AA52 French GPMG For The Cold War And Beyond
Medium & GPMGs
•
35m
The experience of WW2 made it obvious to the French that a modular GPMG was a far more sensible concept than the role specific MGs and LMGs used until 1940 and that the advances in firearms manufacturing provided an ideal opportunity to fully embrace the concept. The fruit of the project came in the shape of the AA52, a simple and sturdy GPMG that is still in service in a limited role to this day on land, sea and air (ANF1 version in 308).
Up Next in Medium & GPMGs
-
MG-3: Germany Modernizes the Classic ...
When the Bundeswehr was formed, it chose to simply continue using the MG42 as its standard GPMG. This was initially done by converting older MG42s to 7.62x51mm NATO as the MG1 (adopted in 1958), but progressed to production of a brand new version of the gun by Rheinmetall (adopted in 1968). The M...
-
Adenauer's Zipper: the Bundeswehr MG-...
When the Bundeswehr chose its small arms after World War Two, it saw non reason to move away from the iconic MG-42...but the new weapons needed to be in NATO standard calibers. And so the MG-3 was born: an MG-42 improved in several small ways and rechambered for the 7.62x51mm NATO round. Today we...
-
DS-39: The Failed Soviet Machine Gun ...
The Soviet Union recognized the need for a modernized machine gun to replace the Maxim, and in the late 1920s Degtyarev began work on a “universal” type of gun. This would be air cooled, use standard Maxim belts and 7.62x54R ammunition, and used as a tripod mounted infantry gun, a vehicle mounte...