minutes away is one of the greatest single morale boosters for troops in combat. Also, at least one utility helicopter will probably be a flying command post for each brigade commander, or his deputy. This provides instant “high ground” when the commander needs to see the battlefield. One other important role is that of electronic warfare (EW). The 82nd’s Military Intelligence Battalion is assigned three EH-60 Quick Fix EW helicopters to provide communications direction finding and jamming services.
Heavy Support Weapons
For most soldiers, there is no weapon like a heavy weapon if you have a tough objective to take or hold. Under such conditions, having a machine gun, grenade launcher, or mortar can make all the difference between taking an objective or suffering a bloody repulse. The weapons that we are about to look at all provide such services for infantry forces, though some are so heavy that an HMMWV weapons carrier will be required to move them around the battlefield. Still, these are essential tools for any infantry force trying establish a base of fire to support combat operations.
Browning M2 HB.50-caliber (12.7mm) Machine Gun
The heavy machine gun is a specialist weapon, found mainly in the heavy weapons (“Delta”) company of an infantry battalion. A burst of heavy machine gun fire can shred a wooden building or a truck, and penetrate the side or rear of many armored vehicles at short range. The “fifty” or “deuce,” as it is known, is a rugged, accurate, and reliable recoil-operated weapon designed by John M. Browning. “Recoil-operated” means that an ingenious mechanism of levers, cams, and springs captures some of the recoil energy or “kick” from the powerful cartridge in order to extract and eject the spent cartridge case, cock the firing pin, advance the ammunition belt, and feed the next round. The “fifty” was originally built as a water-cooled heavy machine gun, and entered service with the U.S. Army in 1919, just a bit too late for the First World War. The air-cooled HB (heavy-barrel) model was developed during the 1920s.
During the Second World War, the M2 was the main armament of many Allied aircraft, and was mounted on every class of Navy ship, as well as on a wide variety of Army vehicles and ground mountings. After the war, the Army used it mainly as a short-ranged antiaircraft weapon. By itself, the gun weighs 84 lb/38 kg, and each 100- round box of belted ammunition weighs 35 lb/16 kg. The rate of fire is an impressive 550 rounds per minute. The theoretical maximum range is 4.2 mi/6.8 km, and the M2 has actually been used for indirect fire at high angles of elevation to create a “fire-beaten zone” on the far side of a hill. The practical maximum range for aimed direct fire is about 1 mi/1.6 km. The copper-plated steel.50-caliber projectile has a superb aerodynamic shape, and there are many kinds of ammunition, including ball (solid), armor-piercing, tracer, armor-piercing incendiary, and blank (for training). In the 82nd Airborne the M2 is mainly used on a pintle mount on top of the Hummer light vehicle. It also backs up the Stinger missiles in the turret on the Avenger air defense vehicle, and it is often carried in a pod mount on the side of OH-58D scout helicopters. Amazingly, after seventy years, the M2 remains in production. This is in spite of the fact that although the gun itself never wears out, we need to maintain the tooling and industrial base to produce spare parts and barrels. The current contractor is Saco Defense, Inc., in Maine, and the 1996 unit cost for a new one was $14,000.
M-240G Medium Machine Gun
The M60 7.62mm machine gun, based on the World War II German MG-42 design, gave the U.S. Army many years of good service, but it was mechanically complex, and prone to jamming. It has been replaced in active Army units by the M240G, a ground-based version of the original M240 manufactured by the Belgian Fabrique Nationale firm as a coaxial machine gun for tanks and other armored vehicles. The cyclic rate of fire is 650 to 950 rounds per minute (rpm), but there are settings for 200 rpm (“rapid fire”) and 100 rpm (“sustained fire”). The effective range is 1.1 mi/1.8 km. The M240G is modified for ground use by installing an “infantry modification kit,” comprising a flash suppresser, front sight, carrying handle for the barrel, buttstock, pistol grip, bipod, and rear sight assembly. The weight (without ammunition) is only 24.2 1b/11 kg. The main ammunition types are ball, tracer, and blank. In the 82nd Airborne, the M240G is normally found in the heavy weapons platoon of the rifle company. The M240G can also be rigged as a door gun on transport helicopters.
The improved durability of the M240 system results in superior reliability and maintainability compared to the old M60. In the words of one Marine officer, “Unlike the M60, this gun works.” During field tests, more than fifteen thousand rounds were fired through each prototype M240, with very few jams or breakdowns. The M60, in contrast, required barrel changes every hundred rounds.
Mark 19 Mod. 3 40mm Machine Gun
Originally developed to arm river patrol boats of the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, the Mk 19 is actually a fully automatic 40mm grenade launcher. After a long and troubled development period (it was nicknamed the “Dover Dog”), the Mk 19 entered service in 1981. The Army took over management of the program in 1988, and gradually the level of reliability has grown. The Mk 19 was designed to fit on the same mountings as the.50-caliber machine gun, and fires the same 40mm ammunition as the Army’s M203 or M79 single-shot grenade launchers.
The stubby, belt-fed Mk 19 weighs 72.5 lb/33 kg and uses the simple “blowback” principle to feed the ammunition. This has the bolt and receiver assembly recoiling against a heavy spring, catching the next round and firing it on the rebound. The cyclic rate of fire is over 300 rpm, but the practical rate is about 40 rpm in short bursts. Against point targets, like vehicles or buildings, the maximum effective range is around 1,500 meters/1,640 yards. Against area targets, like an entrenched enemy position, the maximum range is 2,200 meters/2,400 yards. The explosive fragmentation round can kill or wound exposed personnel for a radius of 5 meters/16.4 feet, and the antiarmor round can penetrate up to 2 in/51 mm of armor plate. In the 82nd Airborne, the Mk 19 is found mainly in the weapons platoon of the infantry company, mounted on the roof of a Hummer. It is also mounted on the 5-ton truck, and can be fired from a tripod mount on the ground.
Mortars
Mortars are the infantry company and battalion commander’s personal “vest-pocket” artillery. Unlike the big guns, which traditionally require meticulous procedures for plotting fire in advance, observing the fall of shots, and adjusting fire, mortars are “shoot and scoot” weapons. Not very accurate, but they stay close to the action, and move with the troops. Modern armies (including ours) deploy “mortar locating radars” which can track the trajectory of a mortar shell, compute the position of the mortar, and direct artillery to saturate the area with
