eq dunno man, it's much more top-heavy (and heavier in general, that armor plate isn't light at all) than the average MG mounted on a toyota pickup
@@marcogenovesi8570 the rules of insurgency mechanics is pretty simple: Anything can bolt onto the tray of a Toyota Landcruiser
@@SnoopReddogg And if it is too top heavy, just change sway bars to solids and no more body roll while cornering in the name of allah 😁
I live in the Philly area, and sometimes I forget how important this area was to America's industrial and military growth throughout the industrial revolution.
Pretty easy to forget given what it is today 😢
Front and Olney. a lot different there now.
@@Misitheus depends where you are. North is still pretty bad. the rest is okay.
I'm from the west coast and did a driving tour of the east coast. Out of all the cities I went to Philly seemed just depressing. Despite being an old city the downtown was not lively like Chicago or New York. The architecture is nice and I love the history but I would not want to live there. Still better than Baltimore!
Missouri used to be the fourth most populous state, and St. Louis used to be amazing. now it is just another Rust Belt city :(
I'm impressed how well thought out is this weapon system. It seems they thought of everything for that era of warfare.
This is one of the beautiful parts of massed standardization when you went to make this kind of modification you only have to do it for the one system so you can do it right in fewer total tries.
Ironically they weren't that useful. Heavier AA like the 40mm Bofors were much more effective, or even the 5" dual purpose with proximity fused ammunition. It was discovered fairly early on that light AA wasn't that good. You could eventually take out an enemy aircraft, but likely after it had dropped its bombs.
Light AA, meets infantry squad
@@reliantncc1864 Those Bofors are one of those weapons that seemed to be used by almost every country in the war.
That ammo box one way latch is genius that needs to be a feature on the CROWS. Having the belt fall back down the feed chute is incredibly annoying
😁😆🤣😬😪😳
Maybe it was because of this they went to disintegrating links later on?
@@dmg4415 what do you mean?
@@herlongwilliam6558 The US went from a solid belt to those who falls apart efter the shot.
I find it funny that the M2 Browning evolved from the M1919 which again was based on an air-cooled version of the water-cooled M1917 machine gun. And now it feels like we're back again to the water-cooler M1917 except in .50 BMG.
Good eye
The water cooled Browning 50 (M1921) came before the M2 and the M2 was a derivative of that rather than any 30 cal version.
Much of air cooled or water cooled is a function of rate of fire and sustainability. The water cooled guns typically have lighter barrels, which with water cooling allows them to fire faster, for longer. The air cooled guns have heavier barrels, which slows the rate of fire.
The .30 water cooled guns can be man carried, at least for short distances, but by the time you get to 50 cal, the gun and the mount need either a vehicle or a ship to carry them.
There were a small number of water cooled .50s in Army service. Airborne had a few, oddly enough, they were used in a single mount for AA use. Light barrel and bolt for high rate of fire, water cooled barrel for sustainable fire.
Do you think a modernized Vickers gun chambered in 7.62x51 NATO would be useful for defending Taiwan from West Taiwan?
My grandfather was part of the 102nd Coast Artillery Brigade (Anti-Aircraft), When I looked it up a while back, his company was armed with the M2(WC) and they had 72 of them in the company.
The armory he was stationed at is still in service on Staten Island
This would be PERFECT for someones Yacht.
A real conversational piece.
My local yacht club has a decommissioned Royal Navy minesweeper as its clubhouse, Complete with 40 mm Bofors mount :)
Please, please let Morphy's wheel that out to their range so we can see Ian blaze away on it.
Though I know that'll never happen, thanks to them for letting Ian show it to us. It's beautifully restored & looks factory mint bar a few dings on the water jackets. Whoever buys it is going to be very, very happy indeed.
In the Blues Brothers when they broke into city hall with every cop in Illinois chasing them the national guard showed up and pointed one those guns at the building for some reason. It's only onscreen for a second but you can clearly see it.
Thanks, now I’ll have the girl from Impanema in my head for the rest of the day 😂
Good to see naval guns on here too. Hope whoever buys it takes good care of it and has a lot of fun
If I bought this, I would take better care of it than my family. 😂😂😂 No, seriously, it would definitely be babied. Like the Pharaohs of old, it would be buried with me and join me in the afterlife.
This is the ideal concealed-carry gun.
Perfect for home defence, I'd say.
It needs to be just a bit larger for my tastes also it's little bit too light.
Just as the founding fathers intended
Ate you kidding? Mount this bad boy on the roof. Ideal for home defense.
