Which Machine Gun was Better?

[Blain]

Which Machine Gun was better and why? Pretend caliber availability isn't an issue, or pretend the M1919 has been rechambered in .308.



M60
Length: 42.4 inches (107.70 centimeters)
Weight: 18.75 pounds (8.51 kilograms)
Bore diameter: 7.62mm (.308 inches)
Maximum effective range: 3609.1 feet (1100 meters)
Maximum range: 2.3 miles (3725 meters)
Muzzle velocity: 2800 feet (853 meters) per second
Rates of fire:
Cyclic: 550 rounds per minute
Rapid: 100 rounds per minute*
Sustained: 100 rounds per minute*
(* with barrel changes at each 100 rounds)
Effective range 800 yds

M1919A6
Operation Fully automatic, recoil operated, air-cooled
Caliber .30 (".30-06") (7.62 mm)
Ammunition Ball M1; 174 gr bullet, 50 gr charge
Muzzle velocity 853.4 mps (2800 fps)
Capacity 250-round belt
Weight 32.5lbs with bipod
Overall length 53 in
Rate of fire 400 to 550 rounds per minute
Effective range 800 yds

 

[Hkmp5sd]

The M60...

because it is lighter, capable of several configurations for special uses and has a quick change barrel.

 

[mgjohn]

M-60 is better designed for modern combat.

 

[Mike Irwin]

The A6 has the "Stamp of God" syndrom associated with it.

Unfortunately, it was a stinking lash up, and not a very suitable one at that.

 

[Jeff White]

Blain,
Tough choice....the M60 is probaby the worst GPMG ever adopted by a major army. That said the 1919A6 was too heavy and bulky to be a true GPMG.

The 1919A6 was a wartime expediant to give the soldiers the equivalent of the MG42. The M1919A4 fired off the tripod was a very successful design.

All machine guns of this type are properly employed off the tripod. The bipod/shoulder stock allows the crew to move faster and fire while moving. The gun is not out of action should the assistant gunner get separated or killed the gunner can fire without the tripod. There are only a couple circumstances you would ever fire off of the bipod. This is a controversial subject inthe US Army and to this day many units only use tripods and T&E mechanisms in fixed defensive position. The platoon sergeant who really drills his gun crews on basic crew drill has a much better base of fire to support the platoon's maneuver then the one that lets his gun crews leave their tripods and T&Es in the company trains.

Jeff

 

[Blain]

The A6 has the "Stamp of God" syndrom associated with it.

Please explain this.

....the M60 is probaby the worst GPMG ever adopted by a major army.

I am also very curious about this statment as the M60 was supposedly based off of the MG42.


Do you think the M1919A4 was better than the A6?

 

[Jeff White]

Blain,
Stamp of God syndrome is because it's a Browning design. Although I don't think JMB had anything to do with the A6. He did design the basic 1919 machine gun though.

The M60 is a hybrid design that borrows from the MG42, the FG 42 and a couple others I can't remember without looking it up. They took what they thought were the best parts of all the other designs and the M60 is what resulted.

The gas cylinder assembly comes apart when firing and has to be safety wired together. This makes keeping it operating a pain in the butt in the field. The gas piston can be inserted backwards. You can't tell once it's inserted if it's backwards or not and the only function check you can do that would tell you is to fire a live round. So you are left with a single shot machine gun if you make that mistake and have to tear it all down and safety wire it back up to fix it. There is no adverse setting on the system, so when it carbons up to the point the gun slows down or malfunctions, you have to tear the gas system down and clean it.

The bipod is fragile and gets clogged with dirt easily and then you can't adjust it without cleaning it. It's got a large number of small easily lost arts compared to other weapons of this type. The metal clip that holds the pistol grip on is easy to knock loose, the you can lose the pistol grip. Not a good thing to happen while moving through the woods. The notch on the operating rod that catches the sear wears easily. Runaway guns are common. The pistol grip being loose from that poorly designed spring clip that holds it on is another cause of runaway guns. The tripod and T&E is the same used in WWII with the M1919A4. It's got a very limited elevation and traverse. It's not adjustable for height. This has been a problem with the M240 also, but a new much better tripod and T&E are coming into the system. The cocking handle is easily bent.

Jeff

Edited to change M249 to M240-fat fingers tonight

 

[Mike Irwin]

"Stamp of God syndrome is because it's a Browning design. Although I don't think JMB had anything to do with the A6. He did design the basic 1919 machine gun though."

