Shipbucket

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Good morning:
I don`t know if this is the best place for this, if not, my sincere appologies!. Well, I have some questions about automatic weapons, so I will ask to our "board of experts".
1. Which kind of magazine feed is better, from the top (like the Bren) or from the bottom (like the BAR)?
2. Is feasible to change the bottom feed to a top feed or vice versa?
3. In a LMG like the Bren in the British army, why it can be attached to a tripod (if the role of med. MG is fulfilled by the well tried Vickers)? How effective can be in the sustained fire role?
4. The british army allways insisted in having the same ammo for rifle, LMG and medium MG. Is a reasonable decision. But with an intermediate round do you think that the med. MG must be chambered to this round, or it can still be chambered to a full power cartridge?
5. The sniper can use a special round, do you prefer a round compatible to the Med. MG or GPMG, or a totally new one?
6. I know the value of cheapness in a submachine gun, I want to know if it is feasible to improve the well tried wartime submachine guns like the Sten or PPS with refinements (Sten Mk 2 was very crude!) but without making them expensive weapons.
Lots of thanks, and cheers.

1. Which kind of magazine feed is better, from the top (like the Bren) or from the bottom (like the BAR)?

The Bren was a superior weapon to the BAR in the role it was intended (squad-level light machine gun). Larger magazine capacity, more comfortable to carry, and its top-feeding magazines were easier to reload than BAR magazines. It's important to note that the BAR was designed as an automatic rifle (and not as a squad LMG) so its intended role was different - also important to note that the concept of a magazine-fed LMG was relatively new at the time too.

Top-loading magazines for LMGs are superior because gravity assists with the feeding of the weapon. Even if the magazine spring is weak, or fouled with dust/dirt/mud/ice/whatever, the rounds will still feed.

The Bren was used actively into the 1980s; the BAR was not.

2. Is feasible to change the bottom feed to a top feed or vice versa?

I mean I suppose you could, but it's a pretty big change and probably wouldn't be worth the time and effort.

3. In a LMG like the Bren in the British army, why it can be attached to a tripod (if the role of med. MG is fulfilled by the well tried Vickers)? How effective can be in the sustained fire role?

I think the tripod was meant for anti-aircraft use.

4. The british army allways insisted in having the same ammo for rifle, LMG and medium MG. Is a reasonable decision. But with an intermediate round do you think that the med. MG must be chambered to this round, or it can still be chambered to a full power cartridge?

Well as far as I can tell, the 762mm FN MAG (L7A2) was used alongside the L85 / SA-80 well after the 7.62mm L1A1 SLR had been retired. I'm not sure what drives these decisions though. A .30-caliber/7.62mm medium machine gun is basically a requirement in my mind, though.

5. The sniper can use a special round, do you prefer a round compatible to the Med. MG or GPMG, or a totally new one?

Historically the round used by NATO marksmen was always the 7.62mm NATO (in modified M14 rifles, Remington 700, H&K PSG-1, G3-SG1, Enfield L42A1, etc.) Only recently have the rifles firing the specialized sniper rounds come about (L115 arctic warfare magnum & US Army M2010 ESR in .300 Win Mag). I think if a military can afford to send snipers into combat with specialized rounds then it should.

6. I know the value of cheapness in a submachine gun, I want to know if it is feasible to improve the well tried wartime submachine guns like the Sten or PPS with refinements (Sten Mk 2 was very crude!) but without making them expensive weapons.

Look no further than the Sterling SMG, Vigneron M2, or MAT-49!

Colosseum already answered everything but I thought I'd give my own two cents:

1. Generally hopper-style magazines like the Bren uses have less or no moving parts compared to traditional magazines due to not having a spring or follower, but whether or not that makes it better is up for debate. The BAR never was a very good machine gun (especially when compared to the Bren), though that's less about the magazine and more not being designed for the role it was utilized for.

2. Not really, at least without redesigning the entire receiver. Of course there are exceptions, like the North Korean Type 73 which can take both magazines and belts.

3. Tripods were typically used for suppressive or anti-aircraft fire. As for effectiveness, suppressive fire is better left to belt-fed machine guns which aren't limited to 30-round magazines. As a humorous side note, early versions of the Bren had issues with being too accurate for suppressive fire to the point of soldiers choosing to not replace worn-out barrels in order to achieve a larger fire spread.

