There is a reason things like the Browning M2 have lasted over 100 years at this point. Big bullet hit hard. It doesn't care about shit like dust that fucks over lasers. Honestly the M2 will outlive us all and into the 41st millenium.
Theres infinitely more videos of men and tanks being destroyed by drones than there are videos of drones being shot down by a soldier with an AK. Soldiers down drones with small arms that arent shotguns is like winning the lotto.
Unfortunately the straight flying, 10x10 foot size Shahed's are only a fraction of the drone threat.
Nice demonstration on completely flat ground, against stationary drones in perfect weather.
Maybe one day someone will invent high temp superconductors and things will change.
Its not even the M2, its the .50BMG cartridge. The M2 itself is a relic design(gg being able to reassemble the gun backwards with parts in it backwards) that should have been replaced 40-50 years ago. But American small arms development is abysmal so nothing has been able to replace it.
The M2 Browning is forever. Every attempt to replace it, such as the M85:
If youve ever hand actual trigger time on one, especially taking one apart and performing maintenance you would know it is very very far from perfect. Awesome design 100 years ago, not today.
To be fair, the M16/M4 is an excellent weapon. There's a reason why a lot of other countries are switching to an AR-platform. Several of the replacement programs seemed like change for change's sake (correct me if I'm wrong), and the recent NGSW program is based on the assumption that our adversaries actually run proper body armor (and the XM7 is, get this, an AR-style rifle).
Tell me how many HMG's the russians have ran through again? Yet the M2 survives. It may be grumpy but it just works.
The M16 was adopted because it was and still is ahead of the competition. That new XM7? That fucker is getting canned in 10 years mark my words. The M16 will live on because its timeless.
TBF the Kord only became adapted because the factory where the NSV is built ended up behind an inconvenient border after 1991, in Kazakhstan. That said, I expect the M2 to stick around because it's a primary example of a gun that simply is good enough for everything you could need a heavy machine gun for. Though, Poles have their own NSV factory where it got re-engineered to use the NATO standard 12.7 as well.
Still, that is 3 guns while the M2 just continues on because it's a brick that works. Because yeah, it is good at basically anything you want a 50 cal to do.
It is. The only reason it was adopted though was because the M14 was garbage and not ready to be fielded in large numbers for troops deploying to Vietnam. The M16 was, so was procured by the Army and performed well enough(though again didnt stop retarded desk jockeys from hindering its use) the M14 was finally canceled and replaced.
Or If you want the problem the 1893 actually faced in the trenches the swelling of cardboard shells forcing them to move to brass hulled shells
Watch this video:
Maybe but even then I doubt it will change much unless we also develop extraterrestrial colonies and an efficient way to transport goods and people between them since simple resource scarcity is most likely going to fuck over any sort of super advanced technology like that with only one planet to support it.
Actually a big part of it was the Air Force. They realized that they only really needed small arms for security personelle and other people who didn't need or want a big heavy rifle like the M14 or a cartridge as powerful as the 308, so they ended up buying AR15s qfter some procurement colonel who was friends with Eugene Stoner shot one at a berbeque they both attended. The army, navy, and marines all saw this thing and said "now that looks nifty" and so the M16 was born.
All of our arms programs are retarded, and it's a miracle that anything good ever gets shat out after years and years of meddling by people who don't know shit from shoeshine.
You're not wrong here. The M2 is a tremendous pain in the ass, especially in dry, dusty places. I pray I never have to get one up and running ever again.
The Army has had a pathological obsession with full-power cartridges since time immemorial. The more I read up on the M16 the more I'm convinced it was basically luck that procured it.
They probably have and that drone was mobile.
No... Fucking.... Shiiiiittt
Exactly. The M2 and the STK-50 are pretty much the ONLY.50 BMG machine guns to see wide service and the Russian HMGs are almost as old or only exist because of a factory issue (Kord)
The biggest issue with the M2 was resolved (FINALLY) in 2010/2011 with the M2A1 variant and it's fixed headspace.
There is a reason. It works. And making a big ass HMG that's reliable as what it's replacing is HARD. I won't deny issues, I've never shot it. I do know it's been kicking ass for a century. There is a reason for that. Everything else sucks dick.
