Ok, here is a video. It is either a 50 cal tearing apart Taliban in Afghanistan, or someone with a .22 tearing apart prairie dogs in Montana. Seeing that I have no clue what it is exactly, and have spent the last 20 minutes trying to verify one way or another, I figured I could give it to the TM and they’d come up with an answer.
Keep in mind that the .50 sniper version is not meant as an anti personnel weapon, but as something that can be used to kill trucks and other logistical support. Of course anything that’s capable of killing a semi truck is also quite capable of killing a person, that’s not the design purpose of the weapon.
I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned the (in)famous ‘Apache video’. I won’t link to it but finding it is just a matter of doing a search for ‘apache video’.
In any case, it proves that machine gun fire, from an Apache chain gun, does NOT cut you in half. It cuts you into hundredths.
Exactly. According to international law the .50 caliber machine gun is not intended to be used to kill an individual, per se. It’s sole purpose is to destroy equipment. I am sure someone here can find a cite to back this up.
In the Marines we were taught that you can not shoot a person, but can go after their equipment, vehicles, etc. But if someone happens to be carrying any kind of weapons, radios, tents, etc. on their back, it is fair game. The weapon is that dangerous.
His union would. 
< hijack > Not even much of a joke, since in pre-union days the studios saved money on special effects by using real bullets whenever possible. Kind of of hard on the actor if the intended near miss doesn’t miss.
That’s been going around and around… it’s not teh snipErz, it’s just Varmint Safari . Bunch of rednecks hunting small game with big guns.
This is a high-jack, but somehow it is a telling commentary that we are now some 30 years (a full generation, plus) from the time that a very large portion of the US population knew precisely what a 7.62 mm NATO or .50 cal machine gun could do to you and how to headspace a .50 cal gun (dime = go, nickle = no go). Maybe that’s a good thing. The ability to headspace a .50 cal gun is not a skill that comes in handy very often.
No, they won’t, actually, because that’s simply false.
It’s actually a very long-standing urban myth, commonly repeated as fact in the armed services of most Western nations - I heard it when I was in the Canadian Forces - and it’s 100% baloney. There’s no international law prohibiting the use of the .50 calibre gun against human targets in warfare. (It is also commonly claimed that this is in the “Geneva Conventions,” even though the Geneva Conventions have nothing to do with prohibiting weapons.)
Some European countries are party to the 1868 St. Petersburg Treaty which prohibits the use of small calibre explosive shells (by the standards of the time a .50 calibre was small) but it does not address the use of .50 calibre weapons in general, or standard jacketed .50 calibre ammunition in particular.
The primary treaty concerning what antipersonnel weapons may be used is the 1907 Hague treaty, which prohibits weapons that cause “unnecessary suffering.” This refers to the use of weapons meant to maim or injure people either deliberately instead of killing, or in a way that would make the resulting wounds unusually difficult to treat medically; the convention was aimed specifically at hollow point round, to be honest, which tends to fragment and cause extraordinarily hard-to-fix wounds. The .50 calibre simply doesn’t fall under the group of weapons banned by the Hague convention.
It is perfectly permissible in warfare to use a .50 on an enemy soldier. No international law or treaty says otherwise. If you were actually taught otherwise, you were taught a falsehood.
Could you translate that into English? It sounds interesting, but I have no idea what you said.
Well, the Apache cheats in this respect because it’s firing cannon shells at its targets. Those are 30 mm shells, too. If they weren’t exploding on contact it would probably take as many as two or three shells to cut you in half. 
That’s not a law but it is common sense. The .50 is designed to tear apart equipment, no sense wasting it on flesh (if you have other ready alternatives). It’s all about using the right tool for the right job.
On the US M-2 .50 cal machine gun the barrel screws into the breech. When the gun is being fired a lot you change the barrel to keep heat from damaging the tube – if over heated the tube will actually droop and become inaccurate. When the barrel is changed it is critical that the headspace, the gap between the front plane of the bolt and the rear of the chamber, is just right. Otherwise the round will not chamber or the firing pin will not hit the centerfire cap in the round with sufficent force to set off the cap. Each gun is provided with a gage to check and adjust the headspace but the gage is sometimes lost. If the gage is gone a US five cent piece and a US ten cent piece will serve as a field expedient. If the dime will fit into the headspace the gap is large enough but if the nickle will also fit the gap is too big and the barrel needs to be screwed in just a skush more.
The other critical pieces of knowledge on the .50 cal gun are that when you hand cock it you do it palm up and thumb out and that you never, never take the back plate off when the gun is cocked – otherwise you will propel the breech bolt into and through your chest.
The Browning M2 .50 Calibre Machine gun was designed for US Forces to use in the trenches of World War 1.
It was intended as an anti-tank weapon. :eek:
It was outstanding in its class.
It remained an effective anti-tank weapon throughout the first 1/3 of the 20th Century.
Until the 1960’s, it could breach the rear or side armor of most tanks, depending on the model of tank.
It was America’s primary air-to-air weapon of World War 2, and was important throughtout the Korean War in an air-to-air role.
It is, in most ways, America’s primary non-bomb/guided missile weapon in air-to-ground attack roles.
American military personnel have knicknamed it Ma Deuce. They are very, very satisfied with it. The non-com/enlisted men are in no hurry to replace it.
The design is approaching its 100th anniversery, & all proposed replacements have proved unworthy, to my best information.
Dozens of other nations manufacture & use the M2, & are likely to continue to do so well into the 21st Century, & perhaps beyond.
I love being corrected, now I can say I learned something today.
Cite please?
I’m a professional camera operator, and have had to work around small and large weapons. ( I count a Civil War canon being fired off 10 feet from me as…large. :eek: ) I have never heard this myth, and am interested to read proof. Fraction-load and full-load blanks have been readily available since before The Great Train Robbery was filmed. I can promise you that the still linked is a frame from a shot where the cowboy fires directly into the lens. No camera operator would have stood for a loaded gun being used, as full-load blanks are astonishingly dangerous all on their own.
Cartooniverse
Let’s try that again ?
The Great Train Robbery, circa 1903.
So, if I brought a .50 caliber to the county fair, would I have a better chance of shooting out that little red star?
Sorry, can’t find one; I saw a documentary that mentioned it years ago. It mentioned that one of the old big name actors ( James Cagney ? ) had enough pull even pre union to refuse to do a scene which involved bullets being shot near him through a window. When they shot the gunfire scene without him in the window, the wall behind where he would have been standing was shot up.
Dude, you could shoot out the whole damn Fair, & every Red Star in Moscow, for that matter*.
- A dream of many retired US Marines, I’m sure.
Thank you!