I make a major slip in this video, and the text correction has been lost by UA-cam, which is rather annoying, so I'll mention it here. I say that the Germans used 7.62mm as their standard rifle round. No, that was the Russians . I said 'Germans', I know, but I meant 'Russians'. Sorry about that.
I know this is an old video and you may have answered my question in another video but why did the germans use LMGs in their Atlantic wall rather than HMGs or MMGs?
One reason they keep weapons aboard, is to prevent mutiny and keep disiplin. Also if they have to abandon the submarine they are not totally defenceless. Boarding subs is not something that happens often, but it has happened from time to time. The last instance of boarding a a submarine I know about was during the Falklands war, when SAS and Royal Marines boarded an argentinian submarine. Much more common, however, were the practice of submarine crews forming boarding parties. This was especially common on british and american submarines in the Pasific during WW2. And of course, such boarding parties needed suitable weaponry.
@@dELTA13579111315 i wouldve thought its more of an mmg (its bloody heavy and you can't really fire at any sort of accuracy from the shoulder), whereas the fn minimi is more of an lmg
@@anthonypurvis1748 that would fall under MMG. The GPMG as a concept combines characteristics from LMGs (easily man-portable, can be fired from a bipod by a single soldier) and HMGs (not readily man-portable and would require a static mount with several crew members, or a vehicle mount, but capable of sustained fire at longer ranges). In a sense that makes them "medium", plus their mass is intermediate between LMGs and HMGs
Or today (with many additions): *Machine guns:* PDW: -Very mobile -Very light -Intermediate cartridge# SMG: -Mobile -Light -Pistol cartridge LMG: -Mobile -Intermediate cartridge (5.56x45 NATO) MMG/GPMG: -stationary/mobile -Rifle cartridge (30cal) HMG: -stationary/vehicle mounted -Big cartridge (50cal - 20mm) *Rifles:* Assault Rifle: -Might -Intermediate Cartridge Battle Rifle: -Medium weight -Rifle cartridge Carbine: -Mobile -Shortened version of other rifles / longer version of pistols -Various cartriges Designated Marksmen Rifle (DMR): -Semi mobile -Long range -Mostly based on Assault Rifles/Battle Rifles with longer barrels and improved sights -Mostly semi automatic Sniper: -Semi mobile -Very long range -Various catridges, some standart, some specific to the weapon system -Mostly bolt action, new models are semi automatic Anti Material Rifle (AMR): -Not very mobile -Very long range -Very large cartridges (50BMG or larger) # The cartidges used are shorter and or smaller then normal intermediate cartridges but have the same general shape. This in combination with a faily high mussle velocity (around 700-850m/s) results in far supperior penetration, especially with boy armor then the standart 9mm round. The 2 cartridges used are the 5.7x28mm (FN P90) and the 4.6x30mm (HK MP7) *Other gun types* (it get's a bit fuzzy as those categorys cannot be boiled down as simple as machine guns and i will ignore anything before WW1) Shotgun: -Kinda mobile -Various ammunition -Various magazine types (if present at all) Pistol: -Very mobile -Short range -Pistol cartridge Revolver: -Very mobile -Short range -Pistol cartridge -Uses revolving cilinder with multiple chambers (mostly 6) as magazine Gatlin Gun: -Rotary barrel -Various cartridges -Mostly belt fed -Extremly high ROF (up tp 10,000RPM) Autocannon: -often vehicle mounted -Big cartridge (>20mm) -ROF between 90-2500RPM) Revolver Cannon: -Aircraft / ship mounted -Big cartridge (>20mm) -ROF 20mm) -Uses external power for the reloading process -Extremly reliable Electromagnetic Railgun (EMRG): -Currently not very mobile -Uses elektricity as propellat by utilizing the "Lorenz Force" -Extremly high mussle velocity (currently up to 10,000m/s) -Extremly high range -Planned as a replacement for missiles on ships Metal Storm: -Multiple barrels -Multiple stacked projectiles (with their own propellant) per barrel -Electricly triggered -Extremly high rate of fire (around 1,000,000 RPM) Other weapon types will be added at request, suggestions and corrections are highly appreciated.
Recently the US Army found an M2 , also known as the "Ma Deuce," that was still in service after over 90 years. It's serial number is 324 meaning it was the 324th M2 ever produced. It has since been taken out of service and is in the process of being approved for display at the Army Small Arms Repair Facility.
The BAR has plenty of recoil. No weapon without a back blast was or is recoilless (blame Newton). I think it is a fairly interesting weapon. It served in the LMG role for the Americans during WW2 (it was carried in a squad and mounted on a bi-pod). It was certainly a very good weapon, but in retrospect it was probably poorly suited to the role of a light machine gun. It provided a pitiful amount of fire support for an advancing assault team and it was seriously overpowered by the MG 34 and 42 against which it was supposed to compete. US Airborne troops got wise to the fact that the BAR probably wasn't quite up to the task of being an LMG and opted for the M1919 .30 cal instead. They used the BAR instead just as an "automatic rifle" to augment the firepower of their riflemen, a role in which it proved far more effective.
B.A.R. wasa prototype of an automatic rifle. It should never gone into production The only way to fire it accurately was off the bi-pod. Not to mention the mags had low cap. It's hard to reload while standing. I made the mistake of selling mine in 1986. .
He was simply talking about the issue of "it's a smaller caliber". Pointing out that sometimes SMG rounds aren't smaller in caliber but still less powerful.
Yup, USA still to this day uses some variant of the M1911 which is chambered in .45. Tho funny enough Germany uses the USP 45 which is in .45 ACP and their SMGs such as the UMP-45 are also in .45
@@h3nder No, the US military switched to the Beretta M9, in 9mm Parabellum, and then to the SIG Sauer M17 and M18, also in 9mm Parabellum. The M1911 was eschewed in favor of the M9 starting in 1985.
@Ryan Doty Actually the US still use variants of the M1911 pistol today, they just aren't usually issued to regular troops. Special forces units in particular are known to still use M1911 variants. What you are saying is mostly correct for standard infantry, however.
@@reonthornton685 You are correct, we do still use variations such as the MEU (SOC), though in the grand scheme of things they are largely irrelevant. It would be like saying the Polish use M4s because some Grom operators use them, even though the majority of the Polish armed forces use AKMs. They exist, but not at large scales.
Little known fact: as late as 1948, French peasants were still finding the odd British platoon hiding behind cover after hearing a few shots from the German Buzzsaw, making sure its safe to advance. The farming usually had to be done around them...
+Anndgrim Lol. More like the french army collapsed in 8 days because of the stupidity of the Maginot Line. The Expeditionary force arrived expecting the French to have defensive positions that could be bolstered by British troops. Before the expeditionary force could even set up they were fighting alone in a foreign country with no defensive position. It was a sensible tactical retreat.
I think the German words make way more sense than the English ones. Maschinenpistole, Maschinengewehr and Maschinenkanone give you a huge hint about the size and appearance of the weapon. But journalists still manage to refer to every form of self-loading, powder based weapon system as a machinegun (unless it has a scope on it. Everything with a scope is a sniper rifle). I also think the Germans had a more logical system when it comes to naming their weapons: MP40 stands for Maschinenpistole (Submachinegun) introduced in 1940 MG42 stands for Maschinengewehr (Machinegun/ Machinerifle) introduced in 1942 MG08/15 stands for Maschinengewehr introduced in 1908/ modernized in 1915 MP5 stands for ... the 5th Machinepistol that entered the contest (blame the Allies, the Führer would've never let this happen [Btw, H&K called it MP64]) The Sowjets even went a step further and included the name of the designer in the weapon's name. For example PPSch-41 stands for Pistolet-Pulemjot Schpagina - 1941. Due to my lack of knowledge about the Russian language I'll just assume that it stands for machinepistol by Schpagin. Now to give you a short example to a system from a country on the other side of the Atlantic, M1 stands for: -An armoured car from 1931 -A light tank from 1937 -A slightly heavier tank from 1980 (the M1 Abrams) -A semi-automatic rifle from 1936 (the M1 Garand) -A semi-automatic carbine from 1942 (the M1 Carbine) -A chemical mine developed in 1939, but never used in the field -A bayonet that fits on one M1(Garand) but doesn't fit on another M1(Carbine) -A helmet introduced during WW2 -A 81mm mortar used in WW2 and the Korean war -A rocket launcher first issued in 1942 -A submachinegun or machinepistol in .45 ACP (the Thompson) -A 90mm anti-aircraft gun from WW2 -A 120mm anti-aircraft gun from WW2 -A flamethrower from WW2 I guess the M1 really is the greatest battle implement ever devised ;)
Corrections: Machine pistols are a separate category of firearms on their own - they are specifically pistols designed to fire burst or fully automatically (such as the Glock-18, Stechkin APS, Mauser Schnellfeur, Beretta 93R etc) and can be used effectively with one hand. Only Germany and German speaking countries use the term machine pistol to refer to submachine guns - everybody else uses submachine gun as the term and that's the official term. MG08/15 doesn't mean modernized in 1915. It's just a 1915 revision and variant to give the Germans a light machine gun... Albeit a horrid one. MG08's would remain in service much longer than the MG08/15s, once the Germans got their hands on actual light machine guns and general purpose machine guns (effectively being completely phased out by the MG34 and ZB26 before WW2.) Pistolet-Pulemyot Shpagina does not mean machine pistol. It means Shpagin's Submachine Gun (Georgy Shpagin being the designer.)
Did you know that the British troops didn't use grenades during WW2. When the tommies found a German position in need of clearing, they would choose a volunteer (usually a Scotsman), who proceeded to say his last prayers. The rest of the soldiers scrambled for as much cover they could find. The volunter then picked up his Sten and carefully slid a loaded magazine into the gun. He then lobbed the gun upon the german lines as fast as he possibly could and dove to cover. Once the Sten had maimed every single person within the position, the British charged.
Mulberry Blaze The joke is about the sten gun, a British sub machine gun. I gather from the joke that it had a tendency to go off unexpectedly when handled roughly.
+Erl Tyriss Yes, they are nice. The largest caliber automatic gun I could was the 130mm (5.1 in) АК-130 on Russian warships. This thing has two barrels and shoots about once per second. Getting to 15 inches would be very interesting.
Actually, the recoil from a gun hits you after the bullet is long gone. You dont lose any power (well, not enough to give a significant increase in velocity) due to the gun recoiling compared to being on a tripod. A lot of the recoil is actually from the bolt carrier hitting the rear of its movement, and by that time the bullet is far down range and the casing is being ejected. Now, if the barrel is longer on that medium machine gun compared to the LMG then it will have more velocity as long as there is enough powder in whatever cartridge you are using. If you ever have any questions about firearms for videos you are making, send me a message, Id love to help. I cast and reload my ammunition for pistols and precision long range shooting.
The tripod is better for accuracy though, right? Since it’s more stable and therefore less effected by you moving slightly. I think, I might be wrong though.
I think his point is that a stationary weapon can allow for a much larger round, since the recoil in that case would be less of an issue for the shooter.
@@feartheghus You're not wrong. One of the big advantages of mounting a machine gun on a tripod is that it is much more stable and therefore easier to keep on target. Lloyd is quite right that even in smaller calibers a fully-automatic weapon tends to move a lot and is hard to keep on target when fired from the shoulder or the hip. Obviously, it varies with the caliber and design of the weapon, but that's the general rule. Conversely, the big advantage of a light machine gun is its portability and the fact that it can be used in "walking fire"; shooting from the shoulder or hip while advancing. Some guns such as the U.S. M60 of the Vietnam era are used in both roles. Heavy machine guns such as the M2 .50 caliber are even difficult to manage on a tripod unless you secure the tripod to the ground with stakes and/or sandbags. That's why they're very frequently used on heavy vehicles. A tank makes a pretty stable gun platform. ;-)
Fyi i believe the recoil will hit you at the speed of sound as that is the speed of a pressure wave through a solid medium. It’s conceivable that the recoil could hit you before the round clears the barrel when firing subsonic rounds though unlikely.
I reload for 1000 yards plus and I’d never cast a head for that distance the BC would be pathetic . If recoil doesn’t affect a gun til after the bullet is long gone put it in a bench and pull the trigger with string . You’re talking rubbish
If I'm not mistaken Lindy, the standard German cartridge following the adoption of the Gewehr 98 and 88 spitzer conversion, was 7.92x57mm (aka 8mm Mauser), not a 7.62mm round.
Lindy you forgot about about assault rifles (stg44 for example in wwii) and machine pistols (some c96 and luger variants). Both are classified as machine guns legally and historically. Machine pistols are crazy fun to shoot...hard/impossible to aim... but fun. ~ Steve
+TFB TV The Stg44 comes under the classification as an assault rifle and the Mauser and Lugers come under the classification as pistols. This video was talking about machineguns
Im retarded for telling someone that's hes talking about something off-topic. But I look up and see you sperging out and getting triggered by naziboos. You're pretty epic dude
+TFB TV As typical for Lindy this is a good overview that gets some details wrong. The largest is the omission of Assault Rifles. Presumably to avoid mentioning the difference between a rifle round and an intermediate round.
He said they used 7.92! It was actually ahead of it's time being rimless. And the 7.62x51 NATO was actually the .308 Winchester developed in the 1950's.
@@russellfernandez57 Watch this clip and you will understand ( listen to what the cops says at about 2.04 minutes ;)) ua-cam.com/video/kt1yxOU_DXM/v-deo.html
Light Machine Gun owners: "Look! I can SAW an enemy in half!" Medium Machine Gun owners: "Whatever happens, I have got an MMG, and they do not!" Heavy Machine Gun owners: "Anyone need a Ma Deuce?" Sub-Machine Gun owners: "Now I have a machine gun! Ho ho ho!"
