MACHINE GUNS, LIGHT, MEDIUM, HEAVY - MACHINE [AUTOMATIC] CANNON

THIS 62 PAGE BOOKLET CONTAINES OVER 100 PHOTOS AND INCLUDES SEVERAL PAGES OF PATENTS / APPLICATIONS. ALL INCLUSIVE IS A HISTORY, CLASSIFICATION OF VARIOUS PATTERNS AND GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS.

THE AUTHOR

KIJIRO NAMBU

NAMBU MACHINE PISTOLS

THE AUTHOR

KIJIRO NAMBU

NAMBU MACHINE PISTOLS

ARTICLES

AIR CRAFT WEAPONS

From some 230 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES,

this literary work is composed of

542 PAGES with

686 ILLUSTRATIONS, including patent drawings and descriptions.

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THIS 62 PAGE BOOKLET CONTAINES OVER 100 PHOTOS AND INCLUDES SEVERAL PAGES OF PATENTS / APPLICATIONS. ALL INCLUSIVE IS A HISTORY, CLASSIFICATION OF VARIOUS PATTERNS AND GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS.

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DEFINITIONS
MACHINE GUNS, LIGHT, MEDIUM, HEAVY - MACHINE [AUTOMATIC] CANNON

MACHINE GUNS, LIGHT, MEDIUM, HEAVY
The term “machine gun” in itself generally refers to an automatic weapon of less than 25 mm although some international references use 20 mm as dividing point between terms of gun and cannon.

The subject of classifying a machine gun as light, medium or heavy has been in controversy since machine guns were invented. Manufactures used the term as a tool in describing them for promotional purposes. Governments and military coined the terms as pertaining to weight and/or caliber. Each had a legitimate motive in their terms for classification however when automatic weapons became a worldwide industry, individual countries followed and maintained their own definitions without a common
boundary among the various nations.

European nomenclature used a method of classifying shoulder weapons with bipods as light machine guns. Tripod mounted small caliber machine guns were classified as medium machine guns and heavy machine guns were of a caliber larger than .45 and generally considered in the 12.7- 13.2 mm class.

The United States labeled the shoulder; bipod mounted Browning BAR as an automatic rifle; [The French called theirs a machine rifle]. Bipod or tripod mounted air-cooled small caliber weapons were known as light machine guns. Small caliber water-cooled and the .50 caliber water and/or air cooled were termed as heavy machine guns. All of these definitions were not without exception.

It is difficult to standardize on a universal definition for each category, as the caliber vs. weight is a contradiction in itself when comparing automatic weapons by their true nomenclature from different countries. An example is of the Model 1900 series of Hotchkiss machine guns. It was termed by the using European countries as a heavy machine gun although the calibers were in the 8mm range. When the Japanese started producing the weapon in Japan and in the smaller caliber of 6.5mm they continued the term use of heavy machine gun thusly setting a technical nomenclature pattern based on weight. This continued throughout their army’s development of automatic weapons even with caliber sizing changes. Bipod, tripod, shoulder fired, caliber sizing was so diversified in their army’s weapon armament only a few types were formally categorized. The designations, which have been previously recorded, are generally terms labeled by the United States and allied nations for identification purposes.

For purposes of these works the usage of terms to categorize a certain machine gun is of formal Japanese identification and those not categorized will be described in detail in a manner to identify the intended purpose.

MACHINE [AUTOMATIC] CANNON
Automatic weapons in the 25mm to 40 mm are generally classed as automatic or machine cannons.