1 Man Machine Gun Crew

F

Fox1

New member
I read an interesting article today about how some Iowa National Guard Infantrymen were brainstorming a way for the machinegunner to carry more ammo so he wouldn't have to stop firing to reload or wait for ammo bearers to make it to his position.

Long story short, they developed a backpack that can hold 500 rds of belted ammo and feed it around to the Mk 48 7.62 mm machinegun that is on the frontside of the Infantryman.

Very interesting article as well as an ingenious solution to a problem.

Guard member's "solution" a game-changer on battlefield
 
Wow. That is pretty neat! Given that Predator came out nearly 25 years ago, I'm surprised no one has come up with this concept in a workable form before.
 
Seems like someone could develop an elongated spiral drum magazine that would be a lot easier to use and more efficient. Instead of one layer of coiled ammo (like ordinary drum mags) You could have several horizontally stacked drums, one feeding into another, that would mount on the underside of the gun. That should be good for about 200 rounds of .308 in one burst.
 
I had a couple of Calicos a couple decades back, one .22LR pistol and a 9mm Carbine. They use the helical mag. 50 and 100rnd versions. It mounts on the TOP of the gun.

One problem with doing this in .308 is that the GI ammo is rather pointy. Its tough to make the rounds line up for feeding inside the mag unless the nose of one is lined up behind the primer of the one ahead of it. I suppose it could be done, but would need a fairly delicate ratchet type system. Doesn't seem too goo an idea to me with 7.62mm FMJ bullets.

In 9mm Luger, even the "pointed" ball ammo has a rounded tip.

And, then there is the weight thing. And the complexity of the magazine. Just too many things to go wrong, I think.
 
The old 8mm Lebel had very pointed bullets, yet was used in tube fed rifles, apparently without trouble. However, the case was very tapered, almost conical, and there is a groove around the base (on the bottom halfway between the edge of the rim and the primer pocket) that the point of the following bullet was presumably supposed to fit in. But the biggest disadvantage of the system was that it was single loading, which virtually all of the 19th century rifles were. The 8mm Lebel also has a most unusual bullet in that it is stepped at the correct point where the bullet should stay in place in the case. It is impossible therefore for the bullet to be pushed further into the case.
 
I don't know how its done today but in my younger years I carried a M-60 quite a bit in SE Asia.

I carried a 50 round assualt belt on the gun and 400 rounds in the little bags/boxes the 60 ammo came in. I certainly didn't carry ammo cans.

The 100 round boxes were distributed in different places on my ruck making it more balanced and easier to carry. I didn't have an assistant gunner to assist with feeding. Instead I had a c-rat can attached to the side of the feed tray allowing the ammo to roll up going in the gun straight. The little bags slid on the side of the gun, the ammo was looped over the can and fed quite will.

Your assistant gunner was nothing more then a guy who carried more ammo then anyone else besides the gunner, and was to take the gun if something happened to the gunner.

Everyone in the squad carried additional ammo. You get "hero" then wanted to carry the ammo in linked over their shoulders like mexican bandits. I threw a hissy fit until it was made mandantory to carry the ammo in the orginal boxes. Belts strapped over the shoulder shifted in the links and got full of crap causing the gun to jam.

When in a fire fight, people would pile up their ammo at the gun as they moved into postition.

After reading the link, I'd like to try it (not in combat, I'm too old) but I'm not sure about the ammo cans welded together. I sure as heck wouldn't want to pack ammo cans.
 
Every since the first light machine gun and automatic rifle were carried onto the battlefield, they've faced the same problem: how to carry enough ammunition. The same problem existed for the heavier machine guns, too, for that matter. The usual solution was either to spread out the ammunition among different members of the squad or to have a designated number 2 for the machine gun, who got to carry the extra weight, generally without less of anything else. In some cases, it was all up to one man to carry both the gun and all the ammunition.

