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The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is a family of American automatic rifles and machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the
The US entered World War I with an inadequate, small, and obsolete assortment of domestic and foreign machine gun designs, due primarily to bureaucratic indecision and the lack of an established military doctrine for their employment. When the United States declaration of war on Germany was announced on 6 April 1917, the high command was made aware that to fight this trench war, dominated by machine-guns, they had on hand a mere 670 M1909 Benét–Merciés, 282 M1904 Maxims and 158 Colt-Browning M1895s. After much debate, it was finally agreed that a rapid rearmament with domestic weapons would be required, but until that time, US troops would be issued whatever the French and British had to offer. The arms donated by the French were often second-rate or surplus and chambered in 8mm Lebel, further complicating logistics as machine gunners and infantrymen were issued different types of ammunition.
Additional tests were conducted for US Army Ordnance officials at Springfield Armory in May 1917, and both weapons were unanimously recommended for immediate adoption. In order to avoid confusion with the belt-fed M1917 machine gun, the BAR came to be known as the ''M1918'' or ''Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918'' according to official nomenclature. On 16 July 1917, 12,000 BARs were ordered from
.30-06 Springfield
The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...
rifle cartridge and designed by John Browning
John Moses Browning (January 23, 1855 – November 26, 1926) was an American firearm designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms many of which are still in use around the world. He m ...
in 1917 for the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat and M1909 Benét–Mercié machine guns that US forces had previously been issued.
The BAR was designed to be carried by infantrymen during an assault Article by Maxim Popenker, 2014. advance while supported by the sling over the shoulder, or to be fired from the hip. This is a concept called "walking fire
Marching fire, also known as walking fire, is a military tactic – a form of suppressive fire used during an infantry assault or combined arms assault. Advancing units fire their weapons without stopping to aim, in an attempt to pin down enemy de ...
"—thought to be necessary for the individual soldier during trench warfare. The BAR never entirely lived up to the original hopes of the War Department as either a rifle or a machine gun.
The US Army, in practice, used the BAR as a light machine gun, often fired from a bipod (introduced on models after 1938).Bishop, Chris: ''The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II'', p. 239. Sterling Publishing, 2002. A variant of the original M1918 BAR, the Colt Monitor Machine Rifle, remains the lightest production automatic firearm chambered for the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, though the limited capacity of its standard 20-round magazine tended to hamper its utility in that role.
Although the weapon did see some action in World War I, the BAR did not become standard issue in the US Army until 1938, when it was issued to squads as a portable light machine gun. The BAR saw extensive service in both World War II and the Korean War and saw limited service in the Vietnam War. The US Army began phasing out the BAR in the 1950s, when it was intended to be replaced by a squad automatic weapon (SAW) variant of the M14, and as a result the US Army was without a portable light machine gun until the introduction of the M60 machine gun
The M60, officially the Machine Gun, Caliber 7.62 mm, M60, is a family of American general-purpose machine guns firing 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges from a disintegrating belt of M13 links. There are several types of ammunition approved for ...
in 1957.
History
The US entered World War I with an inadequate, small, and obsolete assortment of domestic and foreign machine gun designs, due primarily to bureaucratic indecision and the lack of an established military doctrine for their employment. When the United States declaration of war on Germany was announced on 6 April 1917, the high command was made aware that to fight this trench war, dominated by machine-guns, they had on hand a mere 670 M1909 Benét–Merciés, 282 M1904 Maxims and 158 Colt-Browning M1895s. After much debate, it was finally agreed that a rapid rearmament with domestic weapons would be required, but until that time, US troops would be issued whatever the French and British had to offer. The arms donated by the French were often second-rate or surplus and chambered in 8mm Lebel, further complicating logistics as machine gunners and infantrymen were issued different types of ammunition.
Development
Browning began to design the weapon later known as the BAR in 1910. He demonstrated the prototypes to the US military, which did not see an immediate use for the weapon until 1917. In 1917, prior to America's entry to the war, John Browning personally brought to Washington, D.C. two types of automatic weapons for the purposes of demonstration: a water-cooled machine gun (later adopted as the M1917 Browning machine gun) and a shoulder-fired automatic rifle known then as the ''Browning Machine Rifle'' or ''BMR'', both chambered for the standard US.30-06 Springfield
The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...
(7.62×63mm) cartridge. Colt and the Ordnance Department arranged for a public demonstration of both weapons at a location in southern Washington, D.C. known as Congress Heights
Congress Heights is a residential neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States. The irregularly shaped neighborhood is bounded by the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, Lebaum Street SE, 4th Street SE, and Newcomb Street SE on ...
. There, on 27 February 1917, in front of a crowd of 300 people (including high-ranking military officials, congressmen, senators, foreign dignitaries and the press), the Army staged a live-fire demonstration which so impressed the gathered crowd, that Browning was immediately awarded a contract for the weapon and it was hastily adopted into service (the water-cooled machine gun underwent further testing).
Additional tests were conducted for US Army Ordnance officials at Springfield Armory in May 1917, and both weapons were unanimously recommended for immediate adoption. In order to avoid confusion with the belt-fed M1917 machine gun, the BAR came to be known as the ''M1918'' or ''Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918'' according to official nomenclature. On 16 July 1917, 12,000 BARs were ordered from Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company
Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC (CMC, formerly Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company) is an American firearms manufacturer, founded in 1855 by Samuel Colt and is now a subsidiary of Czech holding company Colt CZ Group. It is the succ ...
, which had secured an exclusive concession to manufacture the BAR under Browning's patents (Browning's was owned by Colt). However Colt was already producing at peak capacity (contracted to manufacture the Vickers machine gun for the British Army) and requested a delay in production while they expanded their manufacturing output with a new facility in Meriden, Connecticut
Meriden is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located halfway between the regional cities of New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. In 2020, the population of the city was 60,850.Winchester Repeating Arms Company (WRAC) was designated as the prime contractor. Winchester gave valuable assistance in refining the BAR's final design, correcting the drawings in preparation for mass production. Among the changes made, the ejection pattern was modified (spent casings were directed to the right side of the weapon instead of straight up).
Since work on the weapon did not begin until February 1918, so hurried was the schedule at Winchester to bring the BAR into full production that the first production batch of 1,800 rifles was delivered out of spec; it was discovered that many components did not interchange between rifles, and production was temporarily halted until manufacturing procedures were upgraded to bring the weapon up to specifications. The initial contract with Winchester called for 25,000 BARs. They were in full production by June 1918, delivering 4,000 units, and from July were turning out 9,000 units per month.
Colt and Marlin-Rockwell Corp. also began production shortly after Winchester got into full production. Marlin-Rockwell, burdened by a contract to make rifles for the Belgian government, acquired the Mayo Radiator Co.'s factory and used it exclusively to carry out production of the BAR. The first unit from this source was delivered on 11 June 1918 and the company's peak output reached 200 automatic rifles per day. Colt had produced only 9,000 BARs by the time of the armistice due to the heavy demands of previous orders. These three companies produced a combined daily output of 706 rifles and a total of approximately 52,000 BARs were delivered by all sources by the end of the war. Between 1918 and 1919, 102,174 BARs had been manufactured jointly by Colt, Winchester, and Marlin-Rockwell.
