Lack of US M1917 heavy machine gun.

[William Arthur Leaf]

The standard Heavy Machine gun in US Infantry forces was the Browning M1917 water cooled gun. The Browning M2 was used as an Anti Tank weapon until the 37mm replaced it, then it was used as an anti aircraft weapon on vehicles and a ground mount.

Due to it’s weight and slow rate of fire it was not used as a Battalion HMG.

Major William Leaf

Infantry, US Army Retired

Special Projects Director Military Museum of Ft Worth.

Attachments:

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[Stuart Harrison]

Bolt Action terminology does not align with contemporary 1930s/40s terminology.

In real world terminology, most nations called their rifle calibre sustained fire machine gun on a tripod (often water cooled) a heavy machine gun – ie: Vickers .303, M1917 30 cal, MG34/42 on tripod, Maxim 1910 etc.  In Bolt Action the term ‘heavy machine gun’ is used for weapons of the M2 .50 cal  or similar type, with a calibre between normal battle rifles and light automatic cannon.  All those ‘heavy’ machine guns of rifle calibre are there, just called medium machine guns.

[L.T. Russell]

Huh?  That’s my old argument.  It’s not what the weapon is called, it’s how it actually works.  That’s why the Fallschirmjager FG42 is an automatic rifle and NOT an assault rifle.  It has a bipod and fires a full-length rifle cartridge.  Assault rifles fire a reduced-length rifle cartridge.  That’s why a BREN gun is an automatic rifle, not a light machinegun.  It fires from a box magazine, just like the BAR or the FG42.  It’s NOT belt-fed, like the MG34, MG42 or Browning 1919A6.  Belt-feed is the defining difference between an automatic rifle and a light machinegun.

[Stuart Harrison]

That’s your arbitrary line between automatic rifle and machine gun.  The Bren is served by two men who can get a significantly higher rate of fire out of it than a BAR, and maintain it.

[Kar98k]

That’s why the Fallschirmjager FG42 is an automatic rifle and NOT an assault rifle.

@L.T. Russell: Yes, and many Bolt Action gamers agree with you. Now, if only Warlord Games can get it correct.

Also, for more details see (click the link below):

The FG42 in Bolt Action, and how easy it is to fix the error.

It is clear as daylight that the FG42 is an automatic rifle, no doubt, and as you can read from the above, this is very easy to fix in the game. Hint. hint, Warlord Games (wink).

As for the Bren, I have to agree with Stuart Harrison’s comment. In Bolt Action, the “Automatic Rifle” is a category intended to cover weapons like the one-man FG42 automatic rifle used by the Germans, and the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) used by American infantry squads. However, if you use historical doctrine, the Bren Light Machine Gun (note the name) is typically crewed by two (gunner and loader), and this gave it a much higher rate of fire than the BAR or FG42, so in Bolt Action game terms, it would better fit into the LMG category.

Note: The Bren does not have a single, universal, full name, but it does have a few official designations. Officially it is categorized as a light machine gun (LMG), and the official British service name (in British Armed Forces) is the “Gun, Machine, Bren”, or “Bren Machine Gun”. There are a few good books about this weapon, and I recommend Neil Grant’s book “Bren Gun” by Osprey Publishing.

Gaming note: there is a very good argument for the Bren being used without an assistant, and history does support special cases where the Bren Gun was operated by a single person (no assistant). So if my opponent asked if they could use their Bren Guns as such, I would be okay with that, and in game terms, this would be easy. It would be temporary categorized as an Automatic Rifle with the same ROF and Points Cost as the FG42 and BAR.

 

• This reply was modified 5 days, 4 hours ago by Kar98k.

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