here is a photo of Marines in World War II in Okinawa. The man on the left has a Thompson gun. The guy on the right - what is he holding there? Is that some kind of short shotgun with an external box magazine? Some captured Japanese weapon that I don’t know about?
Looks to be a Browning Automatic Rifle.
Looks like a BAR, or Browning Automatic Rifle to me.
It was the light machine gun in use for both world wars, the Korean conflict and saw limited use in Vietnam. It was replaced by the M60, which fires a similar caliber round and was based on the German MG series. The M60 was later replaced by the Squad Automatic Weapon, or M240.
To my untrained eye that looks like a BAR.
Wow, can’t believe I missed that. I’ve always known what a BAR was - I’ve seen them in movies, in video games, and I’ve seen real ones in person. But for some reason, because of the foreshortened perspective of the image, and the angle of view, I thought that it was something else.
It is definitely a BAR.
Nitpick: The Squad Automatic Weapon is an M249. It fires a 5.56mm round.
The M240 has no name other than “Two Forty”.
The M249 SAW augmented the firepower native to the Rifle Platoon when the M16 went to three round burst. It is situated with each fireteam (I may be wrong, it may be with the Squad). The M60 remained in inventory in the Weapons Platoon as it did before.
So, is the guy on the right, the BAR tender?
He’s the Bargainer.
Minor nitpick - actually M60 construction borrowed a lot from German FG-42, getting only feeding system from MG-34/42 (and a little modified one).
Yes, the M249 SAW is assigned to each fire team.