By July 1918 the BAR had begun to arrive in France, and the first unit to receive them was the US Army's 79th Infantry Division, which took them into action for the first time on 13 September 1918. The weapon was personally demonstrated against the enemy by
During its lengthy service life, the BAR underwent continuous development, receiving many improvements and modifications. The first major attempt at improving the M1918 resulted in the M1922 machine rifle, adopted by the United States Cavalry in 1922 as a troop-level light machine gun. The weapon used a new heavy profile ribbed barrel, an adjustable spiked bipod (mounted to a swiveling collar on the barrel) with a rear, stock-mounted monopod, a side-mounted sling swivel and a new rear buttplate, fixed to the stock retaining sleeve. The hand guard was changed, and in 1926 the BAR's sights were redesigned to accommodate the heavy-bullet 172-grain M1 .30-06 ball ammunition then coming into service for machinegun use.
In 1931 the Colt Arms Co. introduced the Monitor Automatic Machine Rifle (R 80), intended primarily for use by prison guards and law-enforcement agencies. Intended for use as a shoulder-fired automatic rifle, the Monitor omitted the bipod, instead featuring a separate pistol grip and butt stock attached to a lightweight receiver, along with a shortened, , barrel fitted with a Cutts compensator. Weighing empty, the Monitor had a rate of fire of approximately 500 rpm. Around 125 were produced; 90 were purchased by the FBI. Eleven went to the US Treasury Department in 1934, while the rest went to various state prisons, banks, security companies and accredited police departments. Although available for export sale, no examples appear to have been exported.
In 1932 a greatly shortened version designed for bush warfare was developed by USMC Maj. H.L. Smith and was the subject of an evaluative report by Capt. Merritt A. Edson, ordnance officer at the Quartermaster's Depot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The barrel was shortened nine inches (229 mm) at the muzzle and the gas port and gas cylinder tube were relocated. The modified BAR weighed and was only long overall. Though it proved superior to the M1918 in accuracy when fired prone in automatic mode and equal in accuracy to the standard M1918 at ranges of 500–600 yards (460–550 m) from a rest, it was less accurate when fired from the shoulder, and had a loud report combined with a fierce muzzle blast. Attaching a 
In April 1938 work commenced on an improved BAR for the US Army. The army specified a need for a BAR designed to serve in the role of a light machine gun for squad-level support fire. Early prototypes were fitted with barrel-mounted bipods as well as pistol grip housings and a unique rate-of-fire reducer mechanism purchased from
In 2006
A variant known as the ''FN Mle 1930'' was developed in 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser by FN Herstal and adopted by the Belgian army. The Mle 1930 is basically a licensed copy of the Colt Automatic Machine Rifle, Model 1925 (R 75). The Mle 1930 has a different gas valve and a mechanical rate-reducing fire control mechanism designed by
Production of the BAR in Belgium began only after signing an agreement with Poland (on 10 December 1927) involving the procurement of 10,000
In 1920 Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) acquired sales and production rights to the BAR series of firearms in Europe from Colt. The first BAR model sold by FN was the Kg m/21 (Kg—''Kulsprutegevär'' or "machinegun rifle") chambered for the 6.5×55mm m/94 cartridge. The m/21 is a variant of the Model 1919 designed to Swedish specifications and manufactured initially by Colt's and later under license at the
During the interwar years, as the U.S. Army was reduced significantly in size, the BAR remained in the smaller extant Regular Army and by the 1930s, was also issued to state national guard units to be maintained at their armories. Given the part-time nature, smaller manning and lesser security of these national guard armories when compared to regular army installations, some BARs were subject to
When the threat of a new war arose, Ordnance belatedly realized that it had no portable, squad light machine gun, and attempted to convert the M1918 BAR to that role with the adoption of the M1918A2 by the US Army on 30 June 1938. The BAR was issued as the sole automatic fire support for a twelve-man squad,Rush, Robert S., ''The US Infantryman in World War II'', Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, (2003), p. 26 and all men were trained at the basic level how to operate and fire the weapon in case the designated operators were killed or wounded. At the start of the war, infantry companies designated three-man BAR teams, a gunner, an assistant gunner, and an ammunition bearer who carried additional magazines for the gun. By 1944, some units were using one-man BAR "teams" with the other riflemen in the squad detailed to carry additional magazines or bandoliers of .30 ammunition. Contrary to certain claims, the BAR was issued to soldiers of various heights.
As originally conceived, US Army tactical doctrine called for one M1918A2 per squad, using several men to support and carry ammunition for the gun. Fire and movement tactics centered on the M1 riflemen in the squad while the BAR man was detailed to support the riflemen in the attack and provide mobility to the riflemen with a base of fire. This doctrine received a setback early in the war after US ground forces encountered German troops, well-armed with automatic weapons including fast-firing, portable machine guns. In some cases, particularly in the attack, every fourth German infantryman was equipped with an automatic weapon, either a submachine gun or a full-power machine gun.
In an attempt to overcome the BAR's limited continuous-fire capability, US Army divisions increasingly began to specify two BAR fire teams per squad, following the practice of the US Marine Corps. One team would typically provide covering fire until a magazine was empty, whereupon the second team would open fire, thus allowing the first team to reload. In the Pacific, the BAR was often employed at the point or tail of a patrol or infantry column, where its firepower could help break contact on a jungle trail in the event of an ambush. After combat experience showed the benefits of maximizing portable automatic firepower in squad-size formations, the US Marine Corps began to increase the number of BARs in its combat divisions, from 513 per division in 1943 to 867 per division in 1945. A thirteen-man squad was developed, consisting of 3 four-man fire teams, with one BAR per fire team, or three BARs per squad. Instead of supporting the M1 riflemen in the attack, Marine tactical doctrine was focused around the BAR, with riflemen supporting and protecting the BAR gunner.
Despite the improvements in the M1918A2, the BAR remained a difficult weapon to master with its open bolt and strong recoil spring, requiring additional range practice and training to hit targets accurately without flinching. As a squad light machine gun, the BAR's effectiveness was mixed, since its thin, non-quick-change barrel and small magazine capacity greatly limited its firepower in comparison to genuine light machine guns such as the British
The M1918A2 was used in the early stages of the Vietnam War, when the US delivered a quantity of "obsolete", second-line small arms: This included the M1918A2, the M1919A6, M3A1 submachine gun, M2 carbine, and M1 Garand. to the
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*: Adopted in 1930, built under licence by Fabrique Nationale
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*: A large number were seized from the
FM 23–15: Basic Field Manual — Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1918A2 (27 Aug 1940)
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FM 23-15 Basic Field Manual Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1918A2 with Bipod
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YouTube animation showing mechanism of BAR 1918
{{Authority control .30-06 Springfield battle rifles .30-06 Springfield machine guns .303 British battle rifles .303 British machine guns 6.5×55mm battle rifles 6.5×55mm machine guns 7.92×57mm Mauser battle rifles 7.92×57mm Mauser machine guns Firearms by John Browning Gas-operated firearms Light machine guns Rifles of the United States United States Marine Corps equipment Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1918 Weapons of the Philippine Army World War I infantry weapons of the United States World War I machine guns World War II infantry weapons of the United States World War II machine guns
Initial M1918 production
Since work on the weapon did not begin until February 1918, so hurried was the schedule at Winchester to bring the BAR into full production that the first production batch of 1,800 rifles was delivered out of spec; it was discovered that many components did not interchange between rifles, and production was temporarily halted until manufacturing procedures were upgraded to bring the weapon up to specifications. The initial contract with Winchester called for 25,000 BARs. They were in full production by June 1918, delivering 4,000 units, and from July were turning out 9,000 units per month.
