12.7mm Russian and Chinese .50-caliber Machine Guns

By G&A Staff

Whenever one hears mention of a .50-caliber machine gun, or “fifty-cal” in common U.S. military parlance, the designs of John Browning most frequently come to mind. Specifically, the M2 .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun (BMG), nicknamed “Ma Deuce,” and its variants have been in use by the U.S. and most western militaries for nearly a century. However, outside the U.S. and western sphere of influence, most of the world’s militaries more commonly associate the .50-caliber (12.7mm) heavy machine gun with two Russian designers: Vasily Degtyarov and Georgi Shpagin.

Both Degtyarov and Shpagin were accomplished Russian smallarms designers in the interwar years. During the Second World War, machine guns designed by both men were widely issued to Russian troops and their allies. Degtyarov developed the DP-series Light Machine Gun (LMG), which was the standard Russian infantry squad light machine gun, serving a role similar to the American BAR and the British Bren LMGs. The heavy-barrel DT variant of the DP was used in many Russian armored vehicles in a coaxial mounting, while the DA variant was used in …Read the Rest

Source:: Guns and Ammo