RE: <ot>Bren Guns</ot>

Hi all

I must confess to being old enough to remember when the Bren was still
in
service in Australia in reserve formations in .303 caliber (when I was
in high
school in the 1970s) it has a major liability as a support weapon due to
having
a very small beaten zone, that, combined with a small magazine means it
was
tactically suited for the same things as a heavy barrelled AR as a squad
automatic in support of non automatic weapon equipped infantry (first
Lee
Enfield then SLR) but with the additional benefit of being able to be
used for
more sustained fire, and capable of very accurate long range fire.

WRT GPMGs generally, the M60 is fine if properly maintained, as number 2
on the
gun for a couple of years I never found it to be anywhere near as bad as
popular
myth makes it out to be, like the M16 I suspect early problems in
quality
haunted the reputation long term, look after the pins for the cover etc
and it
served well, I cannot remember ever being part of an unrecoverable
failure in
operation.