Colt and Marlin-Rockwell Corp. also began production shortly after Winchester got into full production. Marlin-Rockwell, burdened by a contract to make rifles for the Belgian government, acquired the Mayo Radiator Co.'s factory and used it exclusively to carry out production of the BAR. The first unit from this source was delivered on 11 June 1918 and the company's peak output reached 200 automatic rifles per day. Colt had produced only 9,000 BARs by the time of the armistice due to the heavy demands of previous orders. These three companies produced a combined daily output of 706 rifles and a total of approximately 52,000 BARs were delivered by all sources by the end of the war. Between 1918 and 1919, 102,174 BARs had been manufactured jointly by Colt, Winchester, and Marlin-Rockwell.
By July 1918 the BAR had begun to arrive in France, and the first unit to receive them was the US Army's 79th Infantry Division, which took them into action for the first time on 13 September 1918. The weapon was personally demonstrated against the enemy by 2nd Lt.
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
Val Allen Browning, the inventor's son. Despite being introduced very late in the war, the BAR made an impact disproportionate to its numbers; it was used extensively during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and made a significant impression on the Allies (France alone requested 15,000 automatic rifles to replace their Chauchat machine rifles).
US Marines briefly took possession of the BAR. Troops from the First Battalion of the Sixth Marines had talked the "doggies" of the US Army's 36th Division into trading their BARs for their Chauchats. However, complaints from officers of the 36th resulted in the issuance of a command from Marine Lt. Col. Harry Lee on 9 October 1918: All Browning guns and equipment in Marine possession were to be turned in.
Design details and accessories
The M1918 is a selective-fire, air-cooled automatic rifle using agas-operated
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent ...
, long-stroke piston rod actuated by propellant gases bled through a vent in the barrel. The bolt is locked by a rising bolt lock. The weapon fires from an open bolt
A firearm is said to fire from an open bolt if, when ready to fire, the bolt and working parts are held to the rear of the receiver, with no round in the chamber. When the trigger is actuated, the bolt travels forward, feeds a cartridge from t ...
. The spring-powered cartridge casing extractor is contained in the bolt and a fixed ejector is installed in the trigger group. The BAR is striker-fired (the bolt carrier serves as the striker) and uses a trigger mechanism with a fire selector lever that enables operating in either semi-automatic or fully automatic firing modes. The selector lever is located on the left side of the receiver and is simultaneously the manual safety (selector lever in the "''S''" position – weapon is ''s''afe, "''F''" – ''f''ire, "''A''" – ''a''utomatic fire). The "safe" setting blocks the trigger.
The weapon's barrel is screwed into the receiver and is not quickly detachable. The M1918 feeds using double-column 20-round box magazines, although 40-round magazines were also used in an anti-aircraft role; these were withdrawn from use in 1927. The M1918 has a cylindrical flash suppressor fitted to the muzzle end. The original BAR was equipped with a fixed wooden buttstock and closed-type adjustable iron sight
Iron sights are a system of physical alignment markers (usually made of metallic material) used as a sighting device to assist the accurate aiming of ranged weapons (such as a firearm, airgun, crossbow or even compound bow), or less commonly as ...
s, consisting of a forward post and a rear leaf sight with 100 to 1,500 yard (91-1,372 m) range graduations.
As a heavy automatic rifle designed for support fire, the M1918 was not fitted with a bayonet
A bayonet (from French ) is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar firearm, allowing it to be used as a spear-like weapon.Brayley, Martin, ''Bayonets: An Illustr ...
mount and no bayonet was ever issued, though one experimental bayonet fitting was made by Winchester.
Variants and subsequent models
During its lengthy service life, the BAR underwent continuous development, receiving many improvements and modifications. The first major attempt at improving the M1918 resulted in the M1922 machine rifle, adopted by the United States Cavalry in 1922 as a troop-level light machine gun. The weapon used a new heavy profile ribbed barrel, an adjustable spiked bipod (mounted to a swiveling collar on the barrel) with a rear, stock-mounted monopod, a side-mounted sling swivel and a new rear buttplate, fixed to the stock retaining sleeve. The hand guard was changed, and in 1926 the BAR's sights were redesigned to accommodate the heavy-bullet 172-grain M1 .30-06 ball ammunition then coming into service for machinegun use.
In 1931 the Colt Arms Co. introduced the Monitor Automatic Machine Rifle (R 80), intended primarily for use by prison guards and law-enforcement agencies. Intended for use as a shoulder-fired automatic rifle, the Monitor omitted the bipod, instead featuring a separate pistol grip and butt stock attached to a lightweight receiver, along with a shortened, , barrel fitted with a Cutts compensator. Weighing empty, the Monitor had a rate of fire of approximately 500 rpm. Around 125 were produced; 90 were purchased by the FBI. Eleven went to the US Treasury Department in 1934, while the rest went to various state prisons, banks, security companies and accredited police departments. Although available for export sale, no examples appear to have been exported.
In 1932 a greatly shortened version designed for bush warfare was developed by USMC Maj. H.L. Smith and was the subject of an evaluative report by Capt. Merritt A. Edson, ordnance officer at the Quartermaster's Depot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The barrel was shortened nine inches (229 mm) at the muzzle and the gas port and gas cylinder tube were relocated. The modified BAR weighed and was only long overall. Though it proved superior to the M1918 in accuracy when fired prone in automatic mode and equal in accuracy to the standard M1918 at ranges of 500–600 yards (460–550 m) from a rest, it was less accurate when fired from the shoulder, and had a loud report combined with a fierce muzzle blast. Attaching a Cutts compensator
A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwante ...
materially reduced the muzzle blast, but this was more than offset by the increase in smoke and dust at the muzzle when fired, obscuring the operator's vision. Nor did it improve control of the weapon when fired in bursts of automatic fire. Though the report recommended building six of these short-barreled jungle BARs for further evaluation, no further work was done on the project.
The M1918A1, featuring a lightweight spiked bipod with a leg height adjustment feature attached to the gas cylinder and a hinged steel butt plate, was formally approved on 24 June 1937. The M1918A1 was intended to increase the weapon's effectiveness and controllability firing in bursts. Relatively few M1918s were rebuilt to the new M1918A1 standard.
