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The Dark Reason Germans Hated American M2 .50 Cal | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Dark Reason Germans Hated American M2 .50 Cal
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Core Theme
The M2 Browning machine gun, developed from a World War I need for heavier firepower against emerging armored threats, evolved into a versatile and devastating weapon that significantly impacted World War II and remains in service today due to its adaptability and the potent .50 BMG cartridge.
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While the Allies hated German machine
guns in World War II for their
incredibly high rate of fire, the
Germans, on the other hand, hated the
incredible power of the M2 Browning and
its 50BMG cartridge. After all, it
didn't get nicknames like meat chopper
and crout for nothing. But the real
story is actually much darker and well,
as you could imagine, after being hit by
such a round, more gruesome. Okay, so
let's go back now and explain why and
how what would turn out to be the M2 was
created. In World War I, it was realized
how important effective machine guns
were. But during that time, machine guns
were firing the same ammunition as
infantry rifles. And as new wonders of
the battlefield emerged, like the first
armored planes and tanks, they showed
the need for something with a heavier
punch. So, General John Persing
specifically demanded a new machine gun
that could destroy these things much
more effectively than the 30 caliber
machine guns they had. That request was
given to John Browning, America's most
famous gun designer. He got the
requirements to create a new machine gun
that would fire a half-inch round at a
velocity over 2700 feet per second,
which was a significant jump from
anything he had designed before. He then
took his already reliable M191730
caliber water cooled machine gun and
basically scaled it up to fire a new
much larger cartridge. That new
cartridge was also a scaled up version
of the 3006 with a specific request to
be rimless for smoother feeding and with
some inspiration from the captured
German 13.2 2 mm anti-tank rifle
cartridge. It became the 50BMG or 12.7
by 99 mm. They didn't know it at the
time, but they had created one of the
most effective cartridges that was soon
about to have plenty of use on the
battlefield. After some back and forth,
the first prototype was ready for
testing and soon entered production as
the M1921, a water cooled, heavy machine
gun intended mostly for anti-aircraft
use. It was then tested to see where
else it could be used. And at first, it
wasn't looking very promising.
Infantrymen couldn't handle it as it was
too heavy to carry. Weighing about 120
lbs in the water cooled version or £84
for the lighter air cooled model with
the tripod adding another £44. So a
complete ground setup ranging between
130 and 170 lb plus all the ammo for it
which also wasn't light was not giving a
promising future. Not to mention it had
substantial recoil making it difficult
to fire accurately. Smaller aircraft of
the time also couldn't make much use of
it. And for vehicle use mounted in early
small turrets, it was also problematic
as it could be fed only from the left
side. So at first the only real use was
as an anti-aircraft coastal gun, but no
one could imagine just how everything
would soon change. John Browning passed
away in 1926, but development continued
and his design was refined. Internal
parts were changed so the feeding could
be quickly switched between left or
right side feed by changing the top
cover. and a universal receiver was
developed on which could be mounted
either a water cooled barrel with its
jacket, a heavy air cooled barrel or a
light air cooled barrel for aircraft
use. This concept now began looking
promising and with other smaller
improvements, the gun got the
designation M2 Browning machine gun.
During this time, other nations had
turned to heavier weapons like 20 or 30
mm cannons. But the Americans believed
the 50 caliber's high velocity and
adaptability would still make it
effective. So, it stayed in production.
and just how effective it would be was
now going to be found out as the new
global conflict began. And the M2 turned
into the legendary Marduce. 50 caliber
or just 50 as soldiers would soon be
calling it. Muse, if you didn't know,
was coined from the words mother and
deuce, meaning two. Something like
mother of machine guns. And it turned
out to be quite close to that. Now, as
World War II broke out, the United
States already had M2s serving in
multiple roles. Fixed aircraft guns,
anti-aircraft guns mounted on ships,
bombers, or vehicles. and of course on
tripod mounts for infantry use.
Effective against almost anything they
might encounter on the battlefield. At
first, the biggest use was on aircraft
with lighter barrels and a tuned up rate
of fire from around 500 to about 1,200
rounds per minute. Remember, this is
almost the same rate of fire as the
German MG42, although it was meant only
for short bursts and was tuned up so
much because on aircraft or
anti-aircraft use, you'd have only a
shorttime window before your targets got
out of sight. And in some
configurations, the M2 really reached
absurd levels. Like for example, you've
all heard of the B17 Flying Fortress
Bomber, which used M2s for protection
against enemy fighter interceptors. In
the G model, it carried up to 13 of them
mounted in twin configurations in
various turrets. The fighter bomber P47
Thunderbolt had eight of them, four in
each wing. While the Douglas A26 Invader
took this to another level with, listen
to this, up to 18 M2s, mounting eight in
the nose, four in each wing, and two in
the turret. The M2 immediately proved to
be a significant improvement over
lighter around 30 caliber machine guns
early in the war, and had that neat
balance between rate of fire and single
round power. More than enough to down an
enemy fighter or bomber aircraft. It
could easily go through engine blocks,
especially with armor-piercing rounds.
