The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle - In the Movies

the m1918 browning automatic rifle is commonly known as the bar or bar it's a big imposing weapon that had a long service between 1918 and 1972 with the us military hollywood got a lot of mileage with this gun as it's not only regularly seen in world war ii movies but used in many gangster films with the firearm historically being used to outgun law enforcement by well-known gangs and criminals of the 1920s and 30s originally the bar was designed to provide mobile automatic fire during world war one the bar's unique design for the time would allow it to be slung and mounted to the hip to provide walking fire to suppress trenches while infantry advanced towards the enemy however the bar would only see brief service at the end of world war one but it made an impression on allied forces and france alone ordered fifteen thousand however france would end up developing their own light machine gun based on the bar design with the weapon's success in the united states and abroad various versions would be developed notably by fn in europe and cult in the united states in the majority of gangster movies you will see original m1918s or the colt monitor the hell is that it's colt monitor machine rifle which featured a pistol grip and shorter barrel along with a cuts compensator this weapon was sold to law enforcement agencies in an attempt to even the odds against the heavily armed organized criminals of the 1920s and 1930s often outgunning police departments armed with shotguns and pistols bonnie and clyde are both known to use bars ironically the scene featured in the highwayman movie where bonnie and clyde are ambushed it was documented that a cult monitor was used in this very event and the movie paid tribute to this detail by the time a second world war was threatening europe and asia the us army had no designated squad light machine gun the army would again look to the bar which would be converted to fit this role as the m1918 a2 and would be officially adopted by the us army largely in part because it was reliable and what they had on hand the new variant eliminated the semi-auto feature and replaced it with two settings for the rifle slow automatic fire firing around 300 rounds a minute and fast automatic fire firing around five to six hundred rounds a minute you would explain the math of this to me the automatic rifle would also have a bipod mounted to it in a squad of 12 there would be one bar which could in theory provide the same suppressing fire as eight riflemen in practice the bar augmented the rate of fire of squadrons and wasn't relied on in the same way other light machine guns of the time were the army and marines experimented with different tactics using the bar including adding an extra bar to squads allowing for alternating fire during reloading in the pacific three bar fire teams per squad showed success towards the end of the war with marines stripping their bars of their heavy accessories taking advantage of the mobile firepower of the bar ironically the original minimalist m1918 was five pounds lighter and better in this where's your role bottom of the channel side you could try to drown me find a replacement as a light machine gun the bar simply lacked the magazine capacity magazines were slow to change the barrel couldn't be changed at all and tactics didn't always favor dedicated support for the weapon don't compare this weapon to true light machine guns like the excellent bren they are not truly the same class of weapon the bar made a poor dedicated light machine gun however at 20 pounds could be fired off the shoulder and used as an automatic rifle albeit a heavy one bribing where's the cabinet from you figure that one out you got yourself a nice prize the bar was a reliable and accurate weapon with a sight adjustable to 1500 yards and it made excellent groupings with three round bursts ultimately the bar worked as well as it did in american squadrons as standard us infantry weapons were all excellent automatic and semi-automatic weapons which were less reliant on light machine guns allowing the bar to play a more versatile role all right i'm johnny thank you for watching this quick brief on the bar with some help from hollywood please feel free to add any bar related information in the comment section and we'll see you in the next video

Channel: Johnny Johnson

Views: 1,518,310

Keywords: M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, bar, bar rifle, automatic rifle, ww2 weapons, ww2, war movies, ww2 movies, browning rifle, browning machine gun

Id: X_GcnZxw99k

Length: 4min 51sec (291 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021