Lindy - I'm extremely experienced with guns and i'm sorry - there's absolutely no truth whatsoever in the idea that a fixed machine gun would shoot a bullet harder than a shoulder fired version because people were 'softer' and had more give. None. None at all. Zero - zilch. Medium machine guns tended to have longer barrels and THAT will cause a bullet to fly faster and hit harder - and with heavier barrels and actions they would tend to not overhead the barrel and stay more accurate, but simply anchoring the gun will not make it hit harder. At all. Don't know who told you that - smack them next time you see them.
Take a javelin, run at your target and throw, then compare the force of impact when running away from your target and thrown. Lindy's argument was that a machine gun that is stationary has more power per bullet than THE SAME machine gun hand held. You're comparing it with two different machine guns with different barrel lengths, of course that's going to factor into it and Lindy did not say anything about that
+Yoriko Arran And with a javelin, your point is valid. But a projectile that's already moving over 2000 feet per second? So say you're running forward with a LMG like the M249. How much velocity is that going to add to the projectile? Maybe 5 feet per second? Powder variances on factory produced ammo will make more of a difference than that. Even if being mounted on a tripod makes a projectile leaving the barrel of a firearm faster, it's such an insignificant difference that there's no point in even mentioning it.
+Yoriko Arran Your javelin analogy makes no sense in trying to relate it to guns. With firearms, even assuming there is a difference in "power" in holding it vs a tripod/bipod the difference would be so negligible that it has never been bothered with. Nobody ever said, "oh we need to make the tail guns on a plane more powerful than the nose guns because the tail gun is like running backwards trying to throw a javelin." That is assuming there is a difference in power in off hand vs mount, but there isn't. ...go look up the 7.62x54r russian round. That same interchangeable round got used in everything from machine guns to rifles to pistols, and you are going to quickly see the muzzle velocities are completely in line with the math for barrel lengths. Because that is what effects the "power."
MG - 34s and 42s are LMGs, but they are also the first GPMGs. Before that most machine guns carried by one man were magazine fed ( BAR, DP 28, Bren, etc). MG 42s had the same mobility as those guns, but were belt fed and could also be mounted to tripods and vehicles serving the role of an MMG. In practice it was used very differently to its magazine fed predecessors that were used more like the modern day concept of a SAW.
Basic Pouch: A large vertical rectangular pouch that went through three versions (Marks I, II, and III). It could carry either (2) BREN magazines, (6) 20-round Thompson SMG magazines, (4) No 36M Fragmentation, No 69 Offensive, or No.77 White Phosphorus grenades, (4) No 36M cup-discharger rifle grenades with attached gas-check baseplates, (2) Smoke Grenades, or boxes of Small Arms Ammunition. The Mark I version had three cartridge loops sewn into the inner lid for carrying three ballistite Rifle Grenade Blanks for launching rifle grenades; this feature was later omitted on the Mark II pouch. The longer Basic Pouch Mark III could hold (5) 32-round STEN Machine Carbine Magazines.
Two additional points: 1) Some machine guns, such as the famed German MG-42 and its less famous younger and older brothers, were used both in the LMG and MMG role. They were generally not well suited for shoulder firing, but could be fired from the hip (I've actually done that) and quickly moved from one position to the next in one piece. They were also commonly fitted with tripods in bunkers (as in Normandy on D-Day) or on vehicles to serve as an MMG. 2) Using tactics the way you describe MMG's have fallen out of fashion lately, even in relatively static front line combat as can be found in Eastern Ukraine. That entire category has disappeared, and thus the term MMG is now commonly used for infantry machine guns that require more than one person to operate effectively. Also, standard rifle caliber has decreased from 7-9mm to 5-6mm while MMG rounds have mostly stayed at 7.62, complicating the relationship between MMG's and rifles.
+Jens Danbolt Yes, I may do other videos on the German GPMG concept. This video shows the MG42 in LMG role and the MG34 in MMG role (or SFMG, to be even more confusing). Ten minutes was probably already too long for most people on MGs!
+Jens Danbolt Also pretty interesting is that the germans did not have a HMG at all in the army, even though they had the 13mm machineguns for airplanes. For light AA they used exclusively 20mm cannons. Tanks and other vehicles got the regular MG-42 or MG-34 as coaxial and additional weapons and armored cars like the SdKfz 222 also used the 20mm caliber.
+Lindybeige I'd have been happy with even more info, but here's another topic: how the German 88mm AA first came to be used against ground targets. Who thought of it first? Buncha guys in the thick of it, or a smart commander with a sudden brainwave? Though ditto Un1qZ's suggestion about grenades. On the subject of MGs though, I've often read that in Vietnam, US soldiers often used thousands of rounds just to take out a single enemy. How true was this? What data is there? Why did it happen? Another question: I've watched your vids about knives, daggers, bayonettes, etc.; how important were these weapons in WW2? Were they at all somewhat ignored to begin with, then brought in more and more later as their relevance became apparent? Or were they standard kit & training from the beginning?
Some notes: The standard calibre in Germany was 7,92x57 (Mauser) which was used in both rifles and MG's. I think +Lindybeige might have confused this with the 7,62x51 (NATO) round which was introduced after the war and is used in the MG3, for example. The term "Schmeisser" for the MP40 is basically an Hollywood term and ought to be avoided. If anything, it should be called a "Vollmer". And finally, Lindybeige missed out on the most influential innovation of late WW2 gun design, the assault rifle, which uses a less powerful version of the rifle ammo (in the case of the Stg44, the 7,92×33 Kurz), and which created a whole new weapon class.
+Oliver Weber It has always bothered me that the MP 40 is always referred to as the "Schmeisser". His only involvement with it if I recall correctly is that he owned the patent on the straight magazine that it used.
the lands versus grooves thing has zip to do with why the rounds don't fit in each other's barrels. Its the casing. .30-'06, .303 Brit and 7.62x54R can both be very effectively loaded with bullets meant for each other , even tho they use slightly different diameter bullets (notably, 7.62x54R uses .311 bullets). But, their casings don't fit each other's chambers correctly.
Brilliant video, Lindy. Any chance you could do a similar explanation for cannons? Perhaps explain the difference between field guns, howitzers, mortars, artillery, siege guns, autocannons, bombards, deck guns, turret guns, etc.?
As an enthusiast in ww2 armament, I was glad to watch this video to learn about the differing machine guns as well as the compatibility of ammo. Thanks, Lindy
Something to note; nowadays the Medium Machine Gun is mainly a role rather than a classification of Machinegun. It has been replaced by the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) which can be deployed with a bipod, tripod, or vehicle mount. The FN MAG which is used by a lot of NATO follows this principal. Basically, it's better to have configurations of the same gun to provide whatever role a mission has for it. The Germans were the first to put this in widespread use with their MG34 and MG42s as shown in some of your pictures.
Technically the "american" .30 caliber fires bullets of .308 inches diameter, while the so-called ".303 British" actually fires bullets of .311 inches, the same as the 7.62mm rounds (unless we are talking about 7.62x53r rounds from Finland, which were actually .308 in earlier rifles and .310 in later ones). The american .30 caliber bore actually measures .300 from land-to-land, but .308 from groove to groove, so that's how the bullet is sized. Same sort of deal with the .303. Maybe I am splitting hairs though, lol. Sorry, I may have the annoying affliction known as old-gun-collector OCD. ;) Good to see you back on the youtube horse, btw. You're one of my favorite channels. Looking forward to the next one! :D
As a military veteran, I have had the opportunity to qualify with the Heavy Machine Gun M2 Browning. It's a very satisfying experience. I greatly enjoy your explanation of the differences of the different machine guns. It's very enlightening. Since I wasn't a combat arms enlisted person, I've always wondered about the differences that I've seen only in video games.
Had to chime in here with the severe misinformation given. The recoil of a gun doesn't reduce its power. Or rather it does, but by such a tiny amount that you really can't make that claim. You will find far, far more difference between each bullet due to manufacturing tolerances than you will lose from recoil. Along the lines of 2 fps from a bullet shooting 2700 fps, less than 0.1% which amounts to 0.2% more energy. The difference in velocity is almost exclusively due to the barrel length. 25 inches on the Bren, 28 inches on the Vickers. That is enough to produce over 5% velocity difference which equates to 10-15% more energy.
It can effect the power slightly when the barrel is moved back so the total time the round can accelerate inside it is slightly shortened. But as this only really effects the last few centimeters of the barrel where the pressure already dropped significantly the effect is incredibly small.
Jeronimo Murruni Yes it does. just not by any noticeable amount. However saying "not at all, not even a slight amount" is complete bullshit. Mid Night Pretty much that. However don't forget the faster pressure drop due to the breech moving backwards and the area between the breech and the bullet increasing more rapidly. Also the extra friction on the bullet as the barrel moves backwards. You might possibly be able to say the increased rotational speed of the bullet due to the higher relative speed through the barrel, and rotational velocity takes away energy from the forward velocity though at that point its just getting a little silly.
Now there's a rare thing, a woman not only discussing guns but actually talking sense! I vowed never to marry but in Olivia's case I could be convinced to change my mind!
After 22 yrs in the Regular Army, IMHO, the 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) is by far the best weapon we had in service at the time. I have fired thousands of rounds through different variants (L8, L37, amongst others) and it was reliable, had a high rate of fire, and hardly ever suffered from stoppages. I also enjoyed firing the L94 chain gun which was also an excellent secondary weapon for armoured vehicles (I was a tank soldier on Chieftain, Challenger 1 and Challenger 2). Love the channel Lloyd. 🇬🇧
+Graham Rollins in terms of ammunition, where thousandths of an inch can mean the difference between blowing up a gun and not blowing up a gun, it is actually significantly larger; it's .31 caliber rather than .30.
+TheSparda81 "And this is a bolter. Bolters first saw action not in World War two but the Unification Wars. They fire much larger rounds, ranging between 2 cm and three inches and can destroy buildings."
5:30 Nope, that's not how momentum works. If the gun is stuck firmly in the ground, the momentum that was lost to your shoulder, will now be lost to the Earth itself. Damn historians talking physics!
Wait, then how come you'll jump way farther off solid ground, than from... water, or anything softer than solid ground, even with the same energy from your legs?
Because any change in your momentum has to come from giving the earth opposite momentum, which is much harder to do on water, since water is not stiff. The better analogy is you throwing a ball. You will throw the ball at the same speed, no matter if you are floating weightlessly or you are strapped in. There is a tiny correction, but that is small as long as the ball is small compared to you, or the bullet is small compared to you and the gun.
what will be effected is cyclic rate, and even reliability of operation in recoil, or inertia based operating schemes. just like "limp wristing" a 1911 can cause FTE, a more solid support base can increase cyclic rate of an MG, even if not by enough for anybody to notice in practical terms.
Medium machinegun (MMG) ammo was (with rare exceptions) no more powerful than rifle rounds. An example of the rare exceptions would be the German 7.92mm (not 7.62mm) ammo which was shipped marked "Nur fur Machinengewehr" - "Only for Machinegun" which was loaded to higher pressures than normal rifle ammo. The defining difference between an MMG and an LMG is that the MMG is crew served. An MMG is meant to be served by at least a gunner and an assistant gunner. Typically an MMG has a 3 man crew, a gunner who carries the gun, an assistant gunner who carries the tripod and ammo, and an ammo bearer (who carries LOTS of ammo). Also, the rest of the squad carries ammo, too. The LMG and the MMG represent most of the squad's firepower, and studies indicate they do most of the killing. Of course, you're addressing this in the context of WW2. In modern terms, MMGs may fire a heavier caliber bullet than the standard infantry rifle as well, now that armies have adopted lighter ammo for their infantry weapons. So in a modern context it's true that MMGs fire more powerful ammo, because they are firing a heavier round. So your video is actually more correct on that point in a modern context than in the context of WW2.
The Germans used to use 7.90 mm and switched to 7.62 x 54 NATO during cold war, now migrating to 5,56 X 39 NATO with tendencies to return partially to 7.62 X 54
These videos just kind of popped up on my feed, been checking them out a lot lately! I guess because of this guys soothing intellectual voice or something.
Right at the beginning while discussing ammunition compatibility, another consideration is case/chamber sizes. You could have a the same diameter bullet, but different chamber sizes would make the ammunition incompatible across firearms. Firing an over/under-rsized cartridge in the wrong chamber is a quick way to crack your barrel.
Great video, but there were two technical mistakes. #1 The recoil against the shoulder of the shooter does not cause a significant loss of muzzle velocity. Watch some slow motion videos, generally the bullet has LONG since left the barrel before the shooter starts to feel the recoil impulse, especially in an automatic weapon. The reason why Medium machine guns needed to be mounted was because they were stupid heavy. Why were they so heavy? They have heavier barrels, receivers, and in many cases in WWII water-jackets for cooling. These all mean they can withstand more heat, therefore they can survive more sustained fire and possibly at a higher cyclic rate. #2. Really the reason for light calibers in SMGs is because they are almost all direct-blowback guns. IE the breech is held closed by spring pressure and weight of the bolt alone, and cycling is caused simply by the shell being pushed away from the speeding bullet against the breech face. Some medium and heavy machine guns used direct blowback, but they were VERY heavy, as you could imagine. Or like the Maxim, a very complicated and large toggle delay. Today the SMG is rather rare in Military units because modern Carbines are so small and light they do everything an SMG can do, and many of the things a rifle can do....and a few things a light machine gun can do. They are all locked breech guns, almost all gas-operated, so the action is locked closed (much like a bolt-action Enfield) until the bullet has almost left the barrel, then gas is shunted off into a system to unlock the bolt and cycle the action.
Weer'd Beard Old video and old reply by this point, but compared to all the other comments saying similar things, I really appreciate how you displayed the information you have here.
