The New M60 Machine Gun

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Mmmm...might stop cats cr@pping in the front yard....


In my experience nothing will stop cats dropping bombs in the front yard - or even having the occasional wazz aka 'strafing the flowerbed'


Basically my friend, you will have to waive the Critters goodbye and move on


There ! Free Therapy on a Sunday !
 
Wasn't it the Vickers that once fired for hours without a stopage and they had to abandon the test?

Was that a Water-Cooled Vickers MG ?

I think if you had the facilities - the can, pipes etc - to keep the water going round it was good to go for ages

Not sure about hours though - what kind of ammo - soft lead maybe ?
 
Was that a Water-Cooled Vickers MG ?

I think if you had the facilities - the can, pipes etc - to keep the water going round it was good to go for ages

Not sure about hours though - what kind of ammo - soft lead maybe ?

This isn't the example I was thinking of but it gives a feel for the reliability. From Weapons and War Machines

The Vickers gun accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, and in the years that followed, proved itself to be the most reliable weapon on the battlefield, some of its feats of endurance entering military mythology. Perhaps the most incredible was the action by the 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps at High Wood on 24 August 1916. This company had ten Vickers guns, and it was ordered to give sustained covering fire for 12 hours onto a selected area 2,000 yards away in order to prevent German troops forming up there for a counter-attack while a British attack was in progress. Two whole companies of infantrymen were allocated as carriers of ammunition, rations and water for the machine-gunners. Two men worked a belt-filling machine non-stop for 12 hours keeping up a supply of 250-round belts. One hundred new barrels were used up, and every drop of water in the neighbourhood, including the men's drinking water and contents of the latrine buckets, went up in steam to keep the guns cool. And in that 12-hour period the ten guns fired a million rounds between them. One team fired 120,000 from one gun to win a five-franc prize offered to the highest-scoring gun. And at the end of that 12 hours, every gun was working perfectly and not one gun had broken down during the whole period. It was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one. It never broke down; it just kept on firing and came back for more. And that was why the Mark 1 Vickers gun was to remain the standard medium machine-gun from 1912 to 1968."
 
This isn't the example I was thinking of but it gives a feel for the reliability. From Weapons and War Machines

The Vickers gun accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, and in the years that followed, proved itself to be the most reliable weapon on the battlefield, some of its feats of endurance entering military mythology. Perhaps the most incredible was the action by the 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps at High Wood on 24 August 1916. This company had ten Vickers guns, and it was ordered to give sustained covering fire for 12 hours onto a selected area 2,000 yards away in order to prevent German troops forming up there for a counter-attack while a British attack was in progress. Two whole companies of infantrymen were allocated as carriers of ammunition, rations and water for the machine-gunners. Two men worked a belt-filling machine non-stop for 12 hours keeping up a supply of 250-round belts. One hundred new barrels were used up, and every drop of water in the neighbourhood, including the men's drinking water and contents of the latrine buckets, went up in steam to keep the guns cool. And in that 12-hour period the ten guns fired a million rounds between them. One team fired 120,000 from one gun to win a five-franc prize offered to the highest-scoring gun. And at the end of that 12 hours, every gun was working perfectly and not one gun had broken down during the whole period. It was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one. It never broke down; it just kept on firing and came back for more. And that was why the Mark 1 Vickers gun was to remain the standard medium machine-gun from 1912 to 1968."

WOW !

Steamy Urine - that must have really stank

Its probably the real reason why you see pictures of machine-gunners wearing gas-masks crouched in front of their guns !

Serious Question : If the 'Vickers-Knickers' was such a good MG - why not use it in Aircraft such as Spits and Hurris ?

I think it was used on ships in 'quads' I believe, along side pom-poms

Not sure. Care to enlighten.
 
The only drawback to the Vickers was its weight and need for a larger crew than the aircooled varieties.

Other than that, it was probably the most rugged and reliable LMG of WW1 and WW2.
 
The only drawback to the Vickers was its weight and need for a larger crew than the aircooled varieties.

Other than that, it was probably the most rugged and reliable LMG of WW1 and WW2.

I wonder what DNA it was based on originally ?

You nearly always find that MGs are based on someone elses design originally
 

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