Why hasn't anyone found a replacement for the M2 Browning

It just works

>>31993894
i think the weapon system is so simple and so effective, it like trying to improve a fork or a hammer.
it already fulfills it's role perfectly, so to improve on it is a waste of time.

It's a big box that shoots .50 cals, kinda hard to build a better mouse trap

>>31993894
what do you want? a fucking touchscreen faggot?

Because its cheap as fuck, we already have a bagrillion of them, and they are grunt proof.

That XM307/XM312 .50/20mm thing is in very limited use by a few Northern European countries I believe.

>>31993958
They aren't really that cheap as far as I know, I mean compared to a MK18 or an m242 or some other huge gun sure, but overall they aren't that cheap.

I don't think the government has had any new ones made since WWII, there was one in my last unit that had Frigidaire bakelite handles with stamped Frigidaire logos on them

>>31993894
There is ONE problem with the M2, and thats manually adjusting headspacing and timeing after barrel change.

M2A1 fixed this.

They tried to replace it, but efforts failed due to reliability problems.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M85_machine_gun

The only thing you could do to the M2 now, is make it lighter, maybe ROF change on the fly.

>>31993933
This. It's a Great White Shark, it doesn't need to evolve

>>31993973
>I don't think the government has had any new ones made since WWII, there was one in my last unit that had Frigidaire bakelite handles with stamped Frigidaire logos on them
>>31993973

well theres your answer. since WWII they have been doing their jobs well. no reason to replace them if theres nothing wrong with them

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>>31993958
>grunt proof.
Nothing is grunt proof. Nothing. NOTHING.

I saw an E4 take a "military hardened laptop" (whatever the fuck that is) and football spike it into the concrete to demonstrate it's ruggedness. My thighs will never be the same from the smoking we recieved.

>>31993987
I heard from an army friend, if you lock a grunt in a room with nothing in it but two anvils, when you return in an hour he will have lost one anvil and broken the other.

>>31993987

>that pic

Are... Are there no toolboxes stored in military Humvees?

>>31993987
im trying to comprehend the sheer stupidity here. he used the primer end of the cartridge as a hammer? what the actual fuck

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>>31993936
>It's a big box that shoots .50 cals, kinda hard to build a better mouse trap
They could take the feed mechanism from the FN-MAG and put that in, it would be a small but noticeable improvement.

Also their have been improvements like the quick change barrel mod that removed the need to do head spacing.

>>31993987
if you replaced, "grunt" with, "retard" you'd be totally right.

>>31994020
hahahhahahahahahaha

>>31993894
Cause it still kills shit, effectively.

>>31993987
Whenever I think I've made a bad decision, I ask myself: what would a grunt do in my situation?

9/10 times I made a better choice, if only because I didn't break or lose something that takes fucking effort to lose or break.

>>31994157
Hey, its not nice to call a developmentally disabled person a "grunt" that's offensive to the retard.

>>31994079
Maybe Multipurpose round that went of from being hit on the head?

well, a better design might be something with a quick barrel change option, maybe a lighter gun if metallurgy improves. but yeah its pretty hard to improve upon something so simple and effective

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>>31993894
As everyone else says;
It works well enough, they already have a bunch of spare parts for them, and there's established technologies/designs compatible with it.

It's far from perfect and there's room for incremental improvements, but its not really worth replacing until a game-changer like caseless comes along. That said, I wish the BRG-15 had gone somewhere, piercing 10mm RHA at 30 degrees out to 1350m with standard ball ammo makes my dick hard.

>>31994127
>feed mechanism from the FN-MAG

How does it work/what's different about it?

Yes there is.

The Russian Kord has much less recoil and weight, and so has the NSV. Hell, some even claim the DshK to be superior.

But the US has tons of M2s and the main problem (weight) doesnt matter as they are all vehicle mounted.

There are better stuff, but replacing is not worth the cost.

>>31993894
>a better 50 cal machine gun?
with? a DShK? BRG-15?
>>31993941
>what do you want? a fucking touchscreen faggot?
mostly this
>>31994020
>I heard... broken the other.
cute

>>31993987
>american military training

Oh how I'm laffing

>>31993894
it just werx :)

>>31993894
>Why hasn't anyone found a replacement for the M2 Browning yet?
What would you do better?
You literally can't improve on it.
>hurrr hurrr lighter
It's mounted, weight doesn't matter that much
>hurr hurrr rate of fire
Stupid
>hurr hurrrr muh teknology
Simple, cost effective and durable is more important

Does OP not sleep well knowing in the eventual war with aliens while invading their planet to colonize it among the laser weapons, magnetic launchers there will still be a M2 blasting holes in aliens?