Your point #2 is incorrect. SMGs use pistol ammo because its relatively light recoil allows a small, light weapon to be controllable. Also, shorter pistol rounds make the weapon more compact and thus lighter. The shorter ammo also means narrower, more compact magazines. SMGs are blowback only because that type of action works best in that role. It is simpler and cheaper to produce than a locked-breach design. SMGs are usually open-bolt weapons, meaning the bolt remains in the rearward position until the trigger is pulled, then it slams forward, stripping a round off the top of the magazine. Once it reaches its forward-most position the round is enclosed in the chamber and is detonated by the firing pin (usually a fixed, non-moving nub on the face of the bolt). The inertia of the heavy bolt keeps the round contained in the chamber until the pressure created by the exploding gunpowder has dropped below dangerous levels. The recoil from the rearward pressure trying to blow the cartridge casing out the back of the chamber accelerates the bolt rearward, but by the time the bolt starts to move back the bullet has already left the barrel and the pressure is quickly vented out the muzzle. One big advantage of the open-bolt design is that with extended firing the chamber of the weapon gets very, very hot. This can cause a round to detonate unexpectedly from the heat, which is called a 'cook-off'. Since the bolt remains open when the weapon stops firing, there is no round sitting in the chamber to cook off. Also, the open chamber cools faster because air can circulate through it. The disadvantage of an open-bolt system is that when you pull the trigger you have a couple pound metal bolt slamming forward just before the SMG fires, which can affect accuracy. And the requirement of a heavy bolt makes the weapon heavier. One closed-bolt design is the famous Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. It uses a fluted chamber to reduce the contact area between the round in the chamber and the chamber itself, thus reducing heat transfer and lowering the chance of a cook-off. It also uses a delayed blowback roller lock system that allows for a lighter bolt and thus a lighter weapon. A rifle cartridge has high enough pressure that it would require a massive heavy bolt and an extremely powerful recoil spring to work with a pure blowback system, which would be impractical in a small, light SMG-type weapon. Light, medium and heavy machine guns are in fact blowback weapons, though not pure blowback designs. They are delayed blowback. They can be roller-delayed blwoback, same as the MP5 SMG. Examples are the MG-42, the MG-3 and the HK-21. They can be lever-delayed blowback, like the French AA-52. But by far the most common is the gas-delayed blowback system used in the vast majority of light, medium and heavy machine guns. Contrary to your description, the gas piston and operating rod do not move the bolt backwards, they merely unlock the bolt. It is blowback that causes the bolt to move rearward in a gas-operated weapon.
Llloyd's vids are a pleasure to watch. One point needs to be better adressed, though. A heavier crew served weapon doesn't bring out more velocity to the round than the same round fired from a lighter gun supported by the shoulder. The projectile has already left the barrel by the time the recoil forces affects the shooter. So all the velocity the projectile pics up is due to the rate of expansion of the gases formed from the burning of the charge in the cartridge and this doesn't lessen even if the gun in moving backwards at the same time. Actually, in weapons with direct blowback, the bolt starts moving backwards while the projectile is still in the barrell and on these weapons you would actually get more velocity if the weapon is not very well braced, since if the whole weapon is moving backwards, the bolt wil close the breech a fraction of a second longer, and less of the gas would escape out the ejection port, thus giving more gas pressure to propell the projectile. But the effect would be tiny, and difficult to measure. There are just too many other variables that affects the projectile's velocity. One of them is temperature. As the gun heats up, the propellant powder will pick up heat from the chamber and thus burn faster, which again gives more gas pressure to propell the projectile. And the heavier machineguns typically are fired for longer periods of time and thus gets hotter. Another reason you might get higher velocities in a heavier weapon, is because they often have longer barrels. But this is not always the case. What Lloyd may have been thinking about but got it wrong saying it, is rate of fire. If the weapon is not fixed firmly in place when firing, the recoil forces will push the whole weapon backwards, which will make the bolt and feeding mechanism appear to be slower. They are not so compared to the world around them, but they are in relation to the gun itself. If the gun is fixed firmly in place, the bolt moves faster and loads a new round faster. We have seen this with a number of weapons. Though the effect is more pronounced on weapons that are recoil operated. Such as the MG3. The same weapon can fire without a hitch from a vehicle mount, but then get feeding problems when fired from the shoulder, due to the less efficient pick up of the recoil forces.
Havar Eriksen A heavier crew served weapon could have a higher MV than a lighter shoulder fired one using the same round. It depends on the weapon - G3 Rifle and the SLR both firing the same round - SLR has a greater MV and penetration of objects like walls. Now the same weapon fired on a tripod in the SF role, a bipod in the LMG role or from the shoulder/hip in walking fire will have pretty much the same MV ( some of our MG's actually had a heavier barrel for the SF role which affected different parameters as the barrel took longer to heat up).
Chaz t I covered this in my comment, in that you get increased muzzle velocity in weapons with longer barrels. And that crew served weapons often have long barrels. Muzzle velocity out of a MG3 is higher than the same round out of a G3, due to the MG3 having a longer barrel. So we are in agreement here. And our forces have the Minimi issued as LMG. They are issued both a long and a short barrel, so the user can choose which one to use for his weapon depending on the mission. However, once he has fired 200 rounds and change the barrels, he has also swiched the length of the barrel.
+Anthony Wood (edit) Yes, many MP38 and 40 mags are marked 'Patent Schmeisser', although not on the baseplate but the body/tube. However, the British had already started using 'Schmeisser' for any German SMG, following capture of MP,28 IIs. see this PDF - bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/arming-the-british-home-guard-1940-1944-clarke-2010.pdf
Actually Schmeisser is a wrong name for the mp40, Schmeisser was the manufacturer of the magazine and had their company name engraved on the magazines.
+не русский During the war, it was called the Schmeisseer. True it was not designed by that designer. Similarly the spandua was not made in Spandau, but the MG34/52 was near uniformly called a 'spandau' by the Allies.
This comment was not really made to correct our beige-adoring friend, but rather as a little fun fact. Í'm sure most people know what he's talking about when he says "Schmeisser".
So in short: SMG: Screw those guys! LMG: Pin those guys down! MMG: Pin all of those guys down! HMG: See all those guys, their vehicle and the cover they're in? Well now you don't anymore! Autocannon: Screw all of those guys, I'm on a boat! But as bonus question: what is a General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG)? Is it just another name for a MMG? Or is it something else?
+Beriorn I think that classification came when most armies started adopting intermediate cartridges (e.g., 5.56mm NATO). So your LMG is still using your 'standard rifle' round, but not the 'battle rifle' round (which was the standard before the intermediate cartridges became standard). So your previous LMG, that used 7.62mm is now a GPMG (e.g., M60, M240, MG3, etc.). Or something like that. Whenever I glance through modern military stuff, I don't think I even encounter 'medium machinegun' anymore (I honestly don't remember the medium term being used much, if at all, but it's been a while since I've really read up)
+Beriorn A GPMG is a mg which can be used in both the MMG and the LMG role. Because armies likes Standardisation. They can be both used with the bipod on the move and fixed with a tripod . Example of this is the MG34, MG42 (the first ones), Post WWII GPMG are the FN MAG (aka L7 GPMG/M240), M60 and the russian PK-family
Overall, I find your videos entertaining and informative. Thank you for the work you seem to put into producing them. Please continue the good work, minus snide comments. Thank you again.
Later into the video, that "B-25" you got the armament right, but, as evident by the 75mm cannon also visible on the front, it's actually not a B-25, it's a PBJ attacker.
It can be either. A PBJ-H is just another name for a B-25H. B-25H is capable of mounting a 75mm gun. And I belive PBJ-H's were operated more by the navy and marines, B-25H on land.
1life1left Oh, ok. I didn't know that, thank you for telling me. It's not the first time that infomation from gaijin entertainment has been false. (cough cough EVERY SINGLE FUCKING RUSSIAN VEHICLE IN GAME cough cough)
Combatsmithen Thanks, but 1life1left already answered me. Thanks for trying to help though, I appreciate you being nice and not calling me an idiot like some people do. ^^
Today there are a few additional categories: You've got your sub-machine gun and heavy machine gun, but the roles of medium machine gun and light machine gun are usually merged into one category by the advent of general-purpose machine guns. The first of these were the German MG 34 and 42, and now most armies use GPMGs, which are usually belt-fed and can be mounted on a bipod, tripod or vehicle. Some examples include the American M60, the German MG3, the Belgian FN MAG, and the Soviet PKM. Also, there is the light support weapon, also known as the squad automatic weapon, which typically fires the same ammunition as the assault rifle with which that army is equipped - NATO uses 5.56mm and former Eastern Bloc countries use 5.45mm or 7.62x39mm. The LSW is usually a modified version of the standard assault rifle, fitted with a bipod, a heavier barrel for heat dissipation, and maybe the ability to use ammunition belts or larger magazines than the standard 30-round magazines. But they can typically also fit the standard ammunition magazine used by the infantry's assault rifles. Some examples include the British L86 LSW, the Belgian FN Minimi, the Austrian Steyr AUG HBAR, and the Soviet RPK.
I think the convention about HMG is more about weight than about caliber of round. Water-cooled MGs often continued to get referred to as HMGs, and I've heard the British in Afghanistan brought out some old Vickers MGs thanks to their ability to keep putting down fire without needing barrel changes and they performed very well though always in fixed positions. Likewise the Japanese Type 92 was a huge weapon and so not really practical for moving around in a MMG role. Mini-guns get used in some roles (mostly by the US Navy off of boats) and it would be a mistake to call such a weapon a MMG since the weight of rounds alone prohibits the employment and transport by just a small team. The fully automatic grenade launchers (like the MK-19) are also pretty devastating weapons falling somewhere between a HMG and an auto-cannon.
It's largely a matter of doctrine; for instance, the US Army term for a squad light machine gun is "automatic rifle", as a holdover from when the M1917 and M1919 (both considered MMGs today) were called "heavy" and "light" respectively, while the BAR used for squad support was considered an automatic rifle.
id like to se Lloyd respond more in the comments i just wanna see how he acts in more contexts because he has such a charismatic way to speak, i think we all agree
I study UA-cam videos because I'm going to launch my own channel again. You are an excellent presenter and know your subjects well. Your style seems to be 'stream of consciousness'. This means you make some mistakes as you did here with the German bore diameter and had to correct in post production. You also didn't mention some other issues that you might have. Those include the fact that the Japanese foolishly did not have good uniformity of caliber. Or the issue of water cooled versus air cooled. I realize that you can't say everything in a short video but I expected you to wind up your talk with something about select fire assault rifles which are a sort of successor to the sub-machine gun. If you wrote out your talks and read them from a teleprompter you would not have these omissions or little mistakes. But of course you could not crank them out as fast. I admire your channel and I enjoy it, but for my political subject matter I can't afford to be quite so casual.
Wether a machine gun is fired from the shoulder, hip or a fixed tripod there will be no difference in velocity (and thus range), I'm not sure from where you got the idea that there would Lindy? If your misconception stems from reading about the longer effective range listed for a machine gun mounted on a tripod as opposed to a bipod then I can tell you that this is all about how far you are able to project accurate bursts of automatic fire, and a tripod naturally helps a lot in this respect as it keeps the gun a lot more stable than any man would be able to achieve firing it from a bipod.... i.e. the reason a tripod increases the listed effective range of a machine gun is because it increases accuracy, allowing the operator to maintain his aim during automatic fire. Also the belt fed MG34 & MG42 were the world's first true General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG), i.e. they could be used in all three roles LMG, MMG & HMG, are belt fed and feature a quick change barrel system.
Submachine gun: -Pistol Rounds (mostly 9mm or .45 ACP) -Used by infantry/shock troops Light Machine Gun: -Rifle Rounds (5.56mm or 7.62mm) -Used as a squad support weapon Medium Machine Gun: -Rifle rounds - Used as a platoon's support weapon Heavy Machine gun: -Bigger rounds (50 cal, ect) -Used as a mounted machine gun on a defensive structure or a vehicle
7.62 mm may be exactly 0.3 inches....but 7.62mm bullets are NOT exactly 0.3 inches, they are 0.308 inches (at least in the US), which is the diameter of "30 caliber" bullets. A little confusing, eh? But wait, it's actually much more confusing than that. The bullet from the NATO 7.62 x 51mm cartridge is actually 0.308 inches (7.82 mm) while the bullet from the Russian 7.62 x 39mm cartridge is actually 0.312 inches (7.92 mm), Not confusing enough? The first assault rifle -- the German Sturmgewehr 44 -- was chambered in 7.92 x 33 Kurz but of course the bullet was not 7.92 mm in diameter, but 8.22 mm (0.324 inches).
Tris no; I'm talking about the bullet itself not the cartridge. The "real" reason -- I've since discovered -- is that the "7.62 mm" measurement reflects the diameter of the barrel at the LANDS, not the GROOVES -- where the barrel diameter is in fact 7.82 mm. Strange that it's done that way ( naming the cartridge after main barrel diameter dimension rather than the bullet diameter), but that's what's behind the naming convention.
it's "bore diameter" that determines caliber. a barrel starts, usually, as a bar, or billet. it gets drilled (or "bored", or both) lengthwise, and then the rifling is cut. traditionally, about the only truly precise step of those operations was the boring, as rifling even today is quite variable, even off the same machine on the same set-up (which is a huge reason why every garand wasn't NM quality, as an example), and why that cold hammer forging is so popular in the more modern plants. so, a .303 brit is actually 0.311, just as the .30 cal us rounds are 0.308. however, prudent kids slug their bore, especially on oddballs, relics, and wartime built by jukebox maker rifles, lol. also, such convention ONLY holds true for rifle rounds, as pistol ammo is seemingly named by marketing execs
What I find amusing is that .308 calibre bullets are indeed .308 inches in diameter, but .303 calibre bullets are .311 inches in diameter. All comes down to the peculiarities of the naming system(s) in use.
