Re: Re: [SG-WW2] BAR

The Browning Automatic Rifle was used tactically as a squad automatic
weapon. TOE was 1 per squad, although veteran squads frequently managed
to scrounge 2 per squad, and units that technically weren't authorized
them by TOE (like armored infantry and airborne rifle squads) managed to
get ahold of them in quantity as well. It was a very popular weapon with
US forces, reliable and accurate, wasn't replaced in first-line units
until the appearance of the M15 (the heavy-barrel version of the M14) in
the early 1960's and soldiered on with the National Guard and Reserves
until the late 1960's at least. I fired one on several occasions during
1966-68 when I was in ROTC, and it's a pretty nice weapon, if a trifle
heavy. It was one of the original light automatic weapons, having been
designed in 1917-1918, the same approximate time frame as the Lewis gun
and the Chauchaut. It fired the same .30-06 round as the M1 Garand
rifle. It's only real flaw was that it lacked the sustained fir!
 e !
capability of a true light machine gun, like the BREN, which was also
magazine fed, but it was handier and didn't require a two-man crew. I
consider it the ancestor of all modern SAWs, and in fact it would still
be a serviceable SAW today if you could increase the magazine capacity
over the original 20 rounds.
gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu wrote:
> 
Just on the topic of squad support weapons, what exactly was the BAR?
I've gotten the impression from Saving Private Ryan *duck* that it was 
basically what we'd recognise today as an assault rifle, although used
as a 
Squad Automatic Weapon.

Can anyone confirm or deny?

Donogh

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