@@nonamesplease6288 Bah. This thing goes on the truck. The roof gun needs to be at least 120mm.
The army would also pair the twin 50s with a semiautomatic 37mm as a halftrack mounted CGMC ( Combination Gun Motor Carraige) antiaircraft gun. The first ones used the water cooled guns, as the M15 CGMC. Later versions switched to the air cooled .50s as the M15A1 CGMC.
My favorite 1.7 "tank" in War Thunder 🤣
so was the 37mm slung under the 50's or on a separate mount,?
@@traitorouskin7492 on the same mount. I've seen 2 configurations. One with the 50s to the side and slightly above and one with the 50s to the side but slightly below.
@@traitorouskin7492 on the M15 CGMC, the water cooled .50s were mounted above the 37mm. The M15A1 reversed this, and placed the .50s below. I believe this was at least in part to reduce stress on the mount. The air cooled guns also eliminated the need to provide water, as well as the maintenance requirements of the cooling jackets.
@@imadequate3376 I get you. sort of what I was picturing. thanks.
I would love to see Ian shoot this on a large desert range at old cars and tanks and stuff. I know it will probably remain a dream though
Wow! That's the same gun my father used during the war. He later moved to the air cooled type. He almost never used the sights, he instead used the tracers and the round sight to get on target. He also put washers in the guns to speed up rate of fire. He shot down a number of Japanese with the guns.
"It's attached via a quick detach"*CLANG*"Whups, very quick detach sling"
Lmao
If Ian isn't careful, he'll end up with his butt in a sling, lol...
Ian is Always guaranteed to have a quick response to a mini-disaster...
@@howler6490 Just like the funny painting man said: We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents.
I'm fairly certain that the padding tubes on the gunner's shoulder rests are railroad air brake hose
HAHAHAHAHA!! Those hoses are very unable to collapse, unless its with a big press, etc.
I don’t know what that looks like, but I trust that you’re an expert on fat hose.
@@grahamhawes7089 noice
It won't be airbrake hoses.Like hydraulic hose, the airbrake hose is too unyielding to offer up ANY comfort to a shoulder.
Almost any non-reinforced Heavy-Duty hose would offer sufficient cushioning and therefore do the job.
Please Ian, more heavy weapons like this! The M50 Ontos would be nice (there's one at Rock Island Arsenal).
That might be more up The Chieftain's alley...
I think he talked about the Ontos when he covered the recoilless rifles a few years ago.
A new post from Ian / Forgotten Weapons. A great way to start my day. Thanks, Ian!
I'd love to see several of these mounted on the refurbished USS Texas.
It'd be even cooler if someone would manufacture replicas of this fascinating system.
These were effectively obsolete for naval AA use when the war started. The .50 cal is too short ranged in an AA role to reach an aircraft before it has dropped whatever explosive payload it is carrying. Even the 20 mm Oerlikon gun (which Texas has in abundance) is mostly good only for shooting at planes as they drop. If you want to prevent a plane from dropping explosive items on you, you want a quad 40mm Bofors gun mount or better yet (though too late for WWII) a 3 inch/55 automatic twin mount with VT proximity fused ammo.
I was always curious about this version, after Ian told in a video that the M2 had heavy barrel (the standard one), air cooled (seen in airplanes), and water cooled configurations. Now it's here, and it's glorious
The perfect functional yard ornament!!!! Although I may need a Bofor 40mm to go with......
Great content as always, but I can’t wait for you to get your hands on and film one of the quad .50 mounts! I’d love to see the mechanical elements that make that work!
You know it's getting serious if your gun has a seatbelt.
The turbosh*t 3000 has a competitor....
@@cemtexx xD
I mean, isn't that what a sling is, technically? A strap of material to keep the gun and the operator attached to one another, and to assist with the ergonomics of aiming?
@@andrewamann2821 Usually the gun is strapped to you but in this case you are strapped to the gun. :P
@@Angel9932 not to get all semantic, but is there really a difference between the two?
3:30 "Very quick detach clips..."
Another reason to love Ian and 'Forgotten Weapons'
I *need* these in my living room as a conversation piece.
The various engineering disciplines integrated and on display are gorgeous.
This is one of the best explanations I have seen on an antiaircraft ring sight. The ring sight, combined with the adjustable crosshairs and tracers loaded as every fifth round in the belt, made calculating the lead much more intuitive and less reliant on precise sights and math that went into teaching gunners and making sights. Since most of the planes were attacking the ship, lead was often not the problem it could be for ground-based antiaircraft guns pass shooting high-flying planes. Dad told me in WW II some duck, and bird hunters had high hit rates the first day and got better fast, while some never hit a target.