Starblind11 well, you're mixing nomenclature. there are ".30 caliber" bullets. there are ".303 bore" bullets. they are represented by 0.308 inch, and 0.311 inch diameter bullets respectively. ".308 winchester" is a cartridge name, not a caliber. the same cartridge is also "7.62x51 sporting", yet is in NO way any different. with the most minor of variance, it is also "7.62x51 nato". no micrometer will detect more than manufacturing tolerance differences in diameter of all, as well as the .30-30, .30-06, .300 savage, .300 winchester magnum, or even .30 carbine. all .30 calibers. our exemplar .303 brit with 0.311 diameter bullet shares actual bullet diameter with a confusing array of metric and imperial cartridge names, like the 7.62 russian rimmed mosin (sometimes, lol), the 7.65x53 mauser, 7.7 arisaka (but NOT carcano), the .32 acp (aka 7.65SR browning), 7.62x25 tokarev, 7.62 luger (but NOT mauser), and i'm certain far more i neglect. all take the same diameter bullet, and the lightest example could technically be loaded into all of the above examples safely, though that 72 grain acp slug will give less than stellar results in your mosin, lol. 8mm can actually be DANGEROUSLY variable, even in a single cartridge (8x57 j and s must NEVER be interchanged, lest you check the local ambulance response time). if you want to really see NAMES are, indeed, merely marketing, look at "traditional american practices". a ".44" can be practically any size between 2/5 and 1/2 inch, lol. .22s and .45s are .21 and .44 caliber actually, .44s are actually fat .41s or .42s (usually, in modernish chamberings), and .40s are .39s, lol. my favorite was always the .38-40 cowboy round, seemingly (by convention of the time) a .38 caliber shoved by 40 grains of pistol powder. but, it's a .401 diameter bullet, and never had more than 35 grains of powder shoving it. the -40 is actually because it's based on the .44-40 case, lol (which, of course, was a .42 caliber, but DID get 40 grain loads in balloon cases). all this goes to show why if you handload, you have to be quite careful about what you stuff in what case. it also shows why some seemingly awesome arms languish unfired for decades, even in the hands of a loader. why some "maniac loaders" even go into swaging their own jacketed bullets, while "just a bit loonie" ones cast, lol.
Just to clear up a .303 whether it fired out of a LMG or a MMG is going to be equally powerful unless one of them has a longer barrel then there might be a slight difference. Oh and the Russian 7.62x54R is also still in use for machine guns and its an older cartridge than the .50BMG. And the .45 ACP as used in the tommy gun was and still is a lot more powerful than the 9mm luger!
The .45 is in the same order as the 9mm. That is, not nearly as powerful as the rifle round. As for the 7.62x54R that the Russians use - the cartridge is old, but the weapons that use it have changed. The .50 BMG has had some improvements, but has basically been the same weapon for the last 100 years.
I would disagree with the 9MM..45 thing. Is their Standard loading as of 1908 and 1911 both are just under 500 Joule. Theres no real difference. Modern +p+ ammo out of high Performance guns may reach up to 700 Joule for both, but one could argue that 9MM and 9mm+p+ and .45 and .45+p+ are no longer the same cartridge as both may damage guns tested for normal pressures. In terms of energy, .45 is barely more powerful than Standard loading 9mm
Summary: LMG is an unmounted rifle that shoots really fast. MMG is a mounted rifle that shoots really fast. HMG is a mounted rifle that shoots above a rifle round that shoots either really fast or at a decent speed. SMG shoots a pistol round and is smaller then a rifle.
Actually that's just not true at all. You don't get more velocity firing the same gun off the shoulder than off a heavy mount for it. The recoil happens almost all after the bullet has left the barrel, even if you fired a rifle held by a fishing line letting it recoil as much as it wanted to you still wouldn't lose any signifiant amount of velocity. The gun just has to be multiple times heavier than the bullet for it to work.Heavy and light aren't really types of guns but roles assigned to them, one nation's lmg might be another's hmg (during wwii japanese infantry had a hmg firing something equivalent to 303 british, while the us had a similar round for their lmg's and the .50 cal as a hmg.
You also have to remember that when written there's usually one number x (by) another number. So the original ak47 was 7.62x39. so 7.62 mm wide at the case. And 39mm long. So you'd think 7.62 would be much better than the nato 5.56 round but it's also 45 mm long. And nato is using 7.62x51 now more often. But this 7.62x51 is pretty equivalent to a 308. Bullets are complicated. I grew up with a dad who does his own reloading and I'm still lost
Something I've been wondering about your opinion on is organized crime in medieval settings. I don't feel like most fantasy worlds do it realistically.
Joseph Clout The Hun was obsessed with the number eight. They had a whole line of heavy weaponry in 88 mm. Panzers, flak, mortars(I believe those came in 8 cm). 7.62 was used by both the east and the west, and abandoned for a smaller caliber, that wouldn't batter your shoulder into a swollen mess, under continued fire.
+Evan Friend Yeah sure. Every army will have their heavier round for MG's, long range sniper rifles and the like. But didn't the Rusky's switch to 5.45 with the AK-74m? Various NATO countries kept the H&K G3 and the FN FAL around for just about as long as they reasonably could, before they too realized that your average infantryman is best served with something like a 5.xx mm by 39-45 mm...
+Frank Van Houten The Portuguese kept the HK G3 because of the lack of satisfaction in the 5.56's performance in the long ranges of the Middle East. It's sort of funny, because the Mujaheddin would use "outdated" .303 rifles to harass Soviets using 5.45 rounds that simply were to light to match the range of. The Portuguese Marines were pushed to use 5.56 weapons but they try to at least have 25% of the personnel using a G3 to cover distances the 5.56 isn't effective at. I have a friend in the Marines and he posts some training photos on Facebook and I've never seen him carry anything other than a G3. Another factor is that due to economic reasons the order for G36 rifles was never completely acquired so they're stuck with pretty old and beat up M4s. We're talking about the vintage stocks, fixed carry handle rather than the flat top rail, etc.
Nice...the thing with more power in medium machine guns because of their fixed positions is rubbish though - the powers exerted by the fortifications (sandbags, tripod,...) serve to reduce recoil, that's nothing to do with the power of the bullet that would already have left the barrel then - maybe you mean that they in fact used full-power rifle ammunition...
Many nations use weird terms for these categories. A "submachine gun" or "machine pistol" is the same everywhere, but a light machine gun is called "golyószóró" in Hungary which literally means "bullet sprayer" (or "ball sprayer" to be precise, because we still use the word ball for a projectile, although it's an informal term). An assault rifle is called a "machine carbine" in all former Warsaw Pact nations. An autocannon is a "machine cannon".
Mounted machine guns getting more punch out of their rounds make no sense whatsoever. The force of the recoil has to be equal to the force that pushes the round out of the barrel no matter how the gun is designed. Thus with the same ammunition and the same barrel length, no, they will not shoot "harder". Or am I wrong?
After seeing how you Brits spelled "calibre", I am reminded of a statement made Arabic student studying in the same University I'm attending. "English is fucked up because of the French."
+Matthew Marceau No, this is in the U.S. And that complaint was coming from an Arab. Sadly not all words here that have French origins were rewritten in a way that makes phonetic sense.
TheBaconWizard I knew of the Norman influence on English, but I didn't know they had actually banned the Angle-Saxon's language. Thanks for that tidbit. As for the language differences between classes, it kinda reminds me of the Roman, Russian and Germans aristocracy. At one point in history, the more powerful citizens in Rome would prefer to speak Greek, while the Russians and German notability were copying the French (of all the things to mimic).
I make a major slip in this video, and the text correction has been lost by UA-cam, which is rather annoying, so I'll mention it here. I say that the Germans used 7.62mm as their standard rifle round. No, that was the Russians . I said 'Germans', I know, but I meant 'Russians'. Sorry about that.
I know this is an old video and you may have answered my question in another video but why did the germans use LMGs in their Atlantic wall rather than HMGs or MMGs?
ok
Good man. Thank you for the correction
rewatching his videos and making corrections 4 years later. that is a man of dedication :D
Yeah I was about to comment that the Krauts/jerries or whatever depending where u r from
They used the 7.92
Note: A sub machine gun is not a machine gun mounted on a submarine.
Good to know
But they could have submachine guns issued to the submarine's crew. It is rather handy in cramped interiors
My world is ruined...
Funny thing, submarines aren't required to repel boarders very often.
One reason they keep weapons aboard, is to prevent mutiny and keep disiplin. Also if they have to abandon the submarine they are not totally defenceless. Boarding subs is not something that happens often, but it has happened from time to time. The last instance of boarding a a submarine I know about was during the Falklands war, when SAS and Royal Marines boarded an argentinian submarine. Much more common, however, were the practice of submarine crews forming boarding parties. This was especially common on british and american submarines in the Pasific during WW2. And of course, such boarding parties needed suitable weaponry.
LMG: Run to cover
MMG: Stay in Cover
HMG: Screw you and your cover
Sub: "They're running into cover too!"
Essex Class more like “SMG: They’re ribbing into your cover”
*running
@@anthonypurvis1748 GPMG would be roughly the equivalent of an LMG. The MG42 is sort of the first GPMG
@@dELTA13579111315 i wouldve thought its more of an mmg (its bloody heavy and you can't really fire at any sort of accuracy from the shoulder), whereas the fn minimi is more of an lmg
@@anthonypurvis1748 that would fall under MMG. The GPMG as a concept combines characteristics from LMGs (easily man-portable, can be fired from a bipod by a single soldier) and HMGs (not readily man-portable and would require a static mount with several crew members, or a vehicle mount, but capable of sustained fire at longer ranges). In a sense that makes them "medium", plus their mass is intermediate between LMGs and HMGs
Lindybeige: "you can't just pick and run with a MMG, it is mounted solidly"
American's in Vietnam: hold my beer
Everybody in BFV: "hold my gender"
hold my napalm
*Carlos Hathcock strapping a scope onto a freaking m2 browning and using It as a sniper rifle* "hold my keg"
and thats why they lost that war
Cries in 240B
So basically...
Sub:
-Mobile
-Pistol rounds
Light:
-Mobile
-Rifle rounds
Medium:
-Stationary
-Rifle rounds
Heavy:
-Stationary
-Bigger rounds
Or today (with many additions):
*Machine guns:*
PDW:
-Very mobile
-Very light
-Intermediate cartridge#
SMG:
-Mobile
-Light
-Pistol cartridge
LMG:
-Mobile
-Intermediate cartridge (5.56x45 NATO)
MMG/GPMG:
-stationary/mobile
-Rifle cartridge (30cal)
HMG:
-stationary/vehicle mounted
-Big cartridge (50cal - 20mm)
*Rifles:*
Assault Rifle:
-Might
-Intermediate Cartridge
Battle Rifle:
-Medium weight
-Rifle cartridge
Carbine:
-Mobile
-Shortened version of other rifles / longer version of pistols
-Various cartriges
Designated Marksmen Rifle (DMR):
-Semi mobile
-Long range
-Mostly based on Assault Rifles/Battle Rifles with longer barrels and improved sights
-Mostly semi automatic
Sniper:
-Semi mobile
-Very long range
-Various catridges, some standart, some specific to the weapon system
-Mostly bolt action, new models are semi automatic
Anti Material Rifle (AMR):
-Not very mobile
-Very long range
-Very large cartridges (50BMG or larger)
# The cartidges used are shorter and or smaller then normal intermediate cartridges but have the same general shape. This in combination with a faily high mussle velocity (around 700-850m/s) results in far supperior penetration, especially with boy armor then the standart 9mm round.
The 2 cartridges used are the 5.7x28mm (FN P90) and the 4.6x30mm (HK MP7)
*Other gun types*
(it get's a bit fuzzy as those categorys cannot be boiled down as simple as machine guns and i will ignore anything before WW1)
Shotgun:
-Kinda mobile
-Various ammunition
-Various magazine types (if present at all)
Pistol:
-Very mobile
-Short range
-Pistol cartridge
Revolver:
-Very mobile
-Short range
-Pistol cartridge
-Uses revolving cilinder with multiple chambers (mostly 6) as magazine
Gatlin Gun:
-Rotary barrel
-Various cartridges
-Mostly belt fed
-Extremly high ROF (up tp 10,000RPM)
Autocannon:
-often vehicle mounted
-Big cartridge (>20mm)
-ROF between 90-2500RPM)
Revolver Cannon:
-Aircraft / ship mounted
-Big cartridge (>20mm)
-ROF 20mm)
-Uses external power for the reloading process
-Extremly reliable
Electromagnetic Railgun (EMRG):
-Currently not very mobile
-Uses elektricity as propellat by utilizing the "Lorenz Force"
-Extremly high mussle velocity (currently up to 10,000m/s)
-Extremly high range
-Planned as a replacement for missiles on ships
Metal Storm:
-Multiple barrels
-Multiple stacked projectiles (with their own propellant) per barrel
-Electricly triggered
-Extremly high rate of fire (around 1,000,000 RPM)
Other weapon types will be added at request, suggestions and corrections are highly appreciated.
So that means M240 is MMG and PKP Pecheneg is also MMG? right?
*****
Yes, but today this category would be called GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun)
Mid Night
Yea, I know that... but I wanst just sure... But thanks
This comment needs more likes.
Recently the US Army found an M2 , also known as the "Ma Deuce," that was still in service after over 90 years. It's serial number is 324 meaning it was the 324th M2 ever produced. It has since been taken out of service and is in the process of being approved for display at the Army Small Arms Repair Facility.
Similar things happen in germany. A few of the "MG3's" in service today still have SS markings on them.
So, 3 Germans walk into a BAR...
The BAR had no recoil i thought?
The BAR has plenty of recoil. No weapon without a back blast was or is recoilless (blame Newton).