The spirit of John Moses Browning haunts capital hill and causes all the financial authorizations for replacement to die in committee.

Isn't the Russian Kord better?

>>31995174
>with? a DShK? BRG-15?
Kord.

Lighter, more accurate, comes standard with a QCB system, less recoil, more reliable, cheaper, can be fired from a bipod and has forward ejection.

>>31993987
>It is possible to be this retarded and still get accepted into the US army.

Really makes you think.

>>31994921
>game-changer like caseless
lol keep on dreaming, kid.

>>31995393
>You literally can't improve on it.
They literally did though. It got a quick-change barrel in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

There's also the AN/M3 .50 caliber aircraft gun, which is an AN/M2 .50 with a recoil booster, lighter barrel, some lighter internal parts, and a larger buffer spring. Rate of fire increased from ~700-800 to around 1200 rounds per minute. Used on a lot of post-WWII USAAF/USAF aircraft until cannons became standard with the F-86H in 1956.

>>31993894
>found

I guess the tree new machine gun designs apparently grow on hasn't been watered lately?

>>31993987
A similar thing happened in Czech army a few years back.
But as a hammer served 14,5x114 mm for KVP heavy MG

>>31993987
Oh hey, i was in country when that happened.

The looks on the faces of the (grunt) platoon ranged from stunned disbelief to schadenfreude.

Then we took our resident retard off the mounted 240 and into the back of the maxpro.

>>31995932
It's still in the process of receiving a QCB.

Marines aren't due to finish roll-out for another two years at least due to supply shortages on kit productions.

>>31995992
Fuck

>>31996032
>subdued "PLOM!" from the bowels of APC
>meatloaf up to the elbow
>serious chest injury and tattered leg
>other guy in the turret a deaf

>>31996102
Can he still drink beer?

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>>31996238
This cliché about Czech beer obsession is offensive...
Yes he can (still has other arm and both legs)

>>31996416
Mate, beer flows like water in your promised land, don't ever let them take that from you.

>>31993894
Why replace something that does the job perfectly? I think the only way something could be better is if it had fewer moving parts, outwardly adjustable rate of fire, better heat durability, somehow make it man portable (much like the M240)...

The only ways to improve it it are so impractical that the last time the military tried, the M2 outperformed it in every way.

>>31996522
The Russians did it though, so why can't the US?

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>>31993894
It could use something to help with the recoil

It shoots a heavy round, at a slow rate, that causes the barrel to wave all over the place, making it inaccurate in sustained fire.

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>>31993894
I present to you: the swiss solution to this problem.

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>>31996562

Would surprise me if anyone actually have those weapons.

>>31996024
This.

Marines get everything last. We are even out of plate carriers, im turning my gear in for EAS and they take my burned, frayed, torn, and filty plate carrier and hand it off to some new guy in line behind me because they dont have any more new ones to issue.

>>31996602
It could be worse.
At least you can afford blanks and don't have to shout "BANG" during training.

t. Ausfag

>>31994127
I wish I had a Wiesel.

>>31995474
Underrated post, ha ha.

>>31996635
No, we do a LOT of that too. "Notional" training.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiMgqrL6KjQAhVQ1mMKHSr2Ag0QtwIIGjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fm.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DNPzozP91igo&usg=AFQjCNGFOsAyJWZbFs6JzXo-tmYLGM4Dtw

>>31996742
Ha.
Ours was just because they rekitted us before the GSum because we were going to be in the public eye.
Plenty of money for new uniforms, fuck all for ammunition.

>>31996711
One helluva way to get tailgaters off your ass on the highway

>Bubba in his lifted F-150 riding your ass hard
>180 the gun to face rear
>BRRRRRRRRRRRT
>20mm autocannon glory turn him into Prius food

>>31993977
Ronnie Barrett tried to design one that replaced some of the steel with polymer.

Dunno what happened to that.

