Category:Machine Guns

A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire bullets in quick succession from an ammunition belt or magazine. Fully automatic weapons are generally categorized as submachine guns, machine guns, or autocannons. Submachine guns are hand-held automatic weapons for personal defense or short-range combat firing pistol-caliber rounds. A machine gun is often portable to a certain degree, but is generally used when attached to a mount, is part of a heavy vehicle, or is fired from the ground on a bipod or tripod, and generally fires a rifle or small cannon cartridge and is capable of sustained fire. Light machine guns are small enough to be fired hand-held, but are more effective when fired from a prone position. The difference between machine guns and autocannons more or less size and whether the gun fires conventional bullets or explosive rounds. Guns firing large-caliber explosive rounds are generally considered either autocannons or automatic grenade launchers ("grenade machine guns"), though it should be noted that there is no clear dividing line between what is an autocannon and what is a machine gun.