A lot of the air gunners who shot waterfowl and skeet during civilian life proved very adept at deflection shooting of enemy aircraft from their bombers. Your dad probably met a few similar anti-aircraft sharpshooters.
Oh man....gonna keep my eye on this auction cause it comes with that mount and 2 fully transferable water cool .50's this is gonna be awesome to see!!
Hopefully we can get some footage of this setup roaring away from either you or the new owner. 400 round mag dump!!
As long as the auction isn't held at a Las Vegas Casino/Hotel near a concert venue.
@@garrysekelli6776 WTH man?! That was in bad taste...
@@jason86768 well it's both a funny joke and also the truth. But i'd better stop typing before i get demonitized. Or demonized or something. LoL.
@@jason86768 I agree. Very bad taste, and doesn't help the gun community.
@@jason86768 He's probably a Fed...
I remember reading that the water cooled 50 cals you were able to have water continuously pump in instead of relying on a condensation can I guess that was an option for the Navy being on ships I wonder if they had the same type of setup for the 1917 Browning water cooled 30 cal.
A heck of a pair and jacketed too. Quad mount next please .50BMG or 14.5mm.
Thanks Ian, you videos are just so watchable.
Thanks again Ian
Another excellent video about another a very rear for us to get to see and learn about weapon.
amazingly well thought out. Sights, lenses, balance, low tech and simple while very functional. I'm impressed.
I love the bigger stuff this channel covers on rare occasions.
i love the quad 50s aa guns and this is super cool too
I remember a bit of mind-bending when I first saw a water-cooled .50...
I wish you had gone a bit into the cooling system; was there an evaporator can on the mount??
Those are designed to be used on ships, they just pump sea water right trough the cooling jackets.
When they were mounted on land they pumped water from the sea, in the case of coastal defenses, from rivers or even out of the local water pipelines.
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 Thanks!
Every time I see a certain auction house is having an Extraordinary Gun sale, I always take a look at the catalog to see what I hope Ian does videos of. This is definitely one I had marked.
Interesting gun. Thank you for your videos.
Great presentation. My 22 caliber Ruger rifle got so envious watching this. I guess size does matter here too.
I need this. Finally we'll have a chance against the drop bears.
(We lost to the emus, not letting that happen again)
A Beautiful weapon !!!
I always loved the look of these and no heat worries !!
Sgt, Semper Fi
Can't wait for the range day video!
Yestertech is always fascinating. Everything is thought out, the engineering is detailed and precise, the quality of manufacture is high, which are all typical of American industry during this era.
Wow I guess I assumed that it was just the mount. With the 2 transferable M2s is crazy. I guess if you can afford this you might actually be able to shoot a volume of .50 cal worthy of a water cooled MG
I can't believe this is the first time I've seen this mount and the tinted sight is a neat touch
Pretty cool. I've never seen one. As a former Navy Gunner's Mate, I don't remember one of those at the gun school in Great Lakes Illinois. My gun for eight years was a "Ma deuce". Been in a hot gun situation a couple of times. I'm curious what the sustained fire rate is with the water jackets.
Browning demonstrated them to the Army by firing two sets of 20,000 rounds without a jam. He then fired them continuously after that for 48 minutes and 12 seconds. If watered properly the sustained fire rate AND service life is practically indefinite. The air-cooled service life is a recommended 3,000 rounds.
Pretty much until shells come rattling out of the barrels.
As a former Coast Guard Gunners Mate and Army Cavalry Armorer I think this is a FANTASTIC weapon for ships or light armored tracked vehicles! I know military leaders always want to make their "mark" with new designs BUT I think the water cooled jackets should NEVER have been discarded. The principle is still used on the 76mm deck gun so why not the .50 and 25mm and 30mm deck guns! Thank you for a review of an incredible weapon system that should still be around!
Thats one I would really like to see you use at the range
Really good job with the camera and audio work on this!
Sweet little baby Jesus please let there be a range video tomorrow
Great video! Awesome mount! Thanks.
I’ve studied WW2, I think, since I was able to read. I knew all about ships’ armament, but I really never knew just how sophisticated these .50 cal. Guns were. I guess I just assumed they were only guns mounted on a traversing platform. And having served in the Army, I was used to the simple M2 guns standard to that service. I did not know, for instance that the “spider” sights had any kind of specific calibration. Thanks for sharing.
