"This .50 cal machine gun fires twice as fast as the " Topic

…. legendary Ma Deuce.

"The M2 heavy machine gun is an iconic weapon. When it entered service over eight decades ago, the gun quickly made its mark – and a deadly reputation.

It still serves today, with some modifications to make it easier to change the barrel.

But sometimes, you need more than the 550 rounds per minute that a Ma Deuce can send downrange. The problem is, you can't exactly put a meat chopper on a HMMWV. That said there is an option – and a cool one at that…."
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All well and good, until the battery goes flat. Then you would really pray for an old fashioned self powered weapon.

AN/M-3 will do that too, which is basically an aircraft-barrel Ma Deuce with an electric feed motor to keep up. Belts are heavy enough that feeding the next round is the limit on rate of fire (same as for Mk19 automatic grenade launchers).

You could get almost double the rate of fire of a M-2 by using a M-85. It came with a selector switch for Low/High rate of fire. High rate put you near 1000 rpm IIRC. In the M-60 series tank it was tempermental, usually due to feed shoot issues. It would fit well in a HMMWV turret with a place for the ammo can to sit next to it. It does have ammo compatibility issues with the M-2 as they use different links.

I think tempermental is a bit of an understatement. The M-60's never had a MG onboard worth a dang until the M-240.

Perhaps lightening the bolt a bit might help too.

From what I've read, that's how the Germans adjusted their MG firing rates in WWII.

Just for comparison, the 20mm gun on the F-16 shoots at 6,000 rpm.

Sure, but it has twice the barrels. Does mean that it's shooting at ~1000rpm per barrel, though. Having 500mph cold air blowing across the gun barrels really helps keep the gun cool!

The GAU8 30mm in the A10 'only' shoots about 3900-4200rpm, with seven barrels that works out to ~550-600rpm per barrel. Again, having 300mph cold air helps keep the gun cool.

On a ground mount, the only airflow is from the barrels turning, so you're limited in rate of fire to about 400rpm for long-term sustained fire. Even a standard Ma Deuce only shoots about 50rpm sustained (at ~500rpm cyclic rate).

Rate of fire has never been an issue. It has been the ability to keep feeding the gin with ammo. So if you run out does it really matter if it was fast or really fast. You are still out.

In my Cavalry platoon, I had 11 in my lagoon.

Like I said, a Ma Deuce only shoots at about 50rpm sustained. For air cooling on a ground mount, that GAU19 is limited to about 400rpm per barrel, and it's still only going to throw a ~1sec burst downrange most of the time.

When you'd really, really NEED that ROF is a situation like Blackhawk Down, and even then if you run out of ammo before the mob decides you're too dangerous to fight, you're dead.