Why non-disintegrating belts?

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Here's one for you all: It seems all the NATO powers have, since WW2 settled on disintegrating belt designs for their MGs, while WARSAW pact-nations stuck it out with non-disintegrating belts. For those who have experience, what are the pro's and con's of one versus another?
 
disintegrating links have to be collected, as they tend to get scattered all over the place, just like the brass. And it takes a tool to load the belts.


non-disintegrating belts, you just roll them up and and you're good to go. And they're generally fairly easy to reload.
 
disintegrating links have to be collected, as they tend to get scattered all over the place, just like the brass. And it takes a tool to load the belts.


non-disintegrating belts, you just roll them up and and you're good to go. And they're generally fairly easy to reload.
This.

Clean up usually required a shovel with disintegrating belts. While its lighter in the field and there is less mess to carry back, on the range or any other place where you can't leave your mess behind, its a headache.
 
It might be cheaper or easier to run sewing machines instead of stamping and tempering metal.
 
It's economically easier to use fabric belts and such. You can just repurpose a clothing production line to make them. You can use them again too; just refill the slots.
 
I thought this would be easy to answer, turns out there are several pages of discussions on belt types in the book “Small Arms”, DF Allsop & M A Toomey, Brassey’s Land Warfare, 1999.

Fabric belts stretch, rot. Metal belts are more expensive, weigh more.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the continuous metal belt and the disintegrating link metal belt. Maybe the greatest advantage of the disintegrating metal belt is its flexibility.

Metal belts are stiff and soldiers will pour oil on the belts to make them more flexible. This is anathema to the US Army as the memory of the 1921 tin can ammo coverup still rules the day. Hatcher and Townsend Whelen spent the rest of their lives claiming the pressure problems with the 1921 Tin can ammunition were not due to the bore obstruction created by the tin jacket cold welding to the brass case neck , but rather a practice that the shooters were doing. Shooters were dipping their bullets in grease to reduce bullet fouling. The Army created a coverup, General Hatcher and Col Whelen the spokesmen, which blame shifted the entire problem onto the shooters and their grease pots.

In Sept 2008 USATCES put out a bulletin “Don’t Lube your Ammo!” in which they warned about the “evils” of oils and greases on ammunition.

I contacted the guys at USATCES, and they are great guys who are trying to do the right thing, asked for data, and found they did not have any. I did learn from one Safety Expert who had been deployed a number of times that Soldiers will pour oil on these metal belts to make them more pliable. I also suspect that oil may make it easier for the round to be pulled from the belt making jams less likely. I later contacted the USATCES author who actually went above and beyond the call and he asked a number of organizations for data to back up the bolt thrust warnings in his article. He got nothing other than unsubstantiated claims. The author later wrote “If that's true, then I'm guilty of spreading gossip!”
 
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In my limited experience, with a disintegrating belt the gunner can quickly reposition without a spent belt dragging behind. For vehicle mounted purposes, the ammo is in the can on the mount and multiple belts can be easily linked into one long one. Turret mounted machine guns (ie, coaxial gun on Abrams) will be fed by a large belt of ammo and their links will fall into a metal catch bin.

Picking up the links on the battlefield is a non-issue. Ammo resupply comes with the links already attached and there is no need to rebelt single rounds as one might do in a Khyber Pass ammo cave.

Oiling of the belt, if done, is to reduce the friction of the belt as it is fed into the gun by the pawls and feed ramp, and has little to do with the cartridge itself during feeding/chambering. I would think this applies to non-disintegrating too.
 
Cost, is another consideration a cloth belt is cheap and easy to load.



disintegrating belts being formed spring steel cost more from the start and need some sort of machine to load, oh you can do it by hand but not for long.

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My belt fed guns are bottom eject on the brass and side eject for the belt/links. The brass piles better than the links but a pickup magnet make short work of gathering them up.
 
From the point of view of civilian owners of belt-fed Brownings, cloth belts are a lot easier on trunnions than disintegrating links, especially regarding the early bronze trunnions. If you're going to run metal links, it's wise to use one of those aftermarket sheet metal "trunnion protectors."
 
I'm not a big fan of plastics used in guns but have wondered why it hasn't been seen for links/belts yet.
 