P.S. What does an apparatus like this typically cost? I’m assuming-past the fact that there are not one, but TWO machine guns, that the bids will near the seven-figure threshold. Can you clue me in?
@@krizz2820 Lot 2021 in that auction. Makes finding it a bit quicker.
@@justforever96 I know someone who collects guns like these. The auction price of the item is only the beginning. There are two schools of thought here: "It was made to stand up to abuse, so let's go fire it;" and, "when it's gone, it's gone." The person I know belongs to the latter group and spends far more in a given year making sure their gun vault is temperature and humidity controlled like a wine cellar than they do on ammo. Taking a machine gun out was a special occasion to celebrate that item, not just an excuse to dump mags (although we did that too). God this was years ago though. My point is that someone who spends a quarter mil on an MG might easily spend another 100k or more on just the room that they store it in over the course of their lifetime depending on the type of collector they are.
In the Pacific against Kamikaze attacks you either knocked planes out of the sky or you went to the bottom of the sea. So people were pretty motivated. This is the smallest armament they'd be using. They'd also use 20 and 40 mm auto cannons and the 5" guns too. The 5" guns could score hits because they used proximity fuzes. For most of the war only the Navy got to use those. They were top secret.
Excellent video! This video in particular is right in line with the work I do researching and writing about the Pacific War. Thank you very much, Ian! You certainly do know your stuff!
Fired one at the last Albany machine gun festival in 2017. Being sprayed with this blackish water all over my face and clothing was a cool red badge of courage experience.
It's really difficult for me to describe how cool and awesome that thing is. Thanks Ian!
I feel like this is one of the most inventive Forgotten Weapons videos in terms of framing.
Reminds me of Good Eats.
Looks awesome. I got to see one of the quad .50s on display at an air/military museum recently (it was dismounted). It is pretty impressive with 4 x Ma Deuces, but this dual mount is still impressive itself. The big jackets on the barrels do it for me.
Ma Deuce gets Thicc!
Yup, someone is gonna end up paying over 100 grand for this and he's gonna love every minute of firing it. Too bad he probably won't have any aircraft to shoot at, but I guess if you can afford a pair of rare transferrable watercooled Browning .50 cal machine guns, you can afford a budget of target drones to shoot down with it as well. Where would it be safe and legal to fire something with the range and lethality of .50 BMG up into the air though? Seems like you'd need a spotting drone just to be sure your "range" was actually safe xD
Why, one's private island, obviously.
@@ZGryphon or decommisioned Battlecruiser
You just know someone out there is thinking, "That will look nice on the back of my pickup."
This looks perfect for home defense.
If you own a smallish city. 🤣
"Finally something I can use to get those damn naval aviators off my lawn."
was looking for this comment , wasn't disappointed
Yes; defending against rampaging hordes of suburban McMansions is indeed a vexing problem... 😋
If you're a Scottish Laird with a castle. I'm almost sure Artur Rehi would agree.
I had a mark 22.5 hbt that was later reclassified as a mark 2.54 hat because they put shoe laces on the right rear side. Then a new general renamed it as a mark 1,
KA which stands for 'kick-ass' but was later changed to....
Some people might never heard of this game but I think Brick Force got inspiration from this for their turrets in game
R.I.P Brick Force. Shitty p2w game but still my childhood
Perfect accessory for that project truck in the workshop, it would give a whole new meaning to “Home on the Range”
please tell me you're gonna take that thing out to the range tomorrow!
Beautiful. Thank you Ian.
Ian, I've only very recently become aware, probably Tank Chats or Inside The Chieftain, of dual .50s mounted atop tanks, we're all familiar with the single AA .50 mount but the videos I watched was the 1st time I'd seen that configuration, I doubt any are still around, but was wondering if you were familiar with them and would they be worth a video as I'd bet they're pretty likely forgotten
SWEET. How cool would it be to shoot this set up. Thanks for sharing this Ian.
God bless all here.
A mag dump would cost a cool fifteen grand.
C'mon, Ian. Take it apart to show us how it all works! 😝😂
Let's see him use his patented disassembly tool on this one!
@@leewilkinson6372 If only this was a WW1 weapon instead of WW2, we could hope to see a certain someone use his patented plastic pokey part. Though I doubt this would fit in the light box.
@@ernestcline2868 Just build a light box around it.