Ultimately, there are problems with all systems, including the feeding mechanisms themselves. Some clever solutions that were tried just didn't seem to work out very well in practice, from the saddle magazine for the MG34 to the M16 magazine that was supposed to work in a 5.56 squad automatic. In any case, more so with some guns than others, at least if automatic fire is understood well enough, it takes no time at all to exhaust the available ammunition. That means that fire discipline becomes even more important for mobile troops.
 
We have been using all types of back packs for years

I've see everything from a radio bag to a ruck sack to carry rounds but I'd always want an assistant gunner to change my barrel and watch my back and I dont think anything can beat a good ole fashion hand feeding.
 
kraigwy said:
Your assistant gunner was nothing more then a guy who carried more ammo then anyone else besides the gunner, and was to take the gun if something happened to the gunner.
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No military experience here, but I'm guessing that part of the reason for multiple man machine gun crews, apart from feeding ammo and carrying tripods for the heavier versions, is that the MG will be a focus point for enemy fire and the extra crew can take over firing duty if the gunner is incapacitated.
 
The term "general purpose machine gun" evolved as far back as the MG-34 and it was all the rage when the M-60 was introduced. The idea was that the GPMG would fulfill both the heavy, tripod mounted role and the light, bipod mounted role, although not the squad automatic role, which is not an exclusively American concept. Anyway, the heavy role implied sustained fire, or at least more so than the bipod version. And this implies quick-change barrels. Did the army ever actually issue out spare barrels to go along with the tripod?

This also implies using much more ammunition than you could carry on your back.
 
The Germans issued spare barrels for the MG-34 and MG-34, the gunner was issued a metal chain link glove to protect him against the hot barrel. The British had their Bren Gun, the gunner had an assistant, each member of the squad-excuse me, section- carried spare magazines. Spare barrels were provided for the M-60, we rarely used them, a combination of the short ranges and brief duration of firefights made them just something else to carry. We didn't use the tripods either-this was in the 1st Cav. Part of the idea behind the LMG was to make it a one man weapon. When the water cooled machine guns were used in the mobile role, their weight required a crew to carry them.
 
Did the army ever actually issue out spare barrels to go along with the tripod?
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We had them, along with a heat resistant "oven mitt" in the spare barrel bag ..... one M-60 per gun section with the Gun (and 1 in ea HQ section- FDC, Maint, and Supply), and a .50 M2 with the Ammo Carrier ...... mid 80's to early 90's General Support Artillery, 8", M110a2 SP ......

Barrels got changed a lot on MG ranges ....... used 1/2 a dozen M-60's from each Battery on the firing line, and changed the barrels..... if one broke down (quite often), a replacement was brought on ...... Graf is no fun in winter, get on the range, qualify and GET OFF into someplace warm!

I find it interesting that more people are familiar with German Army doctine and equipment of 60-70 years ago than that of the US just 20 years back......
 
That's an interesting comment about how people seem to know more about the German army of WWII than the US Army of 20 years ago. But there's certainly a lot more written about it.

I think it is a mistake to think of a light machine gun as a one man weapon. He becomes slightly overloaded with things to do and things to carry. But I'm not speaking of the so-called squad automatic, which is, in theory, a one-man weapon. There seem to have been only two, the BAR and variations, and the contempory M249. Both were or are used by several armies. But light machine guns require a little more support if they are to carry out their mission, as I see it (but what do I know). The extra barrel for an M-60 came with bipod attached and might have been a bad idea as far as that goes. The company I was in (Inf div HQ) had a few but I don't recall ever seeing spare barrels. They would have been for our M114s. This was in the late 1960s.

In other armies, there may or may not have been spare barrels (some guns did not have quick change barrels) but most had a number 2 man for the machine guns, which were usually, but not always, located in the rifle squad or section. One or the other may have had to carry spare parts, barrel, ammunition, and so on. Ammunition carriage varied a lot.

I spent a month at Graf and another at Hohenfels. Nice places with lots of interesting scenery. There was even a ruined castle on top of a perfectly cone-shaped hill on one of them but I don't remember which. That was only about 45 years ago. I don't even remember how to spell Graf. Mox nix.
 
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