machine gun

A firearm designed for sustained automatic fire. Machine guns are distinguished from assault rifles and battle rifles by size and ammunition capacity. Machine guns are divided into three categories:

• Light machine gun: Fires intermediate-power cartridges (except earlier and World War II-era designs like the Bren). Light enough to be operated by one personnel. Are either belt-fed or magazine-fed.
• Medium and general-purpose machine gun: Fire full-power rifle cartridges and serve in both infantry and emplaced roles. It typically require a crew to operate, due to their bulk.
• Heavy machine gun: Fires large-caliber cartridges (at least 12 mm but less than 20 mm), dedicated for anti-materiel role. Because of their weight and large size, HMGs are typically restricted to stationary positions.

See also

• autocannon
• Gatling gun
• minigun
• List of weapons

The following tags are aliased to this tag: general-purpose_machine_gun and machinegun (learn more).

This tag implicates gun (learn more).

The following tags implicate this tag: heavy_machine_gun, light_machine_gun, m240, m60_(machine_gun), maxim_gun, mg3, mg34, mg42, pk_machine_gun, pkm, pkp_pecheneg, sig_mg338, and type_99_light_machine_gun (learn more).