>>31993977
ROF changes are typically pretty useless actually.

The 240 echo had that, but what always ends up happening is it gets adjusted to the textbook rate and never touched again.

Its more efficient to just build them with a standard rate of fire than to add one more thing to never use until some bored dipshit decides to fuck around with and probably break it.

>>31993987
I was in theater when that asshole blew up his hand. The 50 was fine thus grunt proof. Nothing however is bored retard proof

>>31994037
Varies but typically want to keep your own gunners bag as most vehicles are rat fucked hot swaps

>>31994173
Fobbit (at best) detected

>>31993894

A wise man once said "if it ain't broke don't fix it"


The m2 is perfectly fine.

I'd imagine though putting rails and stuff on it and making the receivers out of aluminum would be an improvement but the basic action is fine

>>31996635
National guard in a smaller state and I would yell out budget cuts

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ive seen this many times, and people want to bring in these special snowflake Mod-0 prototype HMGs. and by this point with the weapons and the way the budgets break down for small arms is so small that its impossible at this point. sure, if we just didnt build one extra F-35 one year we could replace every gun in the military to brand new ones, its just not going to happen though.

the .50 could use some updates, not debating that. and this new quick change, and self setting HS&T (that im against because...well its a damn right of passage) the ROF is fine for ground support off trucks and if it was on a post or back of a bird. no one is going to say "phssss this fucking 550-650 RPM aint shit" they are going to be having a 'come to jesus meeting' right before meeting jesus. its a fine bit of metal for its age and what it needs to be used for.

>>31993894

Other than better optics I can't see anything that one could do to make a better mounted HMG other than the upgrades the A1 introduced.


The only real possibility to better it would be through the ammo it uses and they are always researching better ammo.

>>31996547
What is a beaten zone?

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>>32001765
the beaten zone is where the majority of the rounds (82%) from the cone of fire fall into the danger space after following the trajectory of the rounds.

Someone post the greentext about the m2 on Mars

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>>32002017

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>>32002057
had some potential missing, definitely should of just kept going with the places its been.

>>31993894
don't fix what isn't broken...

>>31993933
>>31993936
>>31993983
>>31995393
>>31996522

All the above are wrong. Its absolutely not perfect, its heavy, so is the ammunition and the recoil, and it's not nearly as easy as it could be to disassemble and maintain.

If some magical genie came to the DoD and said "I will magically retrain your troops, change all your .50BMG ammo stock, change all your mounts and accessories and all your current stocks of M2s to whatever design you want all instantly and for free", absofuckinglutely would they do it.

But the cost of a changeover just isn't worth it for the quantifiable, but incremental improvements. Operational inertia is a bitch, especially in a military the size of the US.

>>31996527
The NSVs were due for replacement anyway, and Kazakhstan ended up with the manufacturing license and plants for them after the collapse of the USSR. The lack of spare parts was a bigger factor than the increased accuracy that they harped on about.

>>32002640
True, but rather than just directly replacing the NSV with domestic NSV production, they actually went ahead and improved it.

>>32002907
Yeah, but to start up domestic NSV costs the about same as producing something new (even if they legally could - Kazahkstan's license might have been exclusive), and the NSVs they had all were due for replacement anyway.

The US' M2s aren't due for replacement soon, and everythings already in place to make more when they need to.

>>32003074
IIRC Soviet production ran on shared licenses, meaning basically any member state could run production, but it was up to procurement boards as to where manufacturing was built up.

The NSVs weren't due to retirement (still aren't) just they were due for overhaul and lack of domestic production meant that production of sacrificial parts was limited.
So, instead of just building another NSV factory because it was "good enough" and just rolling with existing stocks, they actively sought to improve their designs.

>>32003586
Yeah, but its still required the construction of new production facilities even if you kept the same design, something the M2 does not require.

And yes the NSVs are still in service, but Russia isn't buying or manufacturing any new ones. A big part of the Kord's appeal is that it can use the same mounts, same belts, same tripods as the NSV. Besides spare parts, they're essentially drop in replacements.

So every time an NSV needs to be replaced, you replace it with a Kord and cannibalize it for parts for the rest of the NSVs. You can continue doing that until it drops below numbers where its sustainable to maintain, but until that point you why throw away hundreds of working machine guns?

