swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 3,993
- Jun 25, 2013
The Bren was still in service (just) when I joined up. One of the complaints about it was that it was too accurate for a support weapon. One of the functions of a machine gun team is to dominate ground and prevent enemy movement. You need at least some bullet spread from a support machine gun to increase the chances of hitting numbers of advancing troops. If the machine gun is too accurate, you'll actually hit fewer of the enemy...or you'll have to do more manual sweeping of the weapon to change bullet direction.
I remember reading -- and I can't remember where -- the 12.7 x 99 round for the M2 Browning was modified to increase dispersion, as the US Army found it too consistent for machine gun use.