Bingo.

After all, if John Moses Browning designed the base gun, it MUST be the very best at whatever it does, no matter what the situation or the revisions...

Turn that gun into a blender? Why it's the best blender ever created, simply because JMB designed the gun.

Perhaps a little too sarcastic a point of view, but I've seen far too many people think this way.

 

[Blain]

With all these problems people still think the M60 is superior to the M1919?

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Interestingly, the A6, while lighter than the A4, turned out to be heavier in the long run. The A4's weight was split between two people, one carrying the gun and one the baseplate. With the A6, one man got to carry the whole 32.5 pounds.

Several soldiers and marines made their own modifications to the A4, removing the need for the tripod and using lighter components, prior to the Ordnance Department agreeing to redesign the machinegun. The Ordnance Department wanted to design a new machinegun to fill the gap between the BAR and the A4. The Infantry Board wanted the redesign of the A4 and they eventually won out.

I wonder what The Ordnance Department might have come up with had they created a new machinegun in the early 40s.

 

[Jeff White]

Blain,
Even though the M60 has all the faults and problems I listed (plus some) it's still a better GPMG then the M1919A6. It's lighter weight and better ergonomics make it much more suited to that role.

The M1919A6 was an attempt to modify a gun that was designed for a different mission to fill the GPMG role. When JMB designed the M1919 machine guns were employed differently then they are today. Machine guns were heavy weapons that were organized into their own units and used in support of the rifle squads, much the same way mortars and artillery are. Machine gun platoons and companies existed at battalion and regimental level. The commander moved them around the battlefield to support his operations. They were often emplyed in the indirect fire mode, using mortar sights, aiming stakes and graphic firing tables to plave their fires on known locations on the battlefield sometimes 2200 yards distant.

The German army pioneered the use of the GPMG, putting an MG34 (later MG42) at the squad level. These knew type weapons were designed with the same ergonomics as rifles and that allowed them to be emplyed in the assault fire mission. The squad now had heavy firepower that moved with it and could be employed on the move.

For the mostpart the allied armies used the BAR and the Bren gun in this role. However they fit into a differnt niche, that of a squad automatic weapon. They are magazine fed and not really capable of sustained fire.

The M1919A6 was the Odrnance Dept's attempt to modify the existing medium machine gun (M1919A4) to give a belt fed sustained fire capability to American rifle squads. It's too heavy and not very ergonomic in that role. The M1919 is the equivalent of the Vickers and Maxim machine guns employed by the British and German armies. After the war we set out to develop an American GPMG and the M60 was the end result of that program. It's a true general purpose machine gun, but not nearly as good as it's contemporary rivals, the MG3 (basically an MG42 in 7.62x51), the FN MAG 58 (now replacing the M60 in American service as the M240) or the RPD. Possibly the only worse modern design is the HK21.

Jeff

 

[Ironbarr]

Rates of fire:
Cyclic: 550 rounds per minute
Rapid: 100 rounds per minute*
Sustained: 100 rounds per minute*
(* with barrel changes at each 100 rounds)

I wonder how many suffered while changing (if available) barrels every minute?

Never see a barrel change in movies, huh?

-Andy

 

[Jeff White]

Andy,
You can change the barrel on an M60 in about 30 seconds. Lock the bolt to the rear, push in and then flip up the locking lever, remove the hot barrel, slide the spare barrel in and flip the lever down and continue firing.

About the only time you are going to be firing at the sustained rate is when you are firing your final protective fires. For most offensive missions, you'll employ machine guns in pairs. They alternate firing bursts on the same target that way they don't heat up so fast.

Jeff

 

[Ironbarr]

Jeff...

Roger that - and thanks.

-Andy

 

[Mike Irwin]

"With all these problems people still think the M60 is superior to the M1919?"

For a general purpose squad gun, yes, I do.

Changing a barrel on a Browning isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, and the ability to change barrels fairly rapidly is an important tactical consideration for a squad gun.

 

[Willard]

I'm partial to the M-60 anyway, despite its flaws, having humped one for two years.

Better ergonomics, quick change barrel, lighter.

Depite its flaws the M-60, when maintained by an attentive and well trained troop can be reliable. If only the ordinance department hadn't mucked up the MG-42 clone in .30-06........