4. Many times it's a matter of logistics. Back when the US military first decided to adopt the M1 Garand, it was originally chambered in .276 Pederson until MacArthur shot down the idea of a caliber change due the amount of .30-06 in storage and had Garand rechamber his rifle for .30-06. As for intermediate caliber machine guns, I'll point you to this document comparing 5.56mm and 7.62mm rifles and machine guns which explains it better than I could.

5. While multiple countries use the same cartridge for marksman and machine guns (7.62 NATO, 7.62x54mmR, 8mm Mauser, etc.), this is less for having ammunition compatibility and more because rifle cartridges are excellent for marksman rifles. Snipers will often get fancy match-grade ammunition while machine guns will get normal ball ammunition, so even without a distinct cartridge they would get special ammunition.

6. Perhaps some of the later Sten developments are what you're looking for?

What exactly is a "hopper" style magazine? Bren mags very much have traditional springs and followers. Are you thinking of a Lewis gun?

Yeah my bad, I'm mixing up my machine guns. Honestly I'm not too familiar with British weapons in general outside of Enfields, really

Colosseum wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 2:32 pm

I wish this forum can run Imgur.

This forum can "run" any imagehost... just use [img] tags around the image link...

OK, tried it. Thanks.

Thanks for your complete answer, Colosseum! Also to you Rasping Leech!

reytuerto wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 3:36 pm 1. Which kind of magazine feed is better, from the top (like the Bren) or from the bottom (like the BAR)?

Depends on what kind of automatic weapon you're making. A crew served weapon like the BREN is probably best served with a top mounted magazine, whereas if you're making an individual weapon that can be reloaded on the move a bottom or side mounted magazine might make more sense. Examples include the FG42, the Johnson LMG and the BAR.

reytuerto wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 3:36 pm2. Is feasible to change the bottom feed to a top feed or vice versa?

That depends entirely on the action. I'm pretty sure you could make the STEN feed from just about any angle without any issue.

reytuerto wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 3:36 pm3. In a LMG like the Bren in the British army, why it can be attached to a tripod (if the role of med. MG is fulfilled by the well tried Vickers)? How effective can be in the sustained fire role?

A gun on a tripod is inherently more accurate than one on a bipod. With one you can put useful direct fire on targets up to 1000-1200m away whereas a bipod only really gives you half that. The British rarely used the infantry tripod, but that's why they had it.

reytuerto wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 3:36 pm4. The british army allways insisted in having the same ammo for rifle, LMG and medium MG. Is a reasonable decision. But with an intermediate round do you think that the med. MG must be chambered to this round, or it can still be chambered to a full power cartridge?

Depends on what you want your MG to do and how you define the different MG roles.

reytuerto wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 3:36 pm5. The sniper can use a special round, do you prefer a round compatible to the Med. MG or GPMG, or a totally new one?

Depends on what you mean by sniper. A true sniper like fx Chris Kyle of American Sniper fame uses few enough bullets that it doesn't matter what he fires. A Designated Marksman on the other hand doesn't shoot far enough to need a dedicated sniper round, but he does need something more than the 5.56 or 5.45 so he might as well use the standard full power cartridge.

reytuerto wrote: ↑March 20th, 2017, 3:36 pm6. I know the value of cheapness in a submachine gun, I want to know if it is feasible to improve the well tried wartime submachine guns like the Sten or PPS with refinements (Sten Mk 2 was very crude!) but without making them expensive weapons.

Depends on what you consider expensive. The Stirling SMG Colo mentioned is a more fancy version of the STEN, but it's also more expensive. It's not MP5 expensive though.

Thanks, Thiel for your equaly complete answer, which adds further complexity to my choices (but that was the aim of the questions) !

And the last question:
For a sniper (not the marksman, thanks for making a clear and graphic explanation!), between a service rifle (like the Springfield with waever scope or the Moisin Nagant with optical sights), a service rifle modified to 1/2 stock (like the Enfield) or a hunting rifle upgraded to military specs (like the well tried Remingtons, or Tikka rifles) which is better (in the late 50s)? Once again, thanks to all you, guys!

P.S: I'm trying somo modifications to well tried wwii smg, in order to make a better made weapon for the 50s (unfortunatelly my weapon must compete with well designed weapons like the Uzi, Sterling, Beretta, Carl Gustav and more!).