I think it is a fairly interesting weapon. It served in the LMG role for the Americans during WW2 (it was carried in a squad and mounted on a bi-pod). It was certainly a very good weapon, but in retrospect it was probably poorly suited to the role of a light machine gun. It provided a pitiful amount of fire support for an advancing assault team and it was seriously overpowered by the MG 34 and 42 against which it was supposed to compete.
US Airborne troops got wise to the fact that the BAR probably wasn't quite up to the task of being an LMG and opted for the M1919 .30 cal instead. They used the BAR instead just as an "automatic rifle" to augment the firepower of their riflemen, a role in which it proved far more effective.
B.A.R. wasa prototype of an automatic rifle. It should never gone into production The only way to fire it accurately was off the bi-pod. Not to mention the mags had low cap. It's hard to reload while standing. I made the mistake of selling mine in 1986. .
Gareth Thompson Actually, the recoil is quite manageable. Bonnie Parker (who mind you, weighed 90 pounds) was quite proficient at its use.
Pilotmario My Dad had one in Vietnam for awhile and he says it was the best weapon he ever carried.
The reason the SMG of the USA had a .45" round, was because their pistols were .45" pistols. So the Thompson SMG, was still using a pistol round.
He was simply talking about the issue of "it's a smaller caliber". Pointing out that sometimes SMG rounds aren't smaller in caliber but still less powerful.
Yup, USA still to this day uses some variant of the M1911 which is chambered in .45.
Tho funny enough Germany uses the USP 45 which is in .45 ACP and their SMGs such as the UMP-45 are also in .45
@@h3nder No, the US military switched to the Beretta M9, in 9mm Parabellum, and then to the SIG Sauer M17 and M18, also in 9mm Parabellum. The M1911 was eschewed in favor of the M9 starting in 1985.
@Ryan Doty Actually the US still use variants of the M1911 pistol today, they just aren't usually issued to regular troops. Special forces units in particular are known to still use M1911 variants. What you are saying is mostly correct for standard infantry, however.
@@reonthornton685 You are correct, we do still use variations such as the MEU (SOC), though in the grand scheme of things they are largely irrelevant. It would be like saying the Polish use M4s because some Grom operators use them, even though the majority of the Polish armed forces use AKMs. They exist, but not at large scales.
Shout out to John Browning.
The 1919 design; badass for 100 years and counting.
Well, actually that was the m2
Little known fact: as late as 1948, French peasants were still finding the odd British platoon hiding behind cover after hearing a few shots from the German Buzzsaw, making sure its safe to advance. The farming usually had to be done around them...
lol!
+dIRECT0R You know why french MBT's have a mirror in driver seat?
+Olli-Pekka Lepola to see the frontline slowy getting smaler
+TheLoki7281 Must be the same model the British used when they deserted the front line during the Battle of France.
+Anndgrim Lol. More like the french army collapsed in 8 days because of the stupidity of the Maginot Line. The Expeditionary force arrived expecting the French to have defensive positions that could be bolstered by British troops. Before the expeditionary force could even set up they were fighting alone in a foreign country with no defensive position. It was a sensible tactical retreat.
I think the German words make way more sense than the English ones. Maschinenpistole, Maschinengewehr and Maschinenkanone give you a huge hint about the size and appearance of the weapon. But journalists still manage to refer to every form of self-loading, powder based weapon system as a machinegun (unless it has a scope on it. Everything with a scope is a sniper rifle).
I also think the Germans had a more logical system when it comes to naming their weapons:
MP40 stands for Maschinenpistole (Submachinegun) introduced in 1940
MG42 stands for Maschinengewehr (Machinegun/ Machinerifle) introduced in 1942
MG08/15 stands for Maschinengewehr introduced in 1908/ modernized in 1915
MP5 stands for ... the 5th Machinepistol that entered the contest (blame the Allies, the Führer would've never let this happen [Btw, H&K called it MP64])
The Sowjets even went a step further and included the name of the designer in the weapon's name. For example PPSch-41 stands for Pistolet-Pulemjot Schpagina - 1941. Due to my lack of knowledge about the Russian language I'll just assume that it stands for machinepistol by Schpagin.
Now to give you a short example to a system from a country on the other side of the Atlantic, M1 stands for:
-An armoured car from 1931
-A light tank from 1937
-A slightly heavier tank from 1980 (the M1 Abrams)
-A semi-automatic rifle from 1936 (the M1 Garand)
-A semi-automatic carbine from 1942 (the M1 Carbine)
-A chemical mine developed in 1939, but never used in the field
-A bayonet that fits on one M1(Garand) but doesn't fit on another M1(Carbine)
-A helmet introduced during WW2
-A 81mm mortar used in WW2 and the Korean war
-A rocket launcher first issued in 1942
-A submachinegun or machinepistol in .45 ACP (the Thompson)
-A 90mm anti-aircraft gun from WW2
-A 120mm anti-aircraft gun from WW2
-A flamethrower from WW2
I guess the M1 really is the greatest battle implement ever devised ;)
+HATECELL Not sure if this is the reason but I think the "M1" in some of those examples means Mark 1.
Though I could be completely wrong.
Corrections:
Machine pistols are a separate category of firearms on their own - they are specifically pistols designed to fire burst or fully automatically (such as the Glock-18, Stechkin APS, Mauser Schnellfeur, Beretta 93R etc) and can be used effectively with one hand. Only Germany and German speaking countries use the term machine pistol to refer to submachine guns - everybody else uses submachine gun as the term and that's the official term.
MG08/15 doesn't mean modernized in 1915. It's just a 1915 revision and variant to give the Germans a light machine gun... Albeit a horrid one. MG08's would remain in service much longer than the MG08/15s, once the Germans got their hands on actual light machine guns and general purpose machine guns (effectively being completely phased out by the MG34 and ZB26 before WW2.)
Pistolet-Pulemyot Shpagina does not mean machine pistol. It means Shpagin's Submachine Gun (Georgy Shpagin being the designer.)
@@TheHandgunhero it does not mean submachinr gun it means pistol machine gun
@@TheHandgunhero I guess Finland is germanic
@@tortture3519 technically yes they are
“Even though the were the same caliber they were not the same caliber”
1:53
Nice edit. I like how it fades back into standard film.
Did you know that the British troops didn't use grenades during WW2. When the tommies found a German position in need of clearing, they would choose a volunteer (usually a Scotsman), who proceeded to say his last prayers. The rest of the soldiers scrambled for as much cover they could find. The volunter then picked up his Sten and carefully slid a loaded magazine into the gun. He then lobbed the gun upon the german lines as fast as he possibly could and dove to cover. Once the Sten had maimed every single person within the position, the British charged.
British grenadiers
No. 69 grenade
Mulberry Blaze The joke is about the sten gun, a British sub machine gun. I gather from the joke that it had a tendency to go off unexpectedly when handled roughly.
They did use grenades!
"The best example is the Bren gun."
Lewis Gun: Am I a joke to you?
BAR: "I'll see myself out"
Yes..😅
Get outta here with that automatic rifle masquerading as an LMG. A BAR is not an LMG, as the name implies. It has 20 rounds in a magazine bloody hell.
I believe the word you are looking for is "recoil".
lol
+kingpopaul at 9:27
+kingpopaul The term is actually "Gun Punch."
Peter Pan 1/4, that's not enough.
+Feder Schwert hmmhmm gun punch , put in some lemon and some salt and you are ready to party
I love those closing statements about the autocannon and the science fiction.
+Erl Tyriss Yes, they are nice. The largest caliber automatic gun I could was the 130mm (5.1 in) АК-130 on Russian warships. This thing has two barrels and shoots about once per second.
Getting to 15 inches would be very interesting.
Actually, the recoil from a gun hits you after the bullet is long gone. You dont lose any power (well, not enough to give a significant increase in velocity) due to the gun recoiling compared to being on a tripod. A lot of the recoil is actually from the bolt carrier hitting the rear of its movement, and by that time the bullet is far down range and the casing is being ejected. Now, if the barrel is longer on that medium machine gun compared to the LMG then it will have more velocity as long as there is enough powder in whatever cartridge you are using. If you ever have any questions about firearms for videos you are making, send me a message, Id love to help. I cast and reload my ammunition for pistols and precision long range shooting.
The tripod is better for accuracy though, right? Since it’s more stable and therefore less effected by you moving slightly. I think, I might be wrong though.
I think his point is that a stationary weapon can allow for a much larger round, since the recoil in that case would be less of an issue for the shooter.
@@feartheghus You're not wrong. One of the big advantages of mounting a machine gun on a tripod is that it is much more stable and therefore easier to keep on target. Lloyd is quite right that even in smaller calibers a fully-automatic weapon tends to move a lot and is hard to keep on target when fired from the shoulder or the hip. Obviously, it varies with the caliber and design of the weapon, but that's the general rule. Conversely, the big advantage of a light machine gun is its portability and the fact that it can be used in "walking fire"; shooting from the shoulder or hip while advancing. Some guns such as the U.S. M60 of the Vietnam era are used in both roles. Heavy machine guns such as the M2 .50 caliber are even difficult to manage on a tripod unless you secure the tripod to the ground with stakes and/or sandbags. That's why they're very frequently used on heavy vehicles. A tank makes a pretty stable gun platform. ;-)
Fyi i believe the recoil will hit you at the speed of sound as that is the speed of a pressure wave through a solid medium. It’s conceivable that the recoil could hit you before the round clears the barrel when firing subsonic rounds though unlikely.
I reload for 1000 yards plus and I’d never cast a head for that distance the BC would be pathetic . If recoil doesn’t affect a gun til after the bullet is long gone put it in a bench and pull the trigger with string . You’re talking rubbish
The germans didnt use 7.62, they used 7.92 also known as 8mm.
the intro effects were really nice
+Dave Kent Yeah, I liked that too. Personally, I would've added a bit of image contrast and darkened borders. There is always room for improvement.
+Dave Kent I concur. I wasnt even aware you could do that kind of transition.
If I'm not mistaken Lindy, the standard German cartridge following the adoption of the Gewehr 98 and 88 spitzer conversion, was 7.92x57mm (aka 8mm Mauser), not a 7.62mm round.
Benign Gamer correct
Yep, and before the First World War the jerries used 7mm Mauser, which Brazil kept using till WW2 when we switched to US munitions.
Lindy you forgot about about assault rifles (stg44 for example in wwii) and machine pistols (some c96 and luger variants). Both are classified as machine guns legally and historically.
Machine pistols are crazy fun to shoot...hard/impossible to aim... but fun. ~ Steve
+TFB TV He did show an UZI, which might either be a submachine gun or a machine pistol depending on who you ask.
+TFB TV The Stg44 comes under the classification as an assault rifle and the Mauser and Lugers come under the classification as pistols. This video was talking about machineguns
Im retarded for telling someone that's hes talking about something off-topic. But I look up and see you sperging out and getting triggered by naziboos. You're pretty epic dude
+1-2 Meme Crew If select fire the Mauser and Luger are machine pistols.
+TFB TV As typical for Lindy this is a good overview that gets some details wrong. The largest is the omission of Assault Rifles. Presumably to avoid mentioning the difference between a rifle round and an intermediate round.
If you are American, the equivalent of a "section" is a squad.
I thought a platoon section has 2 squads, and a platoon has 4 squads.
The germans used the 7,92 in their mausers not 7,62. The 7,62 wasnt even around that time
7.62 was around in ww2. the russians used 7.62x54R in their most of their weapons
Jacob .Clark Yea but I meant 7,62x51
He said they used 7.92! It was actually ahead of it's time being rimless. And the 7.62x51 NATO was actually the .308 Winchester developed in the 1950's.
Let's fail together I never said there was ...
***** oh shit my bad xD ill delete my comment. I apologize
Sick audiovisual fade in at the beginning
just noticed the silver play button! well done Lloyd!!
+Rich What does the silver play button mean?
+Daniel Taylor 100,000 subscriber. It's the equivalent of having a silver album if your are a pop group.
Daniel Taylor you get sent it by UA-cam after you reach 100,000 subscribers :)
Sweet! Congratulations good Sir! Well deserved.
+Daniel Taylor I think it means 100,000 subscribers
Him: "The Americans actually used 0.3 of an inch which they call 30 cal because....
they're Americans."
Me: "What tf is that sopposed to mean?"
If you're American you wouldn't get it
@@russellfernandez57 Watch this clip and you will understand ( listen to what the cops says at about 2.04 minutes ;)) ua-cam.com/video/kt1yxOU_DXM/v-deo.html
@@baf_mcnab3065 lol
Yeah, Americans
@@dhimasardiansyah8741 I- You- Just stop.
Recoil does not affect bullet energy (Cody's lab has a video testing it)
indeed..the bullet is already out the barrel before the recoil impulse moves the gun. otherwise, you would never hit anything.
Light Machine Gun owners: "Look! I can SAW an enemy in half!"
Medium Machine Gun owners: "Whatever happens, I have got an MMG, and they do not!"
Heavy Machine Gun owners: "Anyone need a Ma Deuce?"
Sub-Machine Gun owners: "Now I have a machine gun! Ho ho ho!"
Lol I love die hard also the machine gun the baddies used was an MP5, the most op weapon in mad city
So the gist of it is that the LMG and MMG fire a rifle round, the SMG fires a handgun round, and the HMG fires ammunition akin to an elephant gun.
Lindy - I'm extremely experienced with guns and i'm sorry - there's absolutely no truth whatsoever in the idea that a fixed machine gun would shoot a bullet harder than a shoulder fired version because people were 'softer' and had more give. None. None at all. Zero - zilch. Medium machine guns tended to have longer barrels and THAT will cause a bullet to fly faster and hit harder - and with heavier barrels and actions they would tend to not overhead the barrel and stay more accurate, but simply anchoring the gun will not make it hit harder. At all. Don't know who told you that - smack them next time you see them.
