| Hmmm, GPMG == General Purpose Machine Gun?
If so, machine guns (particularly the belt fed ones) tend to be much
heavier than the individual shoulder arm. That absorbs recoil. Too the
actions of such guns are designed to take up recoil somewhat more
effectively than that of a shoulder rifle which is designed primarily for
accuracy. Accuracy, while important in a MG, isn't THAT important. You
are after all throwing alot of lead downrange at one time. I was trained
to fire in a minimum of 6 round bursts on a MG, its the volume of fire that
get the kills.
One of the more pleasent experiances I ever had with a machine gun was with
the Bren. Pleasent because it not only had light recoil (helped somewhat
by the bipod) but was also very accurate. It was so accurate that my
instructors at Bragg classed it functionally as an automatic rifle rather
than a MG.
Rich
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| More to the point of .0's question, most light/gp machineguns have
buffers built in. The former NATO standard rifles in 7.62 do not.
They are standard semi-automatic weapons and the full effect of the
recoil is transmitted to the shoulder. For instance, the US M14 in
the Auto configuration had a heavier spring on the operating rod,
but the M60 LMG has a liquid filled buffer in the butt stock. The
US M16 and (I beleive) the new SAW also employ buffer assemblies.
In other words, the older weapons had strictly mechanical operating
assemblies that simply slammed the bolt to the rear and the operator
was the buffer 8-).
Bob Mc
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