In April 1938 work commenced on an improved BAR for the US Army. The army specified a need for a BAR designed to serve in the role of a light machine gun for squad-level support fire. Early prototypes were fitted with barrel-mounted bipods as well as pistol grip housings and a unique rate-of-fire reducer mechanism purchased from FN Herstal
Fabrique Nationale Herstal (), trading as FN Herstal and often referred to as Fabrique Nationale or simply FN, is a leading firearms manufacturer based in Herstal, Belgium. It is currently the largest exporter of military small arms in Europe.
F ...
. The rate reducer mechanism performed well in trials, and the pistol grip housing enabled the operator to fire more comfortably from the prone position. However, in 1939 the army declared that all modifications to the basic BAR be capable of being retrofitted to earlier M1918 guns with no loss of parts interchangeability. This effectively killed the FN-designed pistol grip and its proven rate reducer mechanism for the new M1918 replacement.
Final development of the M1918A2 was authorized on 30 June 1938. The FN-designed pistol grip and rate-reducer mechanism with two rates of automatic fire was shelved in favor of a rate-reducer mechanism designed by Springfield Armory, and housed in the butt stock. The Springfield Armory rate reducer also provided two selectable rates of fully automatic fire only, activated by engaging the selector toggle. Additionally, a skid-footed bipod was fitted to the muzzle end of the barrel, magazine guides were added to the front of the trigger guard, the hand guard was shortened, a heat shield was added to help the cooling process, a small separate stock rest (monopod) was included for attachment to the butt and the weapon's role was changed to that of a squad light machine gun. The BAR's rear sight scales were also modified to accommodate the newly standardized M2 ball ammunition with its lighter, flat-base bullet. The M1918A2's walnut butt stock is approximately one inch (2.5 cm) longer than the M1918 BAR's butt stock. The M1918A2's barrel was also fitted with a new flash suppressor and fully adjustable iron sights. Late in the war a barrel-mounted carrying handle was added.
Because of budget limitations initial M1918A2 production consisted of conversions of older M1918 BARs (remaining in surplus) along with a limited number of M1922s and M1918A1s. After the outbreak of war, attempts to ramp up new M1918A2 production were stymied by the discovery that the World War I tooling used to produce the M1918 was either worn out or incompatible with modern production machinery. New production was first undertaken at the New England Small Arms
New England Small Arms Corporation was a consortium of small manufacturers who coordinated their facilities for production of M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles during World War II. The company was an unusual variation of United States conversion of ...
Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. (a total of 188,380 new weapons were manufactured). In 1942 a shortage of black walnut for butt stocks and grips led to the development of a black plastic butt stock for the BAR. Composed of a mixture of Bakelite
Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, better known as Bakelite ( ), is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. The first plastic made from synthetic components, it was developed ...
and Resinox, and impregnated with shredded fabric, the stocks were sandblasted to reduce glare. The Firestone Rubber and Latex Products Co. produced the plastic butt stock for the US Army, which was formally adopted on March 21, 1942. The M1922 machine rifle was declared obsolete in 1940, but they were used by Merrill's Marauders in Burma later in the war as a slightly lighter alternative to the M1918A2.
Production rates greatly increased in 1943 after IBM introduced a method of casting BAR receivers from a new type of malleable pig iron developed by the Saginaw division of General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
, called ''ArmaSteel''. After it successfully passed a series of tests at Springfield Armory, the Chief of Ordnance instructed other BAR receiver manufacturers to change over from steel to ArmaSteel castings for this part. During the Korean War M1918A2 production was resumed, this time contracted to the Royal McBee Typewriter Co., which produced an additional 61,000 M1918A2s.
The last US-made variant was produced in 7.62×51mm NATO
The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries.
First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first been introduced in U.S. service fo ...
, as T34 Automatic rifle.
Heavy Combat Assault Rifle
In 2006 Ohio Ordnance Works
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
unveiled their 21st-century modernization of the BAR, named the ''Heavy Combat Assault Rifle'' (HCAR).
The Ohio Ordnance Works HCAR includes improvements such as an AR-style buffer tube with adjustable stock, an optional 16" shortened barrel with adjustable gas regulator, hand guard and receiver picatinny rails as well as a suppressor-compatible flash hider. It also addresses the original BAR's weight issue through material reduction by machining material from the receiver, and through a dimpled barrel removing 8 lbs. overall. It also features a proprietary 30-round magazine, to increase firepower from the original 20-round magazine.
International and commercial models
Export models
The BAR also found a ready market overseas and in various forms was widely exported. In 1919 the Colt company developed and produced a commercial variant called the ''Automatic Machine Rifle Model 1919'' (company designation: ''Model U''), which has a different return mechanism compared to the M1918 (it is installed in the stock rather than the gas tube) and lacks a flash hider. Later the Model 1924 rifle was offered for a short period of time, featuring a pistol grip and a redesigned hand guard. These Colt automatic rifles were available in a number of calibers, including .30-06 Springfield (7.62×63mm), 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser, 7×57mm Mauser, 6.5×55mm,7.92×57mm Mauser
The 7.92×57mm Mauser (designated as the 8mm Mauser or 8×57mm by the SAAMI and 8 × 57 IS by the C.I.P.) is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, and was the ...
and .303 British (7.7×56mmR). All of the 6.5×55mm-caliber Colt automatic rifles appear to have been sold directly to FN.
An improved version of the Model 1924, the Model 1925 (R75), achieved the highest popularity in export sales. It is based on the Model 1924 but uses a heavy, finned barrel, a lightweight bipod and is equipped with dust covers in the magazine well and ejection port (some of these features were patented: US patents #1548709 and #1533968). The Model 1925 was produced in various calibers, including .30-06 Springfield (7.62×63mm), 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser, 7×57mm Mauser, 7.92×57mm Mauser
The 7.92×57mm Mauser (designated as the 8mm Mauser or 8×57mm by the SAAMI and 8 × 57 IS by the C.I.P.) is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, and was the ...
, and .303 British (7.7×56mmR) (no Colt-manufactured Model 1925 rifles in 6.5×55mm appear to have been sold). A minor variant of the Model 1925 (R75) was the R75A light machine gun with a quick-change barrel (produced in 1942 in small quantities for the Dutch army). Between 1921–28 FN Herstal
Fabrique Nationale Herstal (), trading as FN Herstal and often referred to as Fabrique Nationale or simply FN, is a leading firearms manufacturer based in Herstal, Belgium. It is currently the largest exporter of military small arms in Europe.
F ...
imported over 800 Colt-manufactured examples of the Colt Machine Rifles for sale abroad.
All of the Colt automatic machine rifles, including the Colt Monitor, were available for export sale. After 1929 the Model 1925 and the Colt Monitor were available for export sale in Colt's exclusive sales territories per its agreement with FN. These Colt territories included North America, Central America, the West Indies, South America, Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, Siam (Thailand), India and Australia.
