Re: [OT] Linking Ammo

I think it's a matter of how the belts are put together.  Our "belts" of
ammo are cartridges linked together by metal "clips" called links.  A
link clips onto one cartridge and has a "hook" that is locked around the
next cartridge by the link that's clipped onto that cartridge.

http://www.twobittraining.com/CAP/graphics/belt3.gif
Note:  This is an image of 7.62mmNATO M-60 ammo.  Pretty much all of our
(US) small arms belted ammo is built this way.	The orange-tipped rounds
are tracers, of course.  Great for letting you know where your rounds
are going, as well as letting the NME know where they're coming from.

So when the weapon fires the "belt" disintegrates as the bullets are
stripped from the links and fed into the barrel.  After firing, you have
separate brass and links for each round fired.

The links are annoying little things, that get tangled when you try to
sort them, hurt like hell when you happen to kneel on one or press your
hand down onto one and usually found all over the training areas (making
it real easy to kneel on one...

Given their nature, I'd be surprised to find that there is a compact
hand-cranked machine to "build" a belt of ammo out of un-sorted links
and boxes of ammo.  Like Mr. Atkinson, I never saw one, and never had to
"build" belts of ammo from unlinked rounds.

Note that the description of the links applies to ammo used in the M-2
(.50cal Browning MG), M-60, M-249"SAW" and M-240.  Probably applies to
others, but those are outside of my personal experience.

>From your description of "Feed in the belt from the side, drop in the
> cartridges from the top and crank away" I got the impression that
belts
remained intact after firing...  Was that a correct assumption?

http://www.twobittraining.com/CAP/graphics/belt3.gif
Note:  This is an image of 7.62mmNATO M-60 ammo.  Pretty much all of our
(US) small arms belted ammo is built this way.	The orange-tipped rounds
are tracers, of course.  Great for letting you know where your rounds
are going, as well as letting the NME know where they're coming from.

--Flak

On Mon, 2002-06-24 at 14:49, K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> > Now, machinegun ammo will be pretty much the same (IMU, as
> > in Real Life, my SAWs fire the same ammo as my rifles)
> > but linking it is a sonofabitch.
> 
> I'm slightly puzzled here. When I was in the Bundeswehr, we sometimes
had to
> link up practice ammunition for our MG 3 (aka MG42 to WWII gamers).
Linking
> by hand wasn't nice, but we had a small hand-cranked machine. It
looked a
> bit like an old coffee grinder. Feed in the belt from the side, drop
in the
> cartridges from the top and crank away  The work went reasonably well
with
> that. Does my memory fail me or don't your units have something
similar ?
> 
> Greetings
> Karl Heinz
> 
> 
> 
-- 

--Flak Magnet
Hive Fleet Jaegernaught