I think he's making a joke and trying to see how many people call him out or fall for it.
+mruler360 Well i suppose anything is possible, but I think you're being wildly optimistic there :) He did seem pretty serious.
Take a javelin, run at your target and throw, then compare the force of impact when running away from your target and thrown. Lindy's argument was that a machine gun that is stationary has more power per bullet than THE SAME machine gun hand held. You're comparing it with two different machine guns with different barrel lengths, of course that's going to factor into it and Lindy did not say anything about that
+Yoriko Arran And with a javelin, your point is valid. But a projectile that's already moving over 2000 feet per second? So say you're running forward with a LMG like the M249. How much velocity is that going to add to the projectile? Maybe 5 feet per second? Powder variances on factory produced ammo will make more of a difference than that. Even if being mounted on a tripod makes a projectile leaving the barrel of a firearm faster, it's such an insignificant difference that there's no point in even mentioning it.
+Yoriko Arran Your javelin analogy makes no sense in trying to relate it to guns. With firearms, even assuming there is a difference in "power" in holding it vs a tripod/bipod the difference would be so negligible that it has never been bothered with. Nobody ever said, "oh we need to make the tail guns on a plane more powerful than the nose guns because the tail gun is like running backwards trying to throw a javelin." That is assuming there is a difference in power in off hand vs mount, but there isn't.
...go look up the 7.62x54r russian round. That same interchangeable round got used in everything from machine guns to rifles to pistols, and you are going to quickly see the muzzle velocities are completely in line with the math for barrel lengths. Because that is what effects the "power."
MG - 34s and 42s are LMGs, but they are also the first GPMGs. Before that most machine guns carried by one man were magazine fed ( BAR, DP 28, Bren, etc). MG 42s had the same mobility as those guns, but were belt fed and could also be mounted to tripods and vehicles serving the role of an MMG. In practice it was used very differently to its magazine fed predecessors that were used more like the modern day concept of a SAW.
Since 1959/60 as a boy reading 'The Lion' comic, I always wondered what was carried in those soldiers chest pouches, Now I know. Thank you Lindy.
Basic Pouch: A large vertical rectangular pouch that went through three versions (Marks I, II, and III). It could carry either (2) BREN magazines, (6) 20-round Thompson SMG magazines, (4) No 36M Fragmentation, No 69 Offensive, or No.77 White Phosphorus grenades, (4) No 36M cup-discharger rifle grenades with attached gas-check baseplates, (2) Smoke Grenades, or boxes of Small Arms Ammunition. The Mark I version had three cartridge loops sewn into the inner lid for carrying three ballistite Rifle Grenade Blanks for launching rifle grenades; this feature was later omitted on the Mark II pouch. The longer Basic Pouch Mark III could hold (5) 32-round STEN Machine Carbine Magazines.
Two additional points:
1)
Some machine guns, such as the famed German MG-42 and its less famous younger and older brothers, were used both in the LMG and MMG role. They were generally not well suited for shoulder firing, but could be fired from the hip (I've actually done that) and quickly moved from one position to the next in one piece. They were also commonly fitted with tripods in bunkers (as in Normandy on D-Day) or on vehicles to serve as an MMG.
2)
Using tactics the way you describe MMG's have fallen out of fashion lately, even in relatively static front line combat as can be found in Eastern Ukraine. That entire category has disappeared, and thus the term MMG is now commonly used for infantry machine guns that require more than one person to operate effectively. Also, standard rifle caliber has decreased from 7-9mm to 5-6mm while MMG rounds have mostly stayed at 7.62, complicating the relationship between MMG's and rifles.
+Jens Danbolt Yes, I may do other videos on the German GPMG concept. This video shows the MG42 in LMG role and the MG34 in MMG role (or SFMG, to be even more confusing).
Ten minutes was probably already too long for most people on MGs!
+Jens Danbolt Also pretty interesting is that the germans did not have a HMG at all in the army, even though they had the 13mm machineguns for airplanes. For light AA they used exclusively 20mm cannons. Tanks and other vehicles got the regular MG-42 or MG-34 as coaxial and additional weapons and armored cars like the SdKfz 222 also used the 20mm caliber.
+Lindybeige Yes please! And also how about a video on grenades?
+Lindybeige I'd have been happy with even more info, but here's another topic: how the German 88mm AA first came to be used against ground targets. Who thought of it first? Buncha guys in the thick of it, or a smart commander with a sudden brainwave?
Though ditto Un1qZ's suggestion about grenades.
On the subject of MGs though, I've often read that in Vietnam, US soldiers often used thousands of rounds just to take out a single enemy. How true was this? What data is there? Why did it happen?
Another question: I've watched your vids about knives, daggers, bayonettes, etc.; how important were these weapons in WW2? Were they at all somewhat ignored to begin with, then brought in more and more later as their relevance became apparent? Or were they standard kit & training from the beginning?
+Lindybeige Also, how much ammo did a typical MG34/42 crew carry with them?
Some notes: The standard calibre in Germany was 7,92x57 (Mauser) which was used in both rifles and MG's. I think +Lindybeige might have confused this with the 7,62x51 (NATO) round which was introduced after the war and is used in the MG3, for example.
The term "Schmeisser" for the MP40 is basically an Hollywood term and ought to be avoided. If anything, it should be called a "Vollmer".
And finally, Lindybeige missed out on the most influential innovation of late WW2 gun design, the assault rifle, which uses a less powerful version of the rifle ammo (in the case of the Stg44, the 7,92×33 Kurz), and which created a whole new weapon class.
+Oliver Weber It has always bothered me that the MP 40 is always referred to as the "Schmeisser". His only involvement with it if I recall correctly is that he owned the patent on the straight magazine that it used.
dont forget the good ol Automatic Rifle like the BAR or i guess now the M27
Enter the general-purpose machine gun.
"I'm a bit of everything. HAHAA!"
Well, a bit light, a bit medium...
the lands versus grooves thing has zip to do with why the rounds don't fit in each other's barrels. Its the casing. .30-'06, .303 Brit and 7.62x54R can both be very effectively loaded with bullets meant for each other , even tho they use slightly different diameter bullets (notably, 7.62x54R uses .311 bullets). But, their casings don't fit each other's chambers correctly.
Don't think the 7.62x54 is .311, the 303 Brit is .311"
Brilliant video, Lindy. Any chance you could do a similar explanation for cannons? Perhaps explain the difference between field guns, howitzers, mortars, artillery, siege guns, autocannons, bombards, deck guns, turret guns, etc.?
+sirrliv Heh. Trying to make him work, eh?
As an enthusiast in ww2 armament, I was glad to watch this video to learn about the differing machine guns as well as the compatibility of ammo. Thanks, Lindy
Something to note; nowadays the Medium Machine Gun is mainly a role rather than a classification of Machinegun. It has been replaced by the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) which can be deployed with a bipod, tripod, or vehicle mount. The FN MAG which is used by a lot of NATO follows this principal. Basically, it's better to have configurations of the same gun to provide whatever role a mission has for it. The Germans were the first to put this in widespread use with their MG34 and MG42s as shown in some of your pictures.
Technically the "american" .30 caliber fires bullets of .308 inches diameter, while the so-called ".303 British" actually fires bullets of .311 inches, the same as the 7.62mm rounds (unless we are talking about 7.62x53r rounds from Finland, which were actually .308 in earlier rifles and .310 in later ones). The american .30 caliber bore actually measures .300 from land-to-land, but .308 from groove to groove, so that's how the bullet is sized. Same sort of deal with the .303.
Maybe I am splitting hairs though, lol. Sorry, I may have the annoying affliction known as old-gun-collector OCD. ;) Good to see you back on the youtube horse, btw. You're one of my favorite channels. Looking forward to the next one! :D
As a military veteran, I have had the opportunity to qualify with the Heavy Machine Gun M2 Browning. It's a very satisfying experience.
I greatly enjoy your explanation of the differences of the different machine guns. It's very enlightening. Since I wasn't a combat arms enlisted person, I've always wondered about the differences that I've seen only in video games.
Had to chime in here with the severe misinformation given. The recoil of a gun doesn't reduce its power. Or rather it does, but by such a tiny amount that you really can't make that claim. You will find far, far more difference between each bullet due to manufacturing tolerances than you will lose from recoil. Along the lines of 2 fps from a bullet shooting 2700 fps, less than 0.1% which amounts to 0.2% more energy. The difference in velocity is almost exclusively due to the barrel length. 25 inches on the Bren, 28 inches on the Vickers. That is enough to produce over 5% velocity difference which equates to 10-15% more energy.
Recoil does not affect bullet speed AT ALL. Not even that small amount, it just doesn't.
It can effect the power slightly when the barrel is moved back so the total time the round can accelerate inside it is slightly shortened. But as this only really effects the last few centimeters of the barrel where the pressure already dropped significantly the effect is incredibly small.
Jeronimo Murruni Yes it does. just not by any noticeable amount. However saying "not at all, not even a slight amount" is complete bullshit.
Mid Night Pretty much that. However don't forget the faster pressure drop due to the breech moving backwards and the area between the breech and the bullet increasing more rapidly. Also the extra friction on the bullet as the barrel moves backwards. You might possibly be able to say the increased rotational speed of the bullet due to the higher relative speed through the barrel, and rotational velocity takes away energy from the forward velocity though at that point its just getting a little silly.
Olivia Lambert Marry Me!
Now there's a rare thing, a woman not only discussing guns but actually talking sense! I vowed never to marry but in Olivia's case I could be convinced to change my mind!
alternate title: lindybeige badly explains newton's 3rd law
After 22 yrs in the Regular Army, IMHO, the 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) is by far the best weapon we had in service at the time. I have fired thousands of rounds through different variants (L8, L37, amongst others) and it was reliable, had a high rate of fire, and hardly ever suffered from stoppages. I also enjoyed firing the L94 chain gun which was also an excellent secondary weapon for armoured vehicles (I was a tank soldier on Chieftain, Challenger 1 and Challenger 2).
Love the channel Lloyd. 🇬🇧
"And the American rounds measured at .3 of an inch which they called 30 Cal because... *they're Americans* "
The German cartridge was actually 7.92mm and is referred to as 8mm Mauser. Which of course is still about 0.3 inches. =)
+Graham Rollins in terms of ammunition, where thousandths of an inch can mean the difference between blowing up a gun and not blowing up a gun, it is actually significantly larger; it's .31 caliber rather than .30.
+Regolith No argument from me!
That intro and transition was excellent Lindy.
For a few seconds, I was half expecting a bolter to be in Lloyds hand.
+TheSparda81 not 15inch but still science fiction =]
+TheSparda81 "And this is a bolter. Bolters first saw action not in World War two but the Unification Wars. They fire much larger rounds, ranging between 2 cm and three inches and can destroy buildings."
+Fumblerful They are also prone to Jamming. For some reason the tech guys never managed to fix that
You forgot the elusive PMG, or Pommel Machine Gun, ending the world's foes rightly since 1912
+The Mango Baron It needs some super-glue or something.
that smooth transition at the beginning was top!
Lindy, in honor of a certain popular candidate for President of the United States, you should do a video about walls throughout history.
+Rabbi Herschel Lieberman-Bergblattsteinowitz The wailing wall
+Edward Kiel That's racist!
#Poe'sLaw
Pretty sure the Germans used a 7.92mm round. The 8mm mauser
That gradual transition at the start was done very well, good job Lloyd
u spelled loyd wrong
5:30 Nope, that's not how momentum works. If the gun is stuck firmly in the ground, the momentum that was lost to your shoulder, will now be lost to the Earth itself.
Damn historians talking physics!
Wait, then how come you'll jump way farther off solid ground, than from... water, or anything softer than solid ground, even with the same energy from your legs?
Because any change in your momentum has to come from giving the earth opposite momentum, which is much harder to do on water, since water is not stiff. The better analogy is you throwing a ball. You will throw the ball at the same speed, no matter if you are floating weightlessly or you are strapped in. There is a tiny correction, but that is small as long as the ball is small compared to you, or the bullet is small compared to you and the gun.
Just don't watch one of his vids on global warming. Science was devastated in those few minutes.
what will be effected is cyclic rate, and even reliability of operation in recoil, or inertia based operating schemes. just like "limp wristing" a 1911 can cause FTE, a more solid support base can increase cyclic rate of an MG, even if not by enough for anybody to notice in practical terms.
thenorup Yeah, man. That explanatiob was cringeworthy af.
Medium machinegun (MMG) ammo was (with rare exceptions) no more powerful than rifle rounds. An example of the rare exceptions would be the German 7.92mm (not 7.62mm) ammo which was shipped marked "Nur fur Machinengewehr" - "Only for Machinegun" which was loaded to higher pressures than normal rifle ammo. The defining difference between an MMG and an LMG is that the MMG is crew served. An MMG is meant to be served by at least a gunner and an assistant gunner. Typically an MMG has a 3 man crew, a gunner who carries the gun, an assistant gunner who carries the tripod and ammo, and an ammo bearer (who carries LOTS of ammo). Also, the rest of the squad carries ammo, too. The LMG and the MMG represent most of the squad's firepower, and studies indicate they do most of the killing.
Of course, you're addressing this in the context of WW2. In modern terms, MMGs may fire a heavier caliber bullet than the standard infantry rifle as well, now that armies have adopted lighter ammo for their infantry weapons. So in a modern context it's true that MMGs fire more powerful ammo, because they are firing a heavier round. So your video is actually more correct on that point in a modern context than in the context of WW2.
love the audio/visual transition from old to modern! nicely done
I think we Germans used 7,92mm not 7,62mm
Dead right buddy.
Yep. I had the same thought. That big ol’ 8mm Mauser has a special place in my heart. Thats no regular .30cal round.
