#M60

Photo Of The Day and we’re looking at Royal Army Danish soldiers assigned to the 2nd Armoured Infantry Battalion Jutland Dragoon Regiment, as they conduct offensive operations during Exercise Firm Stallion in Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany on April 30, 2024.

Photo Of The Day – Established in 2014 this is TFB’s way to show carefully selected photographs on a daily basis. Today we have photos of the Danish Army’s 2nd Armored Infantry Battalion soldiers. They are conducting a live-fire exercise called “Wild Leopard”. The location is the well-known Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany. The purpose of the exercise was to train platoon and company-sized infantry forces together in wooded and urban terrain

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves discusses the history of the M60 machine gun and some of its little-known advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, James reviews reports from the U.S. Army that discuss the effectiveness, range, accuracy, and reliability of the M60. We also look at tests pitting the M60 against its bitter rivals from FN, including the M249 SAW and the M240 or MAG58. While the M60 has been mostly replaced, was this the best idea?

Today’s Photo shows Army Specialist Leslie Sabo Jr., who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Vietnam War while serving with the 101st Airborne Division.

On the heels of the re-naming of their Stoner LMG as the Lightweight Assault Machine Gun (LAMG), Knight’s Armament company has introduced a scaled-up version of the same weapon in the 7.62x51mm caliber, with provision for other calibers should they be requested. The new machine gun is patterned after the Stoner LMG/LAMG, and features the same short top cover and fixed receiver rail of its smaller cousin. The other components, such as the barrel, feed tray, etc, are all scaled up to fit the larger caliber, resulting in a heavier unloaded weight of approximately 12.5lbs – still far, far lighter than an M240 or other traditional Western 7.62mm belt fed machine guns. According to KAC representatives, the new weapon does not yet have an official name, but “Medium Assault Machine Gun sounds as good as anything.”

The Reising is an example of a firearm design that worked perfectly in the rear but performed horribly in actual combat conditions. It was a Second World War era submachine gun that had much potential but ultimately failed the big test down range in use by frontline infantry units. Suffering from poor quality control, awkward controls, and a low magazine capacity, the Reising was readily discarded by Marines in the Pacific in favor of literally any other small arm than the submachine gun. However, this didn’t completely doom the 120,000 Reisings made during the Second World War as a large number were picked up by police departments across the United States and abroad. These law enforcement officials found the Reising to be ideal for their purposes, being much cheaper than most equivalent submachine guns. It wasn’t being utilized in the jungles of Guadalcanal, thus it proved to be much more reliable on in urban environments where it could be easily kept clean and maintained.

While we were at SHOT James, Steve, and I felt it was a good idea to take our camera crew to Battlefield Vegas. After all, this is the only place in town that can really excite the discerning gun nerd after a week at the world’s largest gun expo. If you were going to loose your gun virginity all over again, wouldn’t you want it to be with a super model? I mean, it’s an MP7 for your first range experience!

The Small Arms Survey is a global center with a mandate to “generate evidence-based, impartial, and policy-relevant knowledge on all aspects of small arms and armed violence“.

In World War I, the Germans developed a secret technology that helped them dominate the skies during 1915 and early 1916. The tech? A device that synchronized the firing of a machine gun with the rotation of an aircraft’s propeller, allowing accurate low-mounted forward-firing weapons on warplanes for the first time.

Still in use today with the US military, albeit at a reduced capacity, the M60 machine gun is a well-known force to be reckoned with. With its ability to controllably lay down suppressive fire, “The Pig” (as it was affectionately known), was the back-bone of the infantry squad through the Vietnam War. The weapon was often cited as the single reason a wave attack was repulsed.

Washington County Tactical Range is located in Southwest Pennsylvania. They are just over 40 miles south west of Pittsburgh, near the West Virginia/Pennsylvania border.  I discovered them through a Facebook group: TGTC – The Shooter’s Group. TGTC (The Green Tips Connection) had a get together shoot/mini contest at the Washington County Tactical Range back in April which I attended.

The period from 1945-1970 did not represent the figurative finest hour in US small arms design. From the problematic M60, to too little too late M14, to the disastrous initial fielding of the M16, US small arms design during the time seemed to simultaneously reach to far and grasp too little. One family of firearms that was a product of this period of development was a short-action armored fighting vehicle secondary machine gun design, incarnated in the M73 7.62mm and M85 .50 caliber, and later M219 7.62mm types. (EDIT: I don’t really think the M85 should be thrown in there, as it’s a substantially different design, though it shares some features with the M73 and M219. Mea culpa.)

Vickers Tactical has posted up a video showcasing the M60E6 “Pig” in b-e-a-utiful slow motion. Not content to showcase only an original M60, Vickers Tactical had access to US Ordnances latest M60E6 variant. The E6 was just picked up by the Danish military and features US Ordnance’s Stellite-lined barrels for increased heat mitigation.

Though I’m spending most of my time this Saturday hitting a stack of thick books as part of my ongoing research, I wouldn’t want to leave our readers hanging. So, today we’ll take a look at an older – but still extremely impressive – video from back in the dawn of YouTube. That is, an excruciatingly brutal 2006 test of an M60E4 of firing 850 rounds with a single pull of the trigger:

Akaitama sent us these photos he took of a M60 Light Machine Gun he used during Reserve infantry battle formation training. His staff sergeant said the gun had been used in the War in Laos (1953-75). This would make it about three times as old as the men who train with it.