A little , but.... Sa a photo of a German MG team with a Browning .50. Uniforms look early war. I know they were made in the US prior to the war. And FN was also producing them from the 20s. What other nations used them pre war and were any chambered for something other than .50 HMG? I'm curious on how prevalent German use was.

Is it the picture you're talking about ?



According to the caption it was taken in June 1944 in Normandy...

H.P.

Here's the photo. There wasn't a caption on it when I saw it. Gunner looks like he has a dark (green?)collar
on his tunic which is why I thought
early war.

Could be Tunisia (42/43) or in Italy.

Not so interested in the photo but what countries had them before Lend Lease (if FN was making them they weren't for US consumption.) and if any were chambered for something other than .50 BMG.

Frenchy's photo wasn't coming up earlier. Looking at it now .... what type sight is that mounted on it?

"Some years later, he developed the famous .50 cal M2 machine gun, which was manufactured by FN Herstal from the thirties. This machine gun is still widely used today, either on tripods or mounted on a wide variety of vehicles, boats and ships."

https://web.archive.org/web/20110927060025/http://www.fnherstal.com/index.php?id=655

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning#cite_note-35

"FN Browning M.1939
An important derivative of the M2 Browning is the Mitrailleuse d´Avion Browning - F.N. Calibre 13,2 mm, more commonly known as the FN Browning M.1939. The FN Browning M.1939 was a heavily modified M2 Browning for aircraft use designed by FN Herstal for export. Their aim was to make a light, reliable heavy machine gun with the same damage output as a 20 mm autocannon. To achieve this they raised the firing rate to 1080 rpm and gave it a more powerful cartridge in form of the 13.2x99 mm Hotchkiss.[89] This cartridge was basically a .50 BMG but with a 13.2 mm bullet (.52 in) and more explosive propellant. Besides the new cartridge they designed a new bullet exclusively for this gun. The bullet was of a high explosive type and was designed to take down a small aircraft with a single hit. Tests showed that it was very effective against both cloth and aluminum skinned aircraft.[90]

Due to the aforementioned improvements the gun received interest from numerous nations when it entered the export market in 1939. Due to the start of World War 2 and the invasion of Belgium it was exported to only Romania and Sweden.[91] Sweden was able to buy the majority of the weapons along with the blueprints to produce the weapon on their own without paying for a license. In Sweden the weapon received the designation Automatkanon m/39, short Akan m/39, meaning Autocannon m/39 and was later produced by Ericsson as the Akan m/39A. Sweden also gave the blueprints to Finland so they could produce the weapon. Since Finland was already producing 12.7 mm ammunition, the Finnish variant was rechambered to 12.7 mm (.50 bmg). The Finnish variant was designated VKT 12,70 LKk/42 and was produced by the state of Finland.[92][verification needed]"

Interesting. Looks like FN made M2s also. Wonder how many Germany got when the overran Belgium. And how much used they were. (more of a logistics headache than they were worth.) When would the Germans have started getting their hands on US ones in numbers? I'm thinking after Torch. (Lend Lease stuff was getting to the Brits and Russia prior to, but the Brits did not seem too fond of .50s on their tanks ... or any other mg for the TC. Most of the photos I've seen the lend lease Shermans were either slick or had an M1919.