 

[blades67]

The M-60. I've humped the Pig several times, wondering all the while why I couldn't just have a coronary and get it over with. I wouldn't want to try to carry a 1919.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

When I joined the Army in 1962, I was in one of the last Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training cycles to train on the "old" weapons system -- the M1 rifle, the M1918A1 Browning Automatic Rifle, and the M1919A6 Machinegun.

Later on, during my first tour in Viet Nam, I was an adviser with an ARVN infantry battalion, which used those same weapons -- so I can say I have used them all in combat (in fact, I wrapped my issue M2 carbine around a tree and carried an M1 rifle that I bummed from the ARVN after that.)

On my second tour, I was a mechanized rifle company commander (A Co, 1st Bn, 61st Infantry.) We had plenty of M60s -- each APC had two, along with the M2 MB .50 Cal Browning mounted at the Commander's Hatch The M60s were mounted on the left and right rear quarters, with the pintles fitting in modified antenna mounts.

With this arrangement, the guns bounced up and down on the pistol grip -- and one good bump would take a gun out of action, since the pistol grip is full of small parts.

Frankly, illiterate ARVN could keep the M1919A6 going without too much trouble, but unwiring, disassembling, cleaning, reassembling, rewiring, and test firing the M60, keeping the pistol grips cushioned, and so on was a pain in the butt.

My vote for the best MG is the M240, the FN MAG -- the gun we should have adopted back in the '50s, instead of the M60.

 

[wingnutx]

The latest incarnation of the M60, the Navy's MK43, is pretty damned good, imho. Took them long enough, but they finally got it right.

 

[Brigrat]

How about the real machine gun??? M240g

 

[Blain]

Naw, the M240 is way too good of a gun for those two. A better comparison would be the M240 vs. the M249! Now that would make the fur start to fly!

Who knows, maybe I'll post that poll next.

 

[KRAUTGUNNER]

There are only two really good GPMGs out there:

1.) the MG42 and it's modern version the MG3

and

2.) the FN MAG

 

[Jeff White]

Blain said;

Naw, the M240 is way too good of a gun for those two. A better comparison would be the M240 vs. the M249! Now that would make the fur start to fly!

Who knows, maybe I'll post that poll next.

That's comparing apples and oranges. The 249 is a squad automatic weapon, NOT a GPMG. Even though it's being issued to some Combat Service and Combat Service Support units ILO the 240 because the M60s are getting so worn out as to be unrepairable, it's not designed to fill that role.

Jeff

 

[Nightcrawler]

Having humped an M249 SAW, I can say a few things about it.

It's a decent weapon, first of all; not difficult to field strip and fairly reliable. Cartridge it fires is a little on the light side for my taste, but you make up for it by carrying a lot of it. (A SAW in that new 6.8mm round might be REALLY interesting.)

It really needs to lose that ridiculous M16 magazine well. The cyclic rate of the SAW is so fast that M16 magazines don't reliably feed (not to mention the M16 magazine wasn't designed to be used in a open bolt weapon do begin with). The weapon is utterly unreliable with the M16 magazines, to the point where they'd be a LOT better off just losing the mag well and shaving two or three pounds off.

There also should really be two pins holding the pistol grip in instead of just the one.

And the stock should be redesigned so as to allow a cheek weld. The SAW is often employed as an automatic rifle, and can be fired from the shoulder; having the classic machine gun stock (which requires you to use your support hand to make a cheek pad for yourself) is unnecessary, I think.

The SAW has the most God-awful trigger I've ever used. It's like dragging a duffel bag down a long dirt road. I know it's a machine gun, but hitting the badguy with the first shot would still be nice. Such accuracy would be better facilitated with a reasonable trigger pull.

I've never seen an M60 that worked well, though I've not been active duty. From everything I've heard, the M240 is far and away the superior machine gun. The MG3 is, of course, a good design, as is the Russian PKM.

People who've never done fireteam manuvers (even if you've been to all of the shooting schools, you've probably never done squad level fire and manuver exercises) forget how critically important the machine gun is in modern infantry warfare. People argue endlessly about which rifle is better for combat than which. In reality, though, the machine gun is probably a much more critical factor.

If you've got good GPMGs, and good Automatic Rifles, and well-trained crews that know how to use them....well, it probably doesn't matter one iota if the rest of your troops are armed with M16s or AK-74s.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

One question I've always asked about the M249 is, "Did you ever have a problem shooting up all the ammo you could carry in combat?"

If the answer is, "No," then what's the point of having a heavier weapon that shoots up ammo faster? Especially if it shoots the same cartridge as the M16?