machine gun

A firearm designed for sustained automatic fire. Machine guns are distinguished from assault rifles and battle rifles by size and ammunition capacity.

Machine guns are divided into three categories:

• Light machine guns: Fires intermediate-power cartridges (except earlier and World War II designs like the Bren). Light enough to be operated by one personnel. Are either belt-fed or magazine
• Medium (general-purpose) machine guns: Fire full-power rifle cartridges and serve in both infantry and emplaced roles. It typically require a crew to operate, due to their bulk.
• Heavy machine guns: Fires large-caliber cartridges (at least 12 mm but less than 20 mm), dedicated for anti-materiel role. Because of their weight and large size, HMGs are typically restricted to stationary positions.

See also

• autocannon
• List of weapons
• minigun

The following tags are aliased to this tag: machinegun (learn more).

This tag implicates gun (learn more).

The following tags implicate this tag: heavy_machine_gun, lewis_gun, m1918_bar, m240, m249, mg3, mg34, mg42, pk_machine_gun, pkm, pkp_pecheneg, rpd, and type_99_light_machine_gun (learn more).