Speaking of non-disintegrating metal belts, I also recall reading somewhere that a non-disintegrating metal belt also aids in MG reliability, since there's no need to eject loose belt links. IIRC MG42 and the MG3 both used/use a non-disintegrating belt system that uses a push-through mechanism to feed rounds. However, that would seem to be impossible with say a PKM machine gun since 7.62x54r is rimmed.

Any truth to this?
 
Cloth belts don't work so good in aircraft guns either. Kinda hard to clear guns jammed up with cloth belts while flying!
 
the cloth beltsgot wet and swelled,causing the rounds to fall out,get out of alignment causing stoppages.in winter,if they got snow on them,they froze and broke,creating more stoopages,ie choisen resevoir in korea.disintegrating link,though ecpensive to produce,never swelled or broke,and by just shaking it if frozen,unstuck itself.it basically always kept itself in alignment.it is also used in mini guns at 3-6 k per minute firing rates.in 223 and 30cal,it can be loaded by hand if necessary.unlike cloth belts at 50 rds per belt,you could string a couple thousand rounds,if you could find a box big enough to hold it
 
Disintegrating link belts are of no specific fixed length. The belts can be lengthened or shortened as the need arises. Cloth or fixed metal belts do not allow this flexibility. But the disintegrating links do create feed problems on occasion that others do not. It is often a trade-off. Refilling a cloth belt is tedious work, but re-linking loose ammunition with disintegrating links can be worse...especially without a machine.
 
However, that would seem to be impossible with say a PKM machine gun since 7.62x54r is rimmed.

The PKM actually does use a non-disintegrating metal belt. It pulls rounds out the back, like a Browning or Maxim.
 
Well, for the current US MG operator, clothe belts have another advantage--they are slightly easier to use "similar" ammunition (8mm; 7.62x54R; etc.) in a belt meant for a different round. Now, "emmagees" have all sorts of tales both pro and con on the topic of cloth belts.
 
"Disintegrating link belts are of no specific fixed length. The belts can be lengthened or shortened as the need arises. Cloth or fixed metal belts do not allow this flexibility. But the disintegrating links do create feed problems on occasion that others do not. It is often a trade-off. Refilling a cloth belt is tedious work, but re-linking loose ammunition with disintegrating links can be worse...especially without a machine."--MasterSergeantA

Unless there's a way to attach non-disintegrating belts together, when the belt runs out, the gun is down until a new belt is loaded. With link, a fresh belt can be quickly attached to the one in the gun, minimizing down-time.
 
Perhaps a little off track but are fabric and disintegrating links in 30-06 worth anything? I have a modest amount of such material somewhere and decided for some reason that I would keep it.
 
Perhaps a little off track but are fabric and disintegrating links in 30-06 worth anything? I have a modest amount of such material somewhere and decided for some reason that I would keep it.

I don't know what they're "worth", but they definitely have value! There's a LOT of people who have belt-fed weapons and shoot them regularly. Doesn't have to be a full-auto, there's a lot of semi-auto 1919's out there of various types that use cloth and linked belts, and I gar-on-tee those boys want those belts and links. So don't toss 'em out! Put 'em up for sale here or other gun forums, the CMP forums would likely have a lot of interested parties. I'm sure there's other forums out there for MG and belt-fed enthusiasts.
 
I originally purchased fabric belts since I thought they would make a nice bandolier. I have them somewhere. 30-06 ammo use to come frequently on linked belts or M1 clips and I and I must have hundreds of those links somewhere and they date as early as WWII to to the 70's. When my job ends (State has drastically cut University funding in FL) I will put all of my junk items into order and get rid of what I do not plan to use. A browning MG is not a likely acquisition for me and so the belts are excess baggage.
 
Seems like metal linked belts are best for vehicle mounted MGs while fabric is best for troops in the field.
 
fabric is best for troops in the field.
Nope
You get your cloth belth wet - and you got problems.
And imagine running with your LMG in hands with several feet of empty cloth belt hanging from your gun when you already expended most of your ammo box.
 
As someone pointed out, a 75 round PKM belt is only 18" long, so hardly excessively long.
 
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