RE: [SG2] [WW2] Quad .50 half-track

At 9:53 AM -0600 10/22/02, B Lin wrote:
>FYI: The half track model is the M16 which is armed with a Maxson 
>mount in the rear.  IIRC the problem with the Maxson mount was that 
>it ran out of ammo quickly.  Each gun was fed from a 110 round 
>magazine.  At 500 rpm you got about 10 seconds of fire.  If you 
>could kill all the infantry within 10 seconds, you were ok, but I 
>would guess it takes quite some time to reload all four guns, even 
>with two loaders, in which case a couple of rifle-grenades or a 
>panzerfaust could ruin your day.

Sure, if you fired non stop. But then so would the single mounted 
50's With two guys to run belts into the guns you can keep them 
running quite a bit with only minor waits. Also, those larger ammo 
cans are 200 round cans. Thats 25 seconds of constant fire.

These turrets were also used on Guntrucks in RVN by transportation 
units. There were several versions with either 3-4 pintle mounted 
.50s or with a pintle .50 and a maxon turret in the back of a 2.5 ton 
truck. I should think that the quad and twin 50 mounts provided 
enough fire time for the weapon to be useful in bursts at targets for 
the firepower to be more than marginally effective like you seem to 
indicate.

http://www.eustis.army.mil/dptmsec/MUSEUM/gun_truck_crews1.htm

http://www.landscaper.net/theguns.htm#Gun%20Trucks%20-%20Quad%2050's%20a
nd%20Mini-guns

The Twin 40mm's were also useful for ground support missions.

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