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This article deals with the Browning primarily as an aircraft and naval weapon. See the article on Small Arms for further discussion of the Browning as an infantry weapon.
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Bore |
0.30" 7.62 mm |
Ammunition
type
|
AP or incendiary in 100-round
belts |
Weight of projectile |
0.38 ounce 10.9 gram |
Velocity |
2770 feet per second 845 meters per second |
Rate of fire | 1350 rounds per minute` |
Weight |
22 lbs 10 kg |
Gun power |
21 |
The Browning M1919 0.30 machine gun was a successful design when
used in land
warfare. It used a closed-bolt short recoil action and
ammunition was
fed from 100-round belts. Both
air-cooled and water-cooled versions were manufactured, and the
water-cooled version could fire continuously for hours.
Those
mounted on
aircraft were
invariably air-cooled since the slip stream provided a
highly
efficient flow of air.
The aircraft gun was copied during the 1930s,
under license or otherwise, by a number of countries in several
slightly different calibers. Of these, the most important was the
7.65mm version produced by the Fabrique
Nationale in Belgium. FN was able to push the rate of
fire to
1900 rounds per minute, but the barrel wear was excessive and the
lower
rate of fire was retained. The British
produced a 0.303 caliber version
that initially suffered from serious "cooking-off" problems with
the
sensitive British cordite. This problem was solved by switching to
an
open bolt arrangement, and by 1939 the British had a very
reliable, if
expensive and complicated, weapon, the Browning M2 AN.
However, the aircraft gun became increasingly
ineffective as the war progressed, since its rifle-caliber round
was
not heavy enough to inflict substantial structural damage on
modern
aircraft or to penetrate aircraft armor.
It was superceded by the Browning
0.50
machine gun by
mid-1943.
References
Williams and
Gustin (2003)
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