Belgium
A variant known as the ''FN Mle 1930'' was developed in 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser by FN Herstal and adopted by the Belgian army. The Mle 1930 is basically a licensed copy of the Colt Automatic Machine Rifle, Model 1925 (R 75). The Mle 1930 has a different gas valve and a mechanical rate-reducing fire control mechanism designed by Dieudonné Saive
Dieudonné Joseph Saive (; 23 May 1888 – 12 October 1970) was a Belgian small arms designer who designed several well-known firearms for Belgian armsmaker Fabrique Nationale, including the Model 1949 and the FAL (''Fusil Automatique Leger'' o ...
, located in the trigger guard-pistol grip housing. Some of these FN rate reducer mechanisms and pistol grip housings were later purchased by Springfield Armory for evaluation and possible adoption on a replacement for the M1918. The weapon also had a hinged shoulder plate and was adapted for use on a tripod mount. In 1932 Belgium adopted a new version of the FN Mle 1930 allocated the service designation ''FN Mle D'' (D—''demontable'' or "removable"), which had a quick-change barrel, shoulder rest and a simplified take-down method for easier cleaning and maintenance. The Mle D was produced even after World War II in versions adapted for .30-06 Springfield (for Belgian service) and 7.92×57mm Mauser ammunition (for Egyptian service). The final variant in Belgian service was the Model DA1 chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge and feeding from the 20-round magazines for the FN FAL
The FAL (a French acronym for (English: "Light Automatic Rifle")), is a battle rifle designed in Belgium by Dieudonné Saive and manufactured by FN Herstal (simply known as FN).
During the Cold War the FAL was adopted by many countries of th ...
battle rifle.
Poland
Production of the BAR in Belgium began only after signing an agreement with Poland (on 10 December 1927) involving the procurement of 10,000 wz. 1928
The Browning wz.1928 is a Polish version of the M1918 BAR. It was a light machine gun used by the Poles in World War II.
History
After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the Polish Army was equipped with all sorts of machine guns inherite ...
light machine guns chambered in 7.92×57mm Mauser, which are similar to the R75 variant but designed specifically to meet the requirements of the Polish army. Changes to the base design include a pistol grip, different type of bipod, open-type V-notch rear sight and a slightly longer barrel. Subsequent rifles were assembled in Poland under license by the state rifle factory (Państwowa Fabryka Karabinów) in Warsaw. The wz. 1928 was accepted into service with the Polish army in 1927 under the formal name ''7,92 mm rkm Browning wz. 1928'' and—until the outbreak of World War II—was the primary light support weapon of Polish infantry and cavalry formations (in 1939 Poland had a total of approximately 20,000 wz. 1928 rifles in service). Additional detail modifications were introduced on the production line; among them were the replacement of the iron sights with a smaller version and reshaping the butt to a fish tail.
In the mid-1930s Polish small-arms designer Wawrzyniec Lewandowski was tasked with developing a flexible aircraft-mounted machine gun based on the Browning wz.1928. This resulted in the wz. 1937. Changes included increasing the weapon's rate of fire to 1,100 rounds/min, eliminating the butt stock, adding a spade-type grip to the rear of the receiver, moving the main drive spring under the barrel and, most importantly, changing the feed system. Sustained fire was practically impossible with the standard 20-round box magazine, so a new feed mechanism was developed that was added to the receiver as a module. It contains a spring-loaded, bolt-actuated lever that would feed a round from a 91-round pan magazine located above the receiver and force the round into the feed path during unlocking. The machine gun was accepted in 1937 and ordered by the Polish Air Force
The Polish Air Force ( pl, Siły Powietrzne, , Air Forces) is the aerial warfare branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 mil ...
as the ''karabin maszynowy obserwatora wz. 1937'' ("observers machine gun model 1937"). Eventually 339 machine guns were acquired and used as armament in the PZL.37 Łoś
The PZL.37 ''Łoś'' (''moose'') was a Polish twin-engined medium bomber designed and manufactured by national aircraft company PZL. It is also known as "PZL P-37" or "PZL P.37", but the letter "P" was generally reserved for fighters of Zygmunt Pu ...
medium bomber and the LWS-3 Mewa
The LWS-3 Mewa ("Seagull") was a Polish observation and close reconnaissance aircraft, designed in the late-1930s by the LWS factory. It was ordered by the Polish Air Force, but did not manage to enter service before the outbreak of World War II ...
reconnaissance aircraft.
Sweden
In 1920 Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) acquired sales and production rights to the BAR series of firearms in Europe from Colt. The first BAR model sold by FN was the Kg m/21 (Kg—''Kulsprutegevär'' or "machinegun rifle") chambered for the 6.5×55mm m/94 cartridge. The m/21 is a variant of the Model 1919 designed to Swedish specifications and manufactured initially by Colt's and later under license at the Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori
FFV-Carl Gustaf was a Swedish armaments firm, bought up and merged on several occasions.
History
''Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori'' ("Rifle Factory of Carl Gustaf's Town") was founded in 1812 as a state arsenal. The name "Carl Gustaf's To ...
in Eskilstuna. Compared to the Model 1919, the Swedish weapon has—apart from the different caliber—a spiked bipod and dust covers for ejection. The m/21 would become one of Sweden's main support weapons in the interwar years together with the water-cooled, belt-fed Ksp m/1914 medium machine gun (Swedish adaptation of the Austrian M07/12). Dissatisfied with the rapidly overheating fixed barrel of the m/21, Carl Gustaf began to design a new quick-detach mechanism for the barrel that mates the externally grooved chamber to a series of rotating flanges in the receiver operated by a locking lever. The barrel also received cooling fins along its entire length. These enhancements were incorporated into the fm/1935 prototype, which was favorably evaluated during trials in 1935. The final version was the Kg m/37, adopted for service in 1937, which uses a smooth-contour, unfinned barrel. Numerous m/21 guns were retrofitted with the screw-on receiver extension and quick-change barrel and renamed the Kg m/21-37. The m/37 remained in service until replaced by the FN MAG, but was still in second-line use until 1980. Carl Gustaf also developed a belt-fed prototype; however, it was never adopted.
China
The Chinese Nationalist Army used the FN M1930 throughout the Second Sino-Japanese War. 29,550 were bought from Belgium between 1933 and 1939. The Chinese BAR was chambered for the German7.92×57mm Mauser
The 7.92×57mm Mauser (designated as the 8mm Mauser or 8×57mm by the SAAMI and 8 × 57 IS by the C.I.P.) is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, and was the ...
round, the standard rifle cartridge of the National Revolutionary Army
The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
. After the outbreak of the Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
, the Chinese Expeditionary Army in Burma was equipped with American BARs. Towards the end of the war small quantities of American equipment, including the BAR, made their way into mainland China.