I think an even cooler .50BMG mount was the quad M3s in B-52s controlled by the MD-9 visual and radar sight system. For the early models, the tail gunner sat back with the guns and, if the aircraft was going down, ejected the quad 50s before he could eject himself.
Great selection for a video!! So this Saturday we can certainly expect a video of this behemoth shredding some steel targets right?? 😆
Ya if he got 3500$ for ammo lol
That clip of film of Marine AA gunners givving it some on Midway Island stars a single barrel M2 watercooled btw :-)
Was there any upscaling of the RPM on those .50 cal's, to go with the increase in cooling and AA role?
The water cooled barrels were lighter, so the ROF went up. Not sure if the bolt is the lighter aircraft .50 bolt or the ground gun bolt.
It would be nice to see Ian try this one out. I remember when he tried out the minigun; that gun was was very fast.
That minigun video also has the most views of anything he's ever published.
Now that's something I want to see Ian with on the range!
"For fun let's see if I can hit that spinner"
... and find any bits of it afterwards
@@Thermalions true dat!
Very cool! This is my first time to learn more of the details of these types of guns from the perspective of the shooter on board a ship (or on land).
Fascinating stuff. Is that an RAF crest on the lower part of the armour/shield?
I was thinking the same thing.
Really the best explanation of how a spider sight works I've ever heard or read.
I cannot be the only person chanting to myself “range time, range time, range time…”, but perhaps my brain lost the plot some time ago?! Thank you Gun Jesus.
At $30 a round it can get very expensive real fast to fire that gun. Both those cans full is $15,000.
@@1pcfred thanks for the info - being a Brit I had no idea that a single round could cost so much!
@@Lord_Ronin_The_Compassionate ammo ain't cheap. Sometimes you can't get it for any price. But yeah 50 cal rounds are stupid expensive to buy. They are very big. By the foot pound I guess they're in line with what everything else costs? Oh wow I found a guy selling them for $3.60 a round! I've seen them for $30 a round. Now at $3.60 they're a bargain. But you do have to buy 200 rounds to get that price. That brings the price of a mag dump down to a mere $1,800. Christmas comes early!
@@1pcfred congratulations on finding Santa with an early potential pressie. That’s one huge fecking difference in price and very easy to appreciate that you can’t just drop a few $k on ammo for a bit of a blast! Hope you’ll forgive my ignorance and my extreme jealousy that you live in a country with less regulations concerning firearms, although I suspect there’s a happier compromise to be held between overbearing government nosiness and what currently appears like a Wild West free fire zone.
Here in the UK the laws are so restrictive that it’s much harder to get a licence, especially as there aren’t many reasons to be using a .50 BMG - the UK just isn’t large enough. The laws over hand guns came about following two mass murders of children, one in Dunblane, Scotland, and the other in Hungerford, England. Although there was several years between each occurrence it didn’t stop our “brave” politicians from doing the usual knee-jerk response and Draconian laws were in place before we knew it.
Here’s hoping you don’t just have an early visit from Santa but that he gets the Spirit of New Year to help out as well.
All the best mate,
David
Burley in Wharfedale,
Yorkshire
@@Lord_Ronin_The_Compassionate our founding fathers were some big brained blokes. The best England had to offer. Our 2A is based on English law even. You people still drive on the wrong side of the road today. That was so your sword arm would be presented to a passer by coming the other way.
This fit is so good Ian, your waist is SNATCHED
Quite the practical home defense gun
That sight with the rotating lenses is amazing
That is one cool mount, well engineered and executed. Do you have a video of the Quad 50 mount?
Was planning on buying an all metal m&p shield, but now that I've seen this is available.
LMAO.
Waiting for the range test mag dump 😂
You broke it, you bought it. I've seen this one for sale a couple pf times over the years. The Tombstones work great, shot them off my buddy's M-63 mounted M2.
Lol the scale of this video cracks me up. Usually Ian's hands are in frame with a gun. This one barely fits Ian's head in frame with how large this thing is hahaha
The way he keeps popping out from different angles almost makes this feel like a comedy routine.
@@lilwyvern4 lol yes. Just somethin about it was making me laugh
Great explanation crystal clear
“Honey, I just bought a little 22 today.”
Missus didn’t buy it. Never
Thank you , Ian .
🐺
Cannot wait for the follow up: "Ian at the range" video.
How do you feed the water into the gun? will it circulate like in a car radiator cooling system ? What happens when the water get to boiling point ?
The loudest way to boil some water for tea.
What was the sustained rate of fire with water cooling? How many gallons per minute did it require?