Browning .50-Caliber Machine Guns

Osprey's new Weapon series provides a highly-detailed yet affordable overview of the development, use, and impact of small arms throughout history--from the sword to the machine gun. In thisvolume, Gordon Rottman examines this history of the longest serving weapon in the U.S. military's small arms inventory. Thoroughly researched and illustrated with rare photographs and original artwork by JohnnyShumate, the book takes readers from the origins of the fifty on the battlefields of WWI to its use in the war on terror today. Rottman provides lists of the companies that manufactured the Browningand analyzes the variants that have arisen over the years since it first entered service in 1933. He also provides descriptions and photos of how it was used on aircraft, ships, riverboats, tanks, Humvees, and by groundforces. A cutaway illustration from Alan Gilliland details the parts of the weapon and a final chapter dispels myths told about it.