Civilian use
Colt Monitor
With the cessation of WWI hostilities, Colt Arms Co. received the Browning patents to produce the BAR that had been withheld from issue during the war. This allowed Colt to make the BAR available for commercial sale, including to civilian owners. The Colt Automatic Machine Rifle Model 1919, initially made up of overruns from the M1918 military production contract, was the first of several commercial Colt BARs that would follow. However, the high price of the weapon and its limited utility for most civilian owners resulted in few sales. Ad Topperwien, a famous trick shooter of the early 1920s, purchased one of the first Colt-produced BARs to perform aerial target shooting exhibitions. Occasional BAR sales were made to civilian owners through distributors such as the Ott-Heiskell Hardware Co. In 1931 the new Colt Monitor was made available to civilians during the Depression at $300 each, including a spare parts kit, sling, cleaning accessories and six magazines, but Colt records indicate no domestic sales to individuals.Post National Firearms Act
After passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934, civilian BAR ownership was restricted even further. Importation of machine guns for transfer between civilians was prohibited in 1968. Production of machine guns for civilian transfer was banned in 1986. However, machine guns produced prior to 1986 are still transferable, and fully-automatic BAR models exist and occasionally come up for sale to qualified buyers.21st century
Some companies continue to manufacture semi-automatic copies for sale to civilians, such as Ohio Ordnance Works, Inc., in Chardon, Ohio. OOW produces a contemporary semi-automatic variant of the M1918 called "1918A3-SLR", and a much modified lightened version called HCAR (Heavy Counter Assault Rifle), which are legal for civilians without a FFL (federal firearms license) to own.Criminal and law enforcement use
Although the Colt Monitor version of the BAR failed to interest US civilian buyers in the midst of the Depression, the underworld was a lot more interested: in 1936 the price of a black-market Colt Monitor was $5,000, with military BARs going for somewhat less. The army's M1918 was a favorite of gangster Clyde Barrow, who obtained his through periodic robberies of Army National Guard armories in the Midwest. Barrow liked to use armor-piercing (AP) .30-06 ammunition he obtained from armory stores, and frequently modified his BARs to suit his own needs. Barrow taught his girlfriendBonnie Parker
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut (Champion) Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. The co ...
to fire the M1918 as well, and by all accounts she was an excellent BAR operator. She used an M1918 on full-automatic to pin down unsuspecting law officers after they confronted the gang at a house in Joplin, Missouri. A Missouri highway patrolman at the scene, forced to dive for cover behind a substantial oak tree after Bonnie Parker opened up on him, later stated, "That little red-headed woman filled my face with splinters on the other side of that tree with one of those damned guns."
As the use of automatic weapons by criminal elements in the US became more widespread, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the agency to acquire and commence regular training with automatic shoulder weapons, including the Thompson submachine gun and the BAR. For its BARs the FBI turned to Colt, which sold 90 Colt Monitor automatic machine rifles to the agency. Some of the FBI's Monitors were distributed to field offices for use as support weapons if needed on a particular operation, while the remainder were retained at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, for training purposes. Colt sold an additional 11 Colt Monitors to the US Treasury Department in 1934, while 24 guns were sold to state prisons, banks, security companies and accredited city, county and state police departments. At least one member of the ambush team that killed Bonnie and Clyde was armed with a Colt Monitor.
Although it has sometimes been alleged that the M1918 or M1918A2 BAR was used by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in a shootout with Los Angeles police on May 17, 1974, no SLA members ever used such a weapon. The confusion arose out of Browning's decision in the 1970s to also designate its semi-automatic hunting rifle the Browning BAR. The SLA converted a .30-06 Browning BAR hunting rifle and a .243 Remington Model 742 to automatic fire by filing down the sear, and it was these weapons that were used in the shootout.
In US military service
World War I
At its inception, the M1918 was intended to be used as a shoulder-fired rifle capable of both semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. First issued in September 1918 to the American Expeditionary Forces, it was based on the concept of "walking fire", a French practice in use since 1916 for which the CSRG 1915 ( Chauchat) had been used accompanying advancing squads of riflemen toward the enemy trenches, as regular machine guns were too cumbersome to move with the troops during an assault. In addition to shoulder-fired operation, BAR gunners were issued a belt with magazine pouches for the BAR and sidearm along with a "cup" to support the stock of the rifle when held at the hip. In theory, this allowed the soldier to lay suppressive fire while walking forward, keeping the enemy's head down, a practice known as " marching fire". The idea would resurface in thesubmachine gun
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an autom ...
and ultimately the assault rifle. It is not known if any of the belt-cup devices actually saw combat use.
The BAR only saw minor action in France during World War I, being brought into action only as late as September 1918, less than three months before Armistice Day. The intentional delay had been inspired by General Pershing, the AEF commander, in order not to let the BAR fall into enemy hands too early. Fifty-two thousand BARs were available by the end of the war in November.
Interwar use
During the interwar years, as the U.S. Army was reduced significantly in size, the BAR remained in the smaller extant Regular Army and by the 1930s, was also issued to state national guard units to be maintained at their armories. Given the part-time nature, smaller manning and lesser security of these national guard armories when compared to regular army installations, some BARs were subject to plunder
Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...
by domestic civilian criminal elements.
The BAR was also standard issue to US naval landing forces during the period. The weapon was a standard item in US warship armories, and each BAR was accompanied by a spare barrel. Large capital ships often had over 200 BARs on board, with many of the US Navy BARs remaining in service well into the 1960s.
The BAR also saw action with US Marine Corps units participating in the Haitian and Nicaraguan
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
interventions, as well as with US Navy shipboard personnel in the course of patrol and gunboat duty along the Yangtze River in China. The First Marine Brigade stationed in Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...
, Haiti, noted that training a man to use the BAR proficiently took a full two days of range practice and instruction, compared to half a day with the .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun.
Prior to World War II both the US Army and Marine Corps had a separate BAR squad
In military terminology, a squad is among the smallest of military organizations and is led by a non-commissioned officer. NATO and US doctrine define a squad as an organization "larger than a team, but smaller than a section." while US Army do ...
together with three rifle squads in the "square" organisation of the time. When converting to the "triangular" organisation the separate BAR squad was eliminated with BARs going to each rifle squad.
World War II
When the threat of a new war arose, Ordnance belatedly realized that it had no portable, squad light machine gun, and attempted to convert the M1918 BAR to that role with the adoption of the M1918A2 by the US Army on 30 June 1938. The BAR was issued as the sole automatic fire support for a twelve-man squad,Rush, Robert S., ''The US Infantryman in World War II'', Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, (2003), p. 26 and all men were trained at the basic level how to operate and fire the weapon in case the designated operators were killed or wounded. At the start of the war, infantry companies designated three-man BAR teams, a gunner, an assistant gunner, and an ammunition bearer who carried additional magazines for the gun. By 1944, some units were using one-man BAR "teams" with the other riflemen in the squad detailed to carry additional magazines or bandoliers of .30 ammunition. Contrary to certain claims, the BAR was issued to soldiers of various heights.
As originally conceived, US Army tactical doctrine called for one M1918A2 per squad, using several men to support and carry ammunition for the gun. Fire and movement tactics centered on the M1 riflemen in the squad while the BAR man was detailed to support the riflemen in the attack and provide mobility to the riflemen with a base of fire. This doctrine received a setback early in the war after US ground forces encountered German troops, well-armed with automatic weapons including fast-firing, portable machine guns. In some cases, particularly in the attack, every fourth German infantryman was equipped with an automatic weapon, either a submachine gun or a full-power machine gun.