>>32002171
>Tunisia, Italy, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, New Republic of California, Iraq again

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>>31993894
Why do you fucking autists not understand the concept of "sufficient." It does its job sufficiently, so there's no need to change it. Take your fucking tacticool shit back to your mothers basement and kill yourself with it.

>>31993894
it fills a role in the battlefield that hasn't changed much

the caliber is standard, if you wanted a different one use a different gun
they are indestructible
I would bet the US still has some phisical M2's that are almost as old as the design

the size of the weapon means there are some mechanical hazards to an operator that is either untrained or just ass-fucked

you could make it lighter, but you would be making tons of parts in storage obsolete for a small weight reduction
and on a weapon that isn't designed to be portable

accuracy?
I believe single shot it's impressive
and I think the .50 is like 12g-00buck "if one shot didn't destroy it, no point firing a second"
the spread is advantageous to some degree when using indirect fire, or shooting through walls etc

>>32003865
That's exactly what I was getting at.
Direct replacement of capability, but they took the time to make it better.

>>32004228
But the same reasoning doesn't apply to the M2 though is my point - the M2 does not need to have all its production facilities rebuilt and the last overhaul was not that long ago.

>>31993894
Because it works well enough that the benefits gained from a replacement are not really worth the cost.

>>32002640

>Its absolutely not perfect, its heavy, so is the ammunition and the recoil,

Yeah no shit, Sherlock. It's a fucking HEAVY MACHINE GUN.

>>32004280
Sure, but again the Kord is proof that you can improve on the M2 in nearly every way.

The US just fields equipment differently and has no need for a company level HMG.

>>32004321
Obviously I meant heavy for its role, fuckwit.

The XM806 weighed half as much, and had 60% less recoil for the same loads. The Kord weighs ~60% of an M2 and fires a similarly, or even somewhat higher, powered round.

Obviously there are improvements that could be made. And don't give me any shit about "but its mounted so it doesn't matter", logistics is king, those improvements aren't meaningless.

It's just that it is expensive to replace them all, and unlike the case with Russia and the Kord, theres no outside circumstances that justifies it.

>>32004417
Never said you couldn't. I even specifically mentioned what you could improve on in my first post. It is just that its not worth it for the US. Kord was an economically feasible changeover due to external circumstances. If they hadn't lost it all to Kazakhstan, theres a good chance they'd still be building NSVs

>>32004485
True, but moving to the Kord has enabled them to utilise a HMG in a GPMG role - in a conflict with a developed nation that may be a very desirable capability.

>>32004485

Do other .50 caliber rounds weigh less? Does is matter how heavy a gun is that's mounted?

No? Then it doesn't matter does it?

>>32004561
If we moved to a different alloy for the cases and a different propellant we can reduce the size and weight of the ammunition, reducing logistical costs.

If the M2 was lighter, it could be operated as a company level GPMG, like the Russians do, increasing the direct fire capability of infantry operations.
Not too important against dirt farmers, but against developed nations it could prove very useful

>>32004561
>Does is matter how heavy a gun is that's mounted?
Did I not just talk about this?

Retard, you still have to ship them places and transport them on vehicles and move them around. Or do you think they just magically appeared in Iraq and Afghanistan? You don't think that their weight affects how they're deployed, if they can be deployed or how many can be deployed?

The Kiowa still uses a modified M2, do you think weight doesn't matter there? They also use them on the Super Tucano - if you cut the weight like above and dedicated it just to extra ammo, you could double the amount it carried.

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This one is 13kg~ lighter.

>>32004725
Tell me more about the Kiowas. I was under the impression that they primarily use their M4/M16s and cut holes in the frame to get a better firing angle.

>>32004783
OH-58D has 2 pylons that can each optionally mount a customized M2 called the M296. Still air cooled, but has an adjustable firing rate and no bolt latch.

>>32002640
Looks like someone failed the EIB course...

>>32004783
>>32004848
Don't forget they also use the M3P on the 58D, but its also a modified M2.

>>31996416
lol thought this practice died off after ww2

>>31998960
nice.

>>31996562
>>31996573
I also have this book, abd that thing made my dick diamonds

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>>32004953

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>>32006814

>>31993894
"Have we really never found a replacement for *insert gun designed by John Moses Browning here*? The design is over 100 years old" he was a fucking genius, get over it