And when you have several of them firing
at the same time, it's dangerous for
anything on the battlefield. American
fighter planes would strafe locomotives,
armored vehicles, and even tanks with
great effectiveness since the roof armor
was always thinner. Very soon into the
war, the heavy barrel variant became a
must-have on almost all tanks and
vehicles and wherever else they could
mount it. Already by 1945, millions of
M2s had been produced, making it the
most produced machine gun ever. And the
Germans were frustrated that American
heavy machine guns were simply
everywhere on the battlefield. This also
made every attack from low-flying
fighter aircraft or dive bombers like
the Stooka much riskier because almost
every jeep halftrack and tank had a 50.
This is why on tanks the M2 was mounted
on the back of the turret and operated
by a soldier standing on the engine
deck. This way it could fire upward in
case of an air attack, although the
gunner was outside the relative safety
of his tank. Before we get into battle,
here is an explanation in case you ever
wondered why Browning's barrel goes back
after firing. The M2 operates on the
short recoil principle where the barrel
and bolts start locked together and move
rearward as one unit after firing. That
keeps the cartridge case supported while
chamber pressure is still high so it
would not rupture when extraction
begins. After traveling backwards some
10 mm, the barrel stops and the bolt
continues rearward on its own,
extracting and ejecting the spent case.
As it moves, it compresses the recoil
spring which pushes the bolt forward
again, extracting a new round from the
disintegrating belt, chambers it and
fires again, repeating the process for
as long as the trigger is pressed. Now,
let us talk about how the Germans looked
upon them and why they hated the 50s for
several reasons. The first and most
obvious one is that Americans began
relying more and more on overwhelming
firepower as their main tactic. And the
Germans, of course, were terrified by
it. The Americans never suffered from a
lack of ammo like the Germans did. And
it seemed that anything with wheels or
wings on the battlefield had at least
one heavy machine gun. Getting shot at
by 50 cals is nowhere near the same as
smaller caliber rounds. And they
significantly outrange lighter machine
guns. Just look at the difference
between the 8 mm mouser round the MG42
fired and the 50 caliber beside it. The
50 delivers between 5 and 10 times more
energy than all other weapons used by
the infantry. So, if you were fighting
from a house, for example, concrete or
brick walls would not protect you
anymore as the rounds would either go
through the wall and kill you, or if not
with the first round, a longer burst
concentrated on one spot would collapse
the whole wall section or shred your
sandbag bunker. Even better armored
tanks like the Panza 4 when hit by heavy
50 caliber fire could let some rounds
slip through, especially from the side
or rear or have their optics and tracks
damaged or turret jammed. lightly
armored Japanese tanks in the Pacific,
for example, were knocked out by the 50s
easily, especially when they came in
banzai charges, which happened on
multiple occasions. Surprising American
tankers who opened up on them with
everything they had. There is also one
controversial thing about the 50 in
World War II, and that is the myth that
it was said to have been banned by the
Geneva Conventions because of its
devastating effect on the human body.
This was a myth, but the effect on the
body was not exaggerated. Basically, if
you are hit by a 50 in any part of the
body, you are either going to lose that
part if surviving without it is possible
or you're going to die. And many German
soldiers were unfortunate enough to
witness that. When the 50 BMG's energy
transferred to a human body, it created
an effect so gruesome that we can't even
describe it here because of YouTube, but
I'm sure you get the idea. If it can do
that to a wall or a watermelon, imagine
what it does to a human body. So, now
you understand the German soldiers
concern about it. They adapted their
tactics to counter American heavy
machine gun positions, shifting from
direct assaults to taking them out with
snipers, tanks, or indirect fire with
mortars and artillery. And to add on top
of that, the Germans never had anything
like it. Their heavy machine gun of the
war was the MG42 or the MG34 when
mounted on the Lefett tripod, which was
considered the heavy machine gun
configuration. And while the Lefet
tripod was really ingenious and gave
German machine guns extreme accuracy and
greater range, the 8 mm Mouser round
they were firing had nowhere near the
punch the 50BMG had. The closest thing
to the M2 the Germans had was their 13
mm heavy machine gun, but it was used
only on fighter aircraft. The Germans
did plan to use captured M2s mounted on
hubot as anti-aircraft weapons when they
had to surface to charge batteries. And
they even produced copies of 50 BMG
rounds for this purpose, which shows
they respected it, although actual use
occurred only in rare cases. Now, before
we get into some terrifying
modifications of the M2 machine gun,
let's take a look at the different round
types they are shooting. The standard
one was ball full metal jacket with some
serious destructive force, of course,
but there are also specialized exotic
variants making it even more effective.