In an attempt to overcome the BAR's limited continuous-fire capability, US Army divisions increasingly began to specify two BAR fire teams per squad, following the practice of the US Marine Corps. One team would typically provide covering fire until a magazine was empty, whereupon the second team would open fire, thus allowing the first team to reload. In the Pacific, the BAR was often employed at the point or tail of a patrol or infantry column, where its firepower could help break contact on a jungle trail in the event of an ambush. After combat experience showed the benefits of maximizing portable automatic firepower in squad-size formations, the US Marine Corps began to increase the number of BARs in its combat divisions, from 513 per division in 1943 to 867 per division in 1945. A thirteen-man squad was developed, consisting of 3 four-man fire teams, with one BAR per fire team, or three BARs per squad. Instead of supporting the M1 riflemen in the attack, Marine tactical doctrine was focused around the BAR, with riflemen supporting and protecting the BAR gunner.
Despite the improvements in the M1918A2, the BAR remained a difficult weapon to master with its open bolt and strong recoil spring, requiring additional range practice and training to hit targets accurately without flinching. As a squad light machine gun, the BAR's effectiveness was mixed, since its thin, non-quick-change barrel and small magazine capacity greatly limited its firepower in comparison to genuine light machine guns such as the British Bren
The Bren gun was a series of light machine guns (LMG) made by Britain in the 1930s and used in various roles until 1992. While best known for its role as the British and Commonwealth forces' primary infantry LMG in World War II, it was also used ...
and the Japanese Type 96. The weapon's rate-reducer mechanism, a delicately balanced spring-and-weight system described by one ordnance sergeant as a "Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor.
Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadge ...
device", came in for much criticism, often causing malfunctions when not regularly cleaned. The bipod and buttstock rest (monopod), which contributed so much to the M1918A2's accuracy when firing prone on the rifle range, proved far less valuable under actual field combat conditions. The stock rest was dropped from production in 1942, while the M1918A2's bipod and flash hider were often discarded by individual soldiers and marines to save weight and improve portability, particularly in the Pacific Theater
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
of war. With these modifications, the BAR effectively reverted to its original role as a portable, shoulder-fired automatic rifle.
Due to production demands, war priorities, subcontractor issues, and material shortages, demand for the M1918A2 frequently exceeded supply, and as late as 1945 some Army units were sent into combat still carrying older, unmodified M1918 weapons.
After a period of service, ordnance personnel began to receive BARs with inoperable or malfunctioning recoil buffer mechanisms. This was eventually traced to the soldier's common practice of cleaning the BAR in a vertical position with the butt of the weapon on the ground, allowing cleaning fluid and burned powder to collect in the recoil buffer mechanism. Additionally, unlike the M1 rifle, the BAR's gas cylinder was never changed to stainless steel. Consequently, the gas cylinder frequently rusted solid from the use of corrosive-primered M2 service ammunition in a humid environment when not stripped and cleaned on a daily basis. While not without design flaws (a thin-diameter, fixed barrel that quickly overheated, limited magazine capacity, complex field-strip/cleaning procedure, unreliable recoil buffer mechanism, a gas cylinder assembly made of corrosion-prone metals, and many small internal parts), the BAR proved rugged and reliable enough when regularly field-stripped and cleaned.
During World War II, the BAR saw extensive service, both official and unofficial, with many branches of service. One of the BAR's most unusual uses was as a defensive aircraft weapon. In 1944, Captain Wally A. Gayda, of the USAAF Air Transport Command, reportedly used a BAR to return fire against a Japanese Army Nakajima fighter that had attacked his C-46
The Curtiss C-46 Commando is a twin-engine transport aircraft derived from the Curtiss CW-20 pressurised high-altitude airliner design. Early press reports used the name "Condor III" but the Commando name was in use by early 1942 in company pub ...
cargo plane over the Hump
The Hump was the name given by Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek and t ...
in Burma. Gayda shoved the rifle out his forward cabin window, emptying the magazine and apparently killing the Japanese pilot.
Korean War
The BAR continued in service in the Korean War. The last military contract for the manufacture of the M1918A2 was awarded to the Royal Typewriter Co. of Hartford, Connecticut, which manufactured a total of 61,000 M1918A2s during the conflict, using ArmaSteel cast receivers and trigger housings. In his study of infantry weapons in Korea, historian S.L.A. Marshall interviewed hundreds of officers and men in after-action reports on the effectiveness of various U.S. small arms in the conflict. General Marshall's report noted that an overwhelming majority of respondents praised the BAR and the utility of automatic fire delivered by a lightweight, portable small arm in both day and night engagements. In his autobiography ColonelDavid Hackworth
David Haskell Hackworth (November 11, 1930 – May 4, 2005), also known as Hack, was a prominent journalist, military journalist and a famous former United States Army colonel who was decorated in both the Korean War and Vietnam War. Hackworth ...
praised the BAR as 'the best weapon of the Korean War'.
A typical BAR gunner of the Korean War carried the twelve-magazine belt and combat suspenders, with three or four extra magazines in pockets. Extra canteens, .45 pistol, grenades, and a flak vest added still more weight. As in World War II, many BAR gunners disposed of the heavy bipod and other accoutrements of the M1918A2, but unlike the prior conflict the flash hider was always retained because of its utility in night fighting.
The large amounts of ammunition expended by BAR teams in Korea placed additional demands on the assistant gunner to stay in close contact with the BAR at all times, particularly on patrols. While the BAR magazines themselves always seemed to be in short supply, Gen. Marshall reported that "riflemen in the squad were markedly willing to carry extra ammunition for the BAR man".
In combat, the M1918A2 frequently decided the outcome of determined attacks by North Korean and Chinese communist forces. Communist tactical doctrine centered on the mortar and machine gun, with attacks designed to envelop and cut off United Nations forces from supply and reinforcement. Communist machine gun teams were the best-trained men in any given North Korean or Chinese infantry unit, skilled at placing their heavily camouflaged and protected weapons as close to UN forces as possible. Once concealed, they often surprised UN forces by opening fire at very short ranges, covering any exposed ground with a hail of accurately sighted machine gun fire. Under these conditions it was frequently impossible for US machine gun crews to move up their Browning M1919A4 and M1919A6 guns in response without taking heavy casualties; when they were able to do so, their position was carefully noted by the enemy, who would frequently kill the exposed gun crews with mortar or machine gun fire while they were still emplacing their guns. The BAR gunner, who could stealthily approach the enemy gun position alone (and prone if need be), proved invaluable in this type of combat.
During the height of combat, the BAR gunner was often used as the 'fire brigade' weapon, helping to bolster weak areas of the perimeter under heavy pressure by communist forces. In defense, it was often used to strengthen the firepower of a forward outpost. Another role for the BAR was to deter or eliminate enemy sniper fire. In the absence of a trained sniper, the BAR proved more effective than the random response of five or six M1 riflemen.