The Germans used to use 7.90 mm and switched to 7.62 x 54 NATO during cold war, now migrating to 5,56 X 39 NATO with tendencies to return partially to 7.62 X 54
These videos just kind of popped up on my feed, been checking them out a lot lately! I guess because of this guys soothing intellectual voice or something.
Right at the beginning while discussing ammunition compatibility, another consideration is case/chamber sizes. You could have a the same diameter bullet, but different chamber sizes would make the ammunition incompatible across firearms. Firing an over/under-rsized cartridge in the wrong chamber is a quick way to crack your barrel.
Great video, but there were two technical mistakes.
#1 The recoil against the shoulder of the shooter does not cause a significant loss of muzzle velocity. Watch some slow motion videos, generally the bullet has LONG since left the barrel before the shooter starts to feel the recoil impulse, especially in an automatic weapon.
The reason why Medium machine guns needed to be mounted was because they were stupid heavy. Why were they so heavy? They have heavier barrels, receivers, and in many cases in WWII water-jackets for cooling. These all mean they can withstand more heat, therefore they can survive more sustained fire and possibly at a higher cyclic rate.
#2. Really the reason for light calibers in SMGs is because they are almost all direct-blowback guns. IE the breech is held closed by spring pressure and weight of the bolt alone, and cycling is caused simply by the shell being pushed away from the speeding bullet against the breech face. Some medium and heavy machine guns used direct blowback, but they were VERY heavy, as you could imagine. Or like the Maxim, a very complicated and large toggle delay.
Today the SMG is rather rare in Military units because modern Carbines are so small and light they do everything an SMG can do, and many of the things a rifle can do....and a few things a light machine gun can do.
They are all locked breech guns, almost all gas-operated, so the action is locked closed (much like a bolt-action Enfield) until the bullet has almost left the barrel, then gas is shunted off into a system to unlock the bolt and cycle the action.
Weer'd Beard Old video and old reply by this point, but compared to all the other comments saying similar things, I really appreciate how you displayed the information you have here.
Your point #2 is incorrect. SMGs use pistol ammo because its relatively light recoil allows a small, light weapon to be controllable. Also, shorter pistol rounds make the weapon more compact and thus lighter. The shorter ammo also means narrower, more compact magazines. SMGs are blowback only because that type of action works best in that role. It is simpler and cheaper to produce than a locked-breach design.
SMGs are usually open-bolt weapons, meaning the bolt remains in the rearward position until the trigger is pulled, then it slams forward, stripping a round off the top of the magazine. Once it reaches its forward-most position the round is enclosed in the chamber and is detonated by the firing pin (usually a fixed, non-moving nub on the face of the bolt).
The inertia of the heavy bolt keeps the round contained in the chamber until the pressure created by the exploding gunpowder has dropped below dangerous levels. The recoil from the rearward pressure trying to blow the cartridge casing out the back of the chamber accelerates the bolt rearward, but by the time the bolt starts to move back the bullet has already left the barrel and the pressure is quickly vented out the muzzle.
One big advantage of the open-bolt design is that with extended firing the chamber of the weapon gets very, very hot. This can cause a round to detonate unexpectedly from the heat, which is called a 'cook-off'. Since the bolt remains open when the weapon stops firing, there is no round sitting in the chamber to cook off. Also, the open chamber cools faster because air can circulate through it.
The disadvantage of an open-bolt system is that when you pull the trigger you have a couple pound metal bolt slamming forward just before the SMG fires, which can affect accuracy. And the requirement of a heavy bolt makes the weapon heavier.
One closed-bolt design is the famous Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. It uses a fluted chamber to reduce the contact area between the round in the chamber and the chamber itself, thus reducing heat transfer and lowering the chance of a cook-off. It also uses a delayed blowback roller lock system that allows for a lighter bolt and thus a lighter weapon.
A rifle cartridge has high enough pressure that it would require a massive heavy bolt and an extremely powerful recoil spring to work with a pure blowback system, which would be impractical in a small, light SMG-type weapon. Light, medium and heavy machine guns are in fact blowback weapons, though not pure blowback designs. They are delayed blowback. They can be roller-delayed blwoback, same as the MP5 SMG. Examples are the MG-42, the MG-3 and the HK-21. They can be lever-delayed blowback, like the French AA-52. But by far the most common is the gas-delayed blowback system used in the vast majority of light, medium and heavy machine guns. Contrary to your description, the gas piston and operating rod do not move the bolt backwards, they merely unlock the bolt. It is blowback that causes the bolt to move rearward in a gas-operated weapon.
that was a nice bit of editing at the beginning, the transition worked really well
Llloyd's vids are a pleasure to watch. One point needs to be better adressed, though. A heavier crew served weapon doesn't bring out more velocity to the round than the same round fired from a lighter gun supported by the shoulder. The projectile has already left the barrel by the time the recoil forces affects the shooter. So all the velocity the projectile pics up is due to the rate of expansion of the gases formed from the burning of the charge in the cartridge and this doesn't lessen even if the gun in moving backwards at the same time. Actually, in weapons with direct blowback, the bolt starts moving backwards while the projectile is still in the barrell and on these weapons you would actually get more velocity if the weapon is not very well braced, since if the whole weapon is moving backwards, the bolt wil close the breech a fraction of a second longer, and less of the gas would escape out the ejection port, thus giving more gas pressure to propell the projectile. But the effect would be tiny, and difficult to measure. There are just too many other variables that affects the projectile's velocity. One of them is temperature. As the gun heats up, the propellant powder will pick up heat from the chamber and thus burn faster, which again gives more gas pressure to propell the projectile. And the heavier machineguns typically are fired for longer periods of time and thus gets hotter. Another reason you might get higher velocities in a heavier weapon, is because they often have longer barrels. But this is not always the case.
What Lloyd may have been thinking about but got it wrong saying it, is rate of fire. If the weapon is not fixed firmly in place when firing, the recoil forces will push the whole weapon backwards, which will make the bolt and feeding mechanism appear to be slower. They are not so compared to the world around them, but they are in relation to the gun itself. If the gun is fixed firmly in place, the bolt moves faster and loads a new round faster. We have seen this with a number of weapons. Though the effect is more pronounced on weapons that are recoil operated. Such as the MG3. The same weapon can fire without a hitch from a vehicle mount, but then get feeding problems when fired from the shoulder, due to the less efficient pick up of the recoil forces.
Havar Eriksen A heavier crew served weapon could have a higher MV than a lighter shoulder fired one using the same round. It depends on the weapon - G3 Rifle and the SLR both firing the same round - SLR has a greater MV and penetration of objects like walls.
Now the same weapon fired on a tripod in the SF role, a bipod in the LMG role or from the shoulder/hip in walking fire will have pretty much the same MV ( some of our MG's actually had a heavier barrel for the SF role which affected different parameters as the barrel took longer to heat up).
Chaz t I covered this in my comment, in that you get increased muzzle velocity in weapons with longer barrels. And that crew served weapons often have long barrels. Muzzle velocity out of a MG3 is higher than the same round out of a G3, due to the MG3 having a longer barrel.
So we are in agreement here. And our forces have the Minimi issued as LMG. They are issued both a long and a short barrel, so the user can choose which one to use for his weapon depending on the mission. However, once he has fired 200 rounds and change the barrels, he has also swiched the length of the barrel.
Chaz t perhaps, but Lindy’s reasoning was cracked.
The MP 40 was not designed by Schmeisser but by Vollmer
And despite this, it's commonly referred to as "Schmeisser"
But it's wrong
Hugo schmeisser had something to do with the magazine.
Schmeisser was often etched into the floor plate of the mags so that's where the British got the nickname, the Russians called it a burp gun
+Anthony Wood (edit) Yes, many MP38 and 40 mags are marked 'Patent Schmeisser', although not on the baseplate but the body/tube. However, the British had already started using 'Schmeisser' for any German SMG, following capture of MP,28 IIs. see this PDF - bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/arming-the-british-home-guard-1940-1944-clarke-2010.pdf
PDW: the SMG and assault rifle’s bastard child. The most notable example being the P90.
Actually Schmeisser is a wrong name for the mp40, Schmeisser was the manufacturer of the magazine and had their company name engraved on the magazines.
+не русский its commonly called schmeisser
+That Guy that doesnt mean its right, the Maschinenpistole (model of 19)40 is called just that, not the schmeisser, no matter how many goobers say so.
+не русский During the war, it was called the Schmeisseer. True it was not designed by that designer. Similarly the spandua was not made in Spandau, but the MG34/52 was near uniformly called a 'spandau' by the Allies.
This comment was not really made to correct our beige-adoring friend, but rather as a little fun fact. Í'm sure most people know what he's talking about when he says "Schmeisser".
*INCOMING SHITSTORM OF "ACTUALLY IT WAS LIKE THIS..." CROWD*
+Azkamooski Yeah, fuck criticism and correcting people, because your feelings are obviously worth more than actually learning something!
Azkamooski Lad pal, I wasn't exactly dead serious either, k?
BoarhideGaming K. Good to know bic boi.
I'm completely blown away by your channel.
So in short:
SMG: Screw those guys!
LMG: Pin those guys down!
MMG: Pin all of those guys down!
HMG: See all those guys, their vehicle and the cover they're in? Well now you don't anymore!
Autocannon: Screw all of those guys, I'm on a boat!
But as bonus question: what is a General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG)? Is it just another name for a MMG? Or is it something else?
+Beriorn a GPMG is usually a MMG by another name
+Beriorn That last question is one for another video...
+Beriorn I think that classification came when most armies started adopting intermediate cartridges (e.g., 5.56mm NATO). So your LMG is still using your 'standard rifle' round, but not the 'battle rifle' round (which was the standard before the intermediate cartridges became standard).
So your previous LMG, that used 7.62mm is now a GPMG (e.g., M60, M240, MG3, etc.). Or something like that.
Whenever I glance through modern military stuff, I don't think I even encounter 'medium machinegun' anymore (I honestly don't remember the medium term being used much, if at all, but it's been a while since I've really read up)
+Beriorn GPMGs In the UK its an LMG and MMG by his definitions but the LMG role has been largely replaced by the Minimi which is an LMG.
+Beriorn A GPMG is a mg which can be used in both the MMG and the LMG role. Because armies likes Standardisation. They can be both used with the bipod on the move and fixed with a tripod . Example of this is the MG34, MG42 (the first ones), Post WWII GPMG are the FN MAG (aka L7 GPMG/M240), M60 and the russian PK-family
You know that video by CGP Grey about Digital Aristotle? Screw that. What we need is a digital Lindybeige with authentic British accent.
Overall, I find your videos entertaining and informative. Thank you for the work you seem to put into producing them. Please continue the good work, minus snide comments. Thank you again.
As an American, of course I know the difference. You need to identify 20 different kinds by silhouette before your Eagle Ceremony.
Later into the video, that "B-25" you got the armament right, but, as evident by the 75mm cannon also visible on the front, it's actually not a B-25, it's a PBJ attacker.
It can be either. A PBJ-H is just another name for a B-25H. B-25H is capable of mounting a 75mm gun. And I belive PBJ-H's were operated more by the navy and marines, B-25H on land.
1life1left
Oh, ok. I didn't know that, thank you for telling me. It's not the first time that infomation from gaijin entertainment has been false. (cough cough EVERY SINGLE FUCKING RUSSIAN VEHICLE IN GAME cough cough)
Its not incorrect. Just that the B-25H and the PBJ-1H have different names. One is naval. One isn't. The PBJ is in the attacker line so it isn't wrong
Combatsmithen
Thanks, but 1life1left already answered me. Thanks for trying to help though, I appreciate you being nice and not calling me an idiot like some people do. ^^
HappyFlygon Its cool my dude
Today there are a few additional categories: You've got your sub-machine gun and heavy machine gun, but the roles of medium machine gun and light machine gun are usually merged into one category by the advent of general-purpose machine guns. The first of these were the German MG 34 and 42, and now most armies use GPMGs, which are usually belt-fed and can be mounted on a bipod, tripod or vehicle. Some examples include the American M60, the German MG3, the Belgian FN MAG, and the Soviet PKM. Also, there is the light support weapon, also known as the squad automatic weapon, which typically fires the same ammunition as the assault rifle with which that army is equipped - NATO uses 5.56mm and former Eastern Bloc countries use 5.45mm or 7.62x39mm. The LSW is usually a modified version of the standard assault rifle, fitted with a bipod, a heavier barrel for heat dissipation, and maybe the ability to use ammunition belts or larger magazines than the standard 30-round magazines. But they can typically also fit the standard ammunition magazine used by the infantry's assault rifles. Some examples include the British L86 LSW, the Belgian FN Minimi, the Austrian Steyr AUG HBAR, and the Soviet RPK.
8:08
it is 75mm cannon in the nose, it's PBJ-1H Mitchell (modification of B25), not just common B25 =)
I think the convention about HMG is more about weight than about caliber of round. Water-cooled MGs often continued to get referred to as HMGs, and I've heard the British in Afghanistan brought out some old Vickers MGs thanks to their ability to keep putting down fire without needing barrel changes and they performed very well though always in fixed positions. Likewise the Japanese Type 92 was a huge weapon and so not really practical for moving around in a MMG role. Mini-guns get used in some roles (mostly by the US Navy off of boats) and it would be a mistake to call such a weapon a MMG since the weight of rounds alone prohibits the employment and transport by just a small team.
The fully automatic grenade launchers (like the MK-19) are also pretty devastating weapons falling somewhere between a HMG and an auto-cannon.
It's largely a matter of doctrine; for instance, the US Army term for a squad light machine gun is "automatic rifle", as a holdover from when the M1917 and M1919 (both considered MMGs today) were called "heavy" and "light" respectively, while the BAR used for squad support was considered an automatic rifle.