Firstly, we have several versions of
armor-piercing rounds that could
penetrate around an inch of hardened
steel. Then we have incendury rounds
designed to ignite flammable material
which is quite effective when you shoot
at enemy aircraft for example. So on top
of its fuel leaking upon hit, it could
also be easily ignited. There are
armor-piercing incenduries combining
both functions of the two rounds
previously mentioned. Armor-piercing
incendury tracer, as the name suggests,
adds a tracer element for spotting hits,
which again is useful for anti-aircraft
fire or for adjusting your fire at
longer range, as you'd see where the
rounds are landing because the 50 BMG
rounds are effective even at longer
ranges of over 2 km. Belts for M2 are
usually loaded with a combination of
rounds with a tracer every fifth round
for standard ground use, while aircraft
would load a combination of armor
piercing, incenduries, and tracers for
dog fights or ground attacks, depending
on for what job they needed it. After
World War II, some fancy interesting
rounds were developed, like the Ralphos
multi-purpose round. This one combined
everything in one cartridge with an
armor-piercing tungsten core, plus a
small explosive and incendury charge
that also creates fragmentation. It
behaves like a 20 mm cannon shell but in
a 50BMG package. Then there's the SLAP,
short for saboted light armor
penetrator, which works similarly to
much larger armor-piercing discarding
Sabbath rounds that tanks are firing. It
has a small subcaliber penetrator made
from very dense material, usually
tungsten, and has much better armor
penetration while being quite effective
against light armored vehicles or
helicopters. However, these are usually
used in sniper rifles as it is not a
cheap round to fire in full auto. Oh,
and yeah, while we mentioned sniper
rifles, the 50BMG cartridge impressed
the American military so much that they
built a sniper rifle around it. The most
famous example is Carlos Hathcock, the
legendary sniper from the Vietnam War,
who experimented with an M2 machine gun
by mounting a telescopic sight on it for
engaging targets with single shots at
long range where standard smaller
caliber sniper rifles weren't so
effective. He even scored confirmed
kills this way with a scoped M2. This
inspired and later led to creation of
the M82 Barrett, the so-called
anti-materials sniper rifle chambered in
50 BMG that became famous in the
American army. This video about the 50
wouldn't be complete without something
called the Quad 50. When one heavy
machine gun is not enough, well, you
just take four of them and mount them on
a single platform and point it at
anything you'd wish to cease to exist.
This is the M45 Max and quad mount.
Originally created for mobile defense
against low-flying aircraft, 50 BMG was
good for shooting the aircraft down, but
the problem was its low rate of fire and
the short time window the gunner had to
hit a fastmoving target. So it was
multiplied by four and now every second
about 40 rounds were fired. Germans had
similar but even more powerful concept
with their quad 20 mm anti-aircraft
cannons, but it was a much heavier
system specifically for anti-aircraft
roll while quad 50 was much simpler and
versatile. electrically operated turret
could quickly traverse it all around and
up to 90° upward to quickly get a target
in sight. It could be positioned on the
ground on its own or mounted on
vehicles. And it wasn't long before
someone turned the Quad 50 on ground
targets, especially later in the war
when the Allies gained the upper hand in
air control, so they didn't have to
worry much about the Luftvafer. They
were used for infantry support as well,
and the effect of 450s firing at a
single spot is just devastating. This
Quad50 lived even after the war and saw
combat in the Korean and Vietnam wars as
well. It was even creatively mounted on
trucks to protect convoys from ambushes.
As for the 50 caliber gunners from the
Second World War to this day, they have
serious firepower in their hands. But
that came with the cost that the enemy
would do anything to get rid of them as
soon as possible. So, they'd pretty
quickly attract the attention of their
opponents with their distinctive firing
sound, smoke, and muzzle flashes. I
don't know why, but for too long,
earlier 50 caliber gunners on vehicles
and tanks didn't have shields to protect
them from enemy small arms fire. They
were standardized far later in the
Vietnam War, and even Humvees in more
modern wars didn't have shields until
horrible losses from snipers or urban
combat happened. when they began making
turrets and later introduced remote
weapon stations like CRWS that solved
this problem. Now, instead of sticking
your head and upper body out to fire the
machine gun, the gunner fires with
joystick and camera from the safety of
his vehicle and uses advanced tech like
a laser rangefinder, night vision,
thermal views, and so on. They are even
made to work not just with 50s, but also
other machine guns or automatic grenade
launchers. As for the M2 Browning, it's
fascinating how far it got from a weapon
that wasn't looking so promising at
first. So far, in fact, that it is still
very much used to this day with only
minor changes and improvements to it and
the same core design from over a century
ago. The most visible recent change was
the M2A1 configuration with improved
barrel change system, flash suppressor,
and a manual safety, but other than
that, it's more or less the same weapon.
I said this about the MG42, how
fascinating it is that such an old
design is still used today in a
modernized version. But when I did
research for Mardus, I realized that
it's even older, literally coming from
the First World War, and it still
remains a very useful platform and
caliber with no retirement on the
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