Browning M3

The United States Browning M3 Machine Gun is basically a .50 caliber Browning M2 Machine Gun that was extensively manufactured at the Springfield armory during the 1940s and 1950s. The gun was fed by a disintegrating link belt.

Before the Browning M3, there was it's direct ancestor, the M2 (left), affectionately referred to by veterans and full-auto enthusiasts as 'Ma Deuce'. The M2 came about when, in the last days of World War I, the U.S. Ordnance board requested a proposal for a weapon that would be equivalent to the 11mm French Hotchkiss machine gun. The French machine gun was used to deadly force on observation balloons and aircraft. John Moses Browning responded with a water cooled, .50 caliber design that was adopted as the United States Machine Gun M1921. Later, this evolved in the 1930s as the M2, first water cooled and later air-cooled. This versatile and formidable weapon served in a variety of roles: as a tripod mounted infantry weapon; mounted on tanks and vehicles, as an anti-aircraft machine gun; and as an aircraft mount.

The Browning M2 Machine Gun was improved so extensively modified that the receiver was remarked as the M3. In it's most common aircraft configuration, the AN-M3, was an automatic, recoil operated, disintegrating link belt fed aircraft machine gun that fired at a respectable rapid rate of more that 1000 rpm. By simply rearranging some of the components, the gun could be set to feed from either the left- or the right- hand side. The AN-M3 was equally suited for mounting in the wing or fuselage of a fighter aircraft or bomber. In addition like the M2 before it, the Browning M3 could be fired electronically by solenoid*, or conventionally by a plunger or trigger.

Did You Know?
Although developed for machine guns, the .50 Browning Machine Gun cartridge has gained new lease on military rifles as the round of choice for 'tactical' rifles. These ultra long-range rifles are used by sharpshooters primarily to destroy an opposing enemy's electronic equipment at ranges of more than 1600 meters.

*A solenoid is a cylindrical coil of wire which, when an electrical current passed through it, behaves as a bar magnet.