War in the Industrial Age stole life on a scale previously unimagined.
John Moses Browning was the most gifted gun designer who ever drew breath.
John Browning was particularly busy in the early part of the 20thcentury.
The M1918A2 BAR was the warhorse Squad Automatic Weapon for U.S. infantry forces throughout three wars.
He bodged up the 1911 pistol along with the M1917 belt-fed, water-cooled machinegun.
He also drew up plans for something radically fresh and new.
He called this invention the Browning Machine Rifle.
Grunts would frequently strip down their BARs by removing the bipod and buttstock monopod in an effort at saving weight.
Was It a Mistake?
The Browning Machine Rifle was based upon a thoroughly discredited concept.
Military planners felt that walking fire might be a good idea on the modern battlefield.
The WWI-era web gear included a buttstock cup to help support the BAR during “walking fire.”
Naturally, this idea arose with the French.
It did nonetheless still birth a most remarkable firearm.
Subsequent WWII-vintage web gear just had six double-magazine pouches and eschewed the cup.
While large and heavy, the BAR was a fearsome weapon in the hands of American troops.
Generations
Some 43,000 early M1918 BARs were shipped to Europe by the end of WWI.
Of those, 17,664 were issued to the American Expeditionary Forces, and 4,608 actually saw action.
A great many earlier guns were arsenal rebuilt into the more modern configuration.
The fully automatic BAR fires from the open bolt position.
A2 upgrades included a bulky folding bipod, a redesigned flash hider, reimagined furniture and fresh entrails.
The new three-position selector offered safe, slow and fast options.
The cyclic rate on slow was around 350 rpm, while the fast rate was about 550 rpm.
The BAR, shown here in Korea, proved itself to be a capable warrior. Image: NARA
These early composite buttstocks were molded from a fabric-reinforced plastic that rendered fine service.
Most wartime BARs sported this sort of furniture.
The M1918A2 ultimately weighed 20 lbs., a full 4.5 lbs.
The BAR was just one of John Moses Browning’s many creations.
more than the original M1918.
Practical Magic
The BAR is a massive bulky beast that fires a comparably massive 7.62x63mm/.30-06 round.
I honestly cannot imagine humping this thing through a fifteen-mile forced march.
The BAR’s complicated ladder rear sight is graduated out to 1,500 yards.
The leather sling is fairly wide, but the gun remains just huge.
I think perhaps those old guys were just tougher than we are today.
When fired from the prone off the bipod, the BAR is a surprisingly controllable beast.
The three-position selector offers two different rates of automatic fire — “fast” and “slow.” The little post must be depressed to “safe” the gun.
I love the slow rate of fire.
On this setting, the disciplined trigger finger can readily conjure singles.
Pivoting the switch forward to the fast setting renders the gun markedly spunkier.
Later WWII-vintage web gear featured six double-magazine pouches.
To push the fire selector back into the safe position requires that a little secondary detent be depressed.
Firing offhand, the BAR is indeed a handful.
However, the guns prodigious weight and sedate rate of fire conspire to keep the weapon controllable.
I would not want anybody after me with one.
Denouement
The BAR was the center of mass for American squad-level combat.
The reassuring chatter of the BAR became the fixed point around which American infantry small unit operations orbited.
The BAR was much like the country that developed it.
American grunts used these massive guns to smite the Nazis and crush the Japanese.
Through three wars, the BAR was the infantrymans anchor.