I would consider an automatic grenade launcher to be in a separate category. Like a "sub-mortar" artillery piece.
id like to se Lloyd respond more in the comments i just wanna see how he acts in more contexts because he has such a charismatic way to speak, i think we all agree
I always thought a sub machine gun was a machine gun that got off on being teased by a dom machine gun.
I study UA-cam videos because I'm going to launch my own channel again. You are an excellent presenter and know your subjects well. Your style seems to be 'stream of consciousness'. This means you make some mistakes as you did here with the German bore diameter and had to correct in post production. You also didn't mention some other issues that you might have.
Those include the fact that the Japanese foolishly did not have good uniformity of caliber. Or the issue of water cooled versus air cooled. I realize that you can't say everything in a short video but I expected you to wind up your talk with something about select fire assault rifles which are a sort of successor to the sub-machine gun. If you wrote out your talks and read them from a teleprompter you would not have these omissions or little mistakes. But of course you could not crank them out as fast.
I admire your channel and I enjoy it, but for my political subject matter I can't afford to be quite so casual.
That transition tho... Also, I'm American this is like my ABC's, but you made it very interesting!
Is the A10's gun a cannon or a heavy machinegun?
+Matt Pelzek If I remember correctly, the A-10 has a 20mm on it which would categorize it as a cannon.
Ok
How about we call it a machinecannon?
+Matt Pelzek It's a gatling gun because of the multiple rotating barrels feed system.
+Granny Torrelli 30mm actually. it's a cannon round using a gatling gun system similar to the 20mm Vulcan found in other jets today
Wether a machine gun is fired from the shoulder, hip or a fixed tripod there will be no difference in velocity (and thus range), I'm not sure from where you got the idea that there would Lindy?
If your misconception stems from reading about the longer effective range listed for a machine gun mounted on a tripod as opposed to a bipod then I can tell you that this is all about how far you are able to project accurate bursts of automatic fire, and a tripod naturally helps a lot in this respect as it keeps the gun a lot more stable than any man would be able to achieve firing it from a bipod.... i.e. the reason a tripod increases the listed effective range of a machine gun is because it increases accuracy, allowing the operator to maintain his aim during automatic fire.
Also the belt fed MG34 & MG42 were the world's first true General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG), i.e. they could be used in all three roles LMG, MMG & HMG, are belt fed and feature a quick change barrel system.
Submachine gun: -Pistol Rounds (mostly 9mm or .45 ACP) -Used by infantry/shock troops
Light Machine Gun: -Rifle Rounds (5.56mm or 7.62mm) -Used as a squad support weapon
Medium Machine Gun: -Rifle rounds - Used as a platoon's support weapon
Heavy Machine gun: -Bigger rounds (50 cal, ect) -Used as a mounted machine gun on a defensive structure or a vehicle
7.62 mm may be exactly 0.3 inches....but 7.62mm bullets are NOT exactly 0.3 inches, they are 0.308 inches (at least in the US), which is the diameter of "30 caliber" bullets. A little confusing, eh?
But wait, it's actually much more confusing than that. The bullet from the NATO 7.62 x 51mm cartridge is actually 0.308 inches (7.82 mm) while the bullet from the Russian 7.62 x 39mm cartridge is actually 0.312 inches (7.92 mm), Not confusing enough? The first assault rifle -- the German Sturmgewehr 44 -- was chambered in 7.92 x 33 Kurz but of course the bullet was not 7.92 mm in diameter, but 8.22 mm (0.324 inches).
Isn't that because the cartridge is tapered, so the cartridge is larger than the bullet?
Tris no; I'm talking about the bullet itself not the cartridge. The "real" reason -- I've since discovered -- is that the "7.62 mm" measurement reflects the diameter of the barrel at the LANDS, not the GROOVES -- where the barrel diameter is in fact 7.82 mm. Strange that it's done that way ( naming the cartridge after main barrel diameter dimension rather than the bullet diameter), but that's what's behind the naming convention.
it's "bore diameter" that determines caliber. a barrel starts, usually, as a bar, or billet. it gets drilled (or "bored", or both) lengthwise, and then the rifling is cut. traditionally, about the only truly precise step of those operations was the boring, as rifling even today is quite variable, even off the same machine on the same set-up (which is a huge reason why every garand wasn't NM quality, as an example), and why that cold hammer forging is so popular in the more modern plants. so, a .303 brit is actually 0.311, just as the .30 cal us rounds are 0.308. however, prudent kids slug their bore, especially on oddballs, relics, and wartime built by jukebox maker rifles, lol. also, such convention ONLY holds true for rifle rounds, as pistol ammo is seemingly named by marketing execs
What I find amusing is that .308 calibre bullets are indeed .308 inches in diameter, but .303 calibre bullets are .311 inches in diameter. All comes down to the peculiarities of the naming system(s) in use.
Starblind11
well, you're mixing nomenclature. there are ".30 caliber" bullets. there are ".303 bore" bullets. they are represented by 0.308 inch, and 0.311 inch diameter bullets respectively. ".308 winchester" is a cartridge name, not a caliber. the same cartridge is also "7.62x51 sporting", yet is in NO way any different. with the most minor of variance, it is also "7.62x51 nato". no micrometer will detect more than manufacturing tolerance differences in diameter of all, as well as the .30-30, .30-06, .300 savage, .300 winchester magnum, or even .30 carbine. all .30 calibers. our exemplar .303 brit with 0.311 diameter bullet shares actual bullet diameter with a confusing array of metric and imperial cartridge names, like the 7.62 russian rimmed mosin (sometimes, lol), the 7.65x53 mauser, 7.7 arisaka (but NOT carcano), the .32 acp (aka 7.65SR browning), 7.62x25 tokarev, 7.62 luger (but NOT mauser), and i'm certain far more i neglect. all take the same diameter bullet, and the lightest example could technically be loaded into all of the above examples safely, though that 72 grain acp slug will give less than stellar results in your mosin, lol. 8mm can actually be DANGEROUSLY variable, even in a single cartridge (8x57 j and s must NEVER be interchanged, lest you check the local ambulance response time).
if you want to really see NAMES are, indeed, merely marketing, look at "traditional american practices". a ".44" can be practically any size between 2/5 and 1/2 inch, lol. .22s and .45s are .21 and .44 caliber actually, .44s are actually fat .41s or .42s (usually, in modernish chamberings), and .40s are .39s, lol. my favorite was always the .38-40 cowboy round, seemingly (by convention of the time) a .38 caliber shoved by 40 grains of pistol powder. but, it's a .401 diameter bullet, and never had more than 35 grains of powder shoving it. the -40 is actually because it's based on the .44-40 case, lol (which, of course, was a .42 caliber, but DID get 40 grain loads in balloon cases).
all this goes to show why if you handload, you have to be quite careful about what you stuff in what case. it also shows why some seemingly awesome arms languish unfired for decades, even in the hands of a loader. why some "maniac loaders" even go into swaging their own jacketed bullets, while "just a bit loonie" ones cast, lol.
Just to clear up a .303 whether it fired out of a LMG or a MMG is going to be equally powerful unless one of them has a longer barrel then there might be a slight difference. Oh and the Russian 7.62x54R is also still in use for machine guns and its an older cartridge than the .50BMG. And the .45 ACP as used in the tommy gun was and still is a lot more powerful than the 9mm luger!
The .45 is in the same order as the 9mm. That is, not nearly as powerful as the rifle round. As for the 7.62x54R that the Russians use - the cartridge is old, but the weapons that use it have changed. The .50 BMG has had some improvements, but has basically been the same weapon for the last 100 years.
I would disagree with the 9MM..45 thing. Is their Standard loading as of 1908 and 1911 both are just under 500 Joule. Theres no real difference. Modern +p+ ammo out of high Performance guns may reach up to 700 Joule for both, but one could argue that 9MM and 9mm+p+ and .45 and .45+p+ are no longer the same cartridge as both may damage guns tested for normal pressures. In terms of energy, .45 is barely more powerful than Standard loading 9mm
Summary: LMG is an unmounted rifle that shoots really fast. MMG is a mounted rifle that shoots really fast. HMG is a mounted rifle that shoots above a rifle round that shoots either really fast or at a decent speed. SMG shoots a pistol round and is smaller then a rifle.
the germans actually used 7,92mm
The russians used 7,62mm.
+Knechtor 7.62x54 Rimmed for mosins
7.62x39 for ak and sks
7.62x25 Tokarev
+Knechtor and to complete the menu, 5,45×39 for AK-74 and successors
+Reiky Foxxe The AK didn't even exist during WW2..
+Knechtor Yes, I've added a caption about this.
"Machine-guns - do you know the difference between light, medium, and heavy?"
I don't think machine guns know anything. Maybe you should ask people.
Nikolas! Thant introduction was amazing, this is one of your keys to success!
He should have mentioned the use of intermediate cartridges with LMGs and MMGs
Don't that makes them assault rifles?
Actually that's just not true at all. You don't get more velocity firing the same gun off the shoulder than off a heavy mount for it. The recoil happens almost all after the bullet has left the barrel, even if you fired a rifle held by a fishing line letting it recoil as much as it wanted to you still wouldn't lose any signifiant amount of velocity. The gun just has to be multiple times heavier than the bullet for it to work.Heavy and light aren't really types of guns but roles assigned to them, one nation's lmg might be another's hmg (during wwii japanese infantry had a hmg firing something equivalent to 303 british, while the us had a similar round for their lmg's and the .50 cal as a hmg.
You should have more likes for this comment.
You also have to remember that when written there's usually one number x (by) another number. So the original ak47 was 7.62x39. so 7.62 mm wide at the case. And 39mm long. So you'd think 7.62 would be much better than the nato 5.56 round but it's also 45 mm long. And nato is using 7.62x51 now more often. But this 7.62x51 is pretty equivalent to a 308. Bullets are complicated. I grew up with a dad who does his own reloading and I'm still lost
Something I've been wondering about your opinion on is organized crime in medieval settings. I don't feel like most fantasy worlds do it realistically.
I thought it was impossible to talk about WW2 machine guns and not mention the glorious MG42
+shurdi3 It is.
3:36
+shurdi3 Well, it was unique in that it not only shot holes in people but loosened the bowels of any enemy who heard it too.
The world is metric, at least nowadays.
The metric is based in scientific experiment, while the imperial system uses metric as reference.
@1:24 "The Germans used 7.62 mm" Ze Germans, used 7.92x57 as their full-power round for rifles and MG's. Sometimes referred to as 8 mm.
You beat me to it! ;)
Joseph Clout The Hun was obsessed with the number eight. They had a whole line of heavy weaponry in 88 mm. Panzers, flak, mortars(I believe those came in 8 cm). 7.62 was used by both the east and the west, and abandoned for a smaller caliber, that wouldn't batter your shoulder into a swollen mess, under continued fire.
+Frank Van Houten The Russians still use 7.62X54R for PKM machine guns...
+Evan Friend Yeah sure. Every army will have their heavier round for MG's, long range sniper rifles and the like. But didn't the Rusky's switch to 5.45 with the AK-74m? Various NATO countries kept the H&K G3 and the FN FAL around for just about as long as they reasonably could, before they too realized that your average infantryman is best served with something like a 5.xx mm by 39-45 mm...
+Frank Van Houten The Portuguese kept the HK G3 because of the lack of satisfaction in the 5.56's performance in the long ranges of the Middle East. It's sort of funny, because the Mujaheddin would use "outdated" .303 rifles to harass Soviets using 5.45 rounds that simply were to light to match the range of.
The Portuguese Marines were pushed to use 5.56 weapons but they try to at least have 25% of the personnel using a G3 to cover distances the 5.56 isn't effective at. I have a friend in the Marines and he posts some training photos on Facebook and I've never seen him carry anything other than a G3. Another factor is that due to economic reasons the order for G36 rifles was never completely acquired so they're stuck with pretty old and beat up M4s. We're talking about the vintage stocks, fixed carry handle rather than the flat top rail, etc.
Nice...the thing with more power in medium machine guns because of their fixed positions is rubbish though - the powers exerted by the fortifications (sandbags, tripod,...) serve to reduce recoil, that's nothing to do with the power of the bullet that would already have left the barrel then - maybe you mean that they in fact used full-power rifle ammunition...
Many nations use weird terms for these categories. A "submachine gun" or "machine pistol" is the same everywhere, but a light machine gun is called "golyószóró" in Hungary which literally means "bullet sprayer" (or "ball sprayer" to be precise, because we still use the word ball for a projectile, although it's an informal term). An assault rifle is called a "machine carbine" in all former Warsaw Pact nations. An autocannon is a "machine cannon".
Mounted machine guns getting more punch out of their rounds make no sense whatsoever. The force of the recoil has to be equal to the force that pushes the round out of the barrel no matter how the gun is designed. Thus with the same ammunition and the same barrel length, no, they will not shoot "harder".
Or am I wrong?
No you're right I just think Lindy is trolling us.
After seeing how you Brits spelled "calibre", I am reminded of a statement made Arabic student studying in the same University I'm attending. "English is fucked up because of the French."
+IamRayson Were they reading a British textbook? There is no more English a tradition than blaming all of your problems on the French.
+IamRayson That's a fairly accurate statement lol
+Matthew Marceau
No, this is in the U.S. And that complaint was coming from an Arab.
Sadly not all words here that have French origins were rewritten in a way that makes phonetic sense.
+Matthew Marceau There is no more French a tradition than being Jealous and bitter of the English.
TheBaconWizard
I knew of the Norman influence on English, but I didn't know they had actually banned the Angle-Saxon's language. Thanks for that tidbit.
As for the language differences between classes, it kinda reminds me of the Roman, Russian and Germans aristocracy. At one point in history, the more powerful citizens in Rome would prefer to speak Greek, while the Russians and German notability were copying the French (of all the things to mimic).