Compared to World War II, US infantry forces saw a huge increase in the number of night engagements. The added firepower of the BAR rifleman and his ability to redeploy to 'hot spots' around the unit perimeter proved indispensable in deterring night infiltration by skirmishers as well as repelling large-scale night infantry assaults.
While new-production M1918A2 guns were almost universally praised for faultless performance in combat, a number of malfunctions in combat were reported with armory-reconditioned M1918A2s, particularly weapons that had been reconditioned by Ordnance in Japan, which did not replace operating (recoil) springs as a requirement of the reconditioning program. After decades of complaints, ordnance addressed the problem of maintaining the problematic gas piston on the BAR by issuing disposable nylon gas valves. When the nylon valve became caked over with carbon, it could be discarded and replaced with a fresh unit, eliminating the tedious task of cleaning and polishing the valve with wire brush and GI solvent (frequently in short supply to line units).
Vietnam War
The M1918A2 was used in the early stages of the Vietnam War, when the US delivered a quantity of "obsolete", second-line small arms: This included the M1918A2, the M1919A6, M3A1 submachine gun, M2 carbine, and M1 Garand. to the South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
ese Army and associated allies, including the Montagnard hill tribespeople of South Vietnam. US Special Forces advisors frequently chose the BAR over currently available infantry weapons. As one Special Forces sergeant declared, "Many times since my three tours of duty in Vietnam I have thanked God for ... having a BAR that actually worked, as opposed to the jamming M16 ... We had a lot of Viet Cong infiltrators in all our pecial Forcescamps, who would steal weapons every chance they got. Needless to say, the most popular weapon to steal was the venerable old BAR."
Post-Vietnam use
Quantities of the BAR remained in use by theArmy National Guard
The Army National Guard (ARNG), in conjunction with the Air National Guard, is an organized Militia (United States), militia force and a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States A ...
up until the mid-1970s. Many recipients of US foreign aid adopted the BAR and used it into the 1980s and 1990s.
Users
*
*
*
*: Adopted in 1930, built under licence by Fabrique Nationale
*
*
*
*: A large number were seized from the Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
during the Chinese Civil War.
*: Used by nationalist forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequent Chinese Civil War, most of them armed with BARs or FN Mle 30s
*
*Gander, Terry J.; Hogg, Ian V. ''Jane's Infantry Weapons 1995/1996''. Jane's Information Group; 21 edition (May 1995). .
*: Colt commercial BAR. Anticastrists of the Brigade 2506 were also equipped with some M1918A2 BARs.
*
*: FN type D in 7.92 Mauser
*: FN Mle 30 and M1918 BAR
*: FN Mle 30 and Swedish m/21
*: Supplied to Free French forces during World War II and later used during Indochina War and Algerian War
The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
. Known as the ''Fusil-mitrailleur 7 mm 62 (C. 30) M. 18 (B. A. R.)''.
*: The Wehrmacht captured a number of Polish-made Browning wz. 1928 guns and used them until the end of World War II under the designation ''IMG 28(p)''
*
*
*: FN Model D in limited service.
*: Used FN Model Ds.
*: Used the M1918A2 as the ''Fucile Mitragliatore Browning (B.A.R.) cal. 7,62''.
*: Used some FN Mle 30s. Most of them were taken from disarmed Chinese forces with original markings removed to use Japanese markings. Used M1918A2 post-war by National Police Reserve.
* : The Armed Forces
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
received 1,198 M1918A2 before the Korean War, and 11,768 were in service with the Army by the end of the war. Also used as squad automatic weapon in early years of the Vietnam War by the ROK Forces in Vietnam.
*: Received from US Government during Laotian Civil War
The Laotian Civil War (1959–1975) was a civil war in Laos which was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. It is associated with the Cambodian Civil War and the Vietnam War ...
and Vietnam War.
*
*: Introduced to the Korps Mariniers
The Netherlands Marine Corps ( nl, Korps Mariniers) is the elite naval infantry corps of the Royal Netherlands Navy. The marines trace their origins back to the establishment of the on 10 December 1665, by the then grand pensionary of the Dutc ...
in 1943 with the creation of the Mariniersbrigade
The ''Mariniersbrigade'' ( en, Marine Brigade) was a Marines, marine unit set up by the Dutch government-in-exile during World War II, which existed between 1943 and 1949. It was formed as part of the Dutch contribution to the Allies of World War ...
. Known as the ''Browning Automatisch Geweer M.1918 A2'', 243 BARs were in use with the Mariniersbrigade. The Koninklijke Landmacht also used the M1918A2 whilst fighting in the Korean War under United Nations command.
*: The Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua used the BAR, first supplied by the US Marines and later by the US Military Assistance Program (MAP) continuously from 1932 to 1979.
*
*: used during the anti-Japanese guerillas and by the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the Hukbalahap Rebellion
The Hukbalahap Rebellion was a rebellion staged by former Hukbalahap or ''Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon'' (People's Army against the Japanese) soldiers against the Philippine government. It started during the Japanese occupation of the Philippin ...
*
*
*: Ex-French BARs used by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.
*: Used by the ARVN, most provided as surplus
*: Bought some Colt commercial BARs. Some ex-Polish wz. 1928
The Browning wz.1928 is a Polish version of the M1918 BAR. It was a light machine gun used by the Poles in World War II.
History
After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the Polish Army was equipped with all sorts of machine guns inherite ...
s also used during the war.
*
*
*: 25,000 bought from 1940, issued to the Home Guard units
*
*
*:FN Model D
See also
* FM 24/29 light machine gun *Kg m/40 light machine gun
The Kg m/40 was an automatic rifle used by the Swedish Army during the 1940s. A small number were also manufactured in Germany by Knorr-Bremse for the '' Wehrmacht'' and '' Waffen-SS'', under the name MG35/36A, though they were mostly nicknamed ...
* M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle
* Mendoza RM2
*Model 45A
The Model 45A was a .30 caliber bullpup battle rifle/light machine gun developed by the United States Army in the Philippines in 1945. The weapon existed in prototype or mockup form, but never entered production. The rifle was sparsely documente ...
*Mondragón rifle
The Mondragón rifle refers to one of two rifle designs developed by Mexican artillery officer General Manuel Mondragón. These designs include the straight-pull bolt-action M1893 and M1894 rifles, and Mexico's first self-loading rifle, the M1908 ...
*Ribeyrolles 1918 automatic carbine
The Ribeyrolles 1918 was an attempt to manufacture an automatic rifle for the Military of France, French forces. It was chambered in the experimental 8×35mm Cartridge (firearm), round, used straight blowback, was fed from a 25-round detachable ...
*Weibel M/1932
The Weibel M/1932 was a light machine gun concept of Danish origin and was considered to supplement the Madsen gun in Danish service. It was fed from a 20-round box magazine chambered in the intermediate 7×44mm round. This calibre was conside ...
Notes
References
* . * . * . * . * . * . * . *FM 23–15: Basic Field Manual — Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1918A2 (27 Aug 1940)
* . *
External links
FM 23-15 Basic Field Manual Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1918A2 with Bipod
*
YouTube animation showing mechanism of BAR 1918
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