Anything can take them out.

The driver can be sniped or killed easily by small arms fire, An RPG rocket can easily blow that thing up, Roadside bombs and landmines... or even primitive spikes on the road can easily punch holes in its wheels making it stop moving.

Any tank, helicopter, or plane can shred it to pieces.

The guy firing the machine gun is also a sitting duck. There is no way he can evade incoming bullets except by ducking down stomach flat on the back of the truck.



Why are these things still used in battlefields? If its an artillery cannon mounted or an anti-aircraft gun or missile, its still ok. Why a stupid machine gun?


That thing is better made into a car bomb or a suicide truck.

It's a mobile cannon pretty much. It's true that the shooter is a sitting duck, but the vehicle is moving and a moving target is always more difficult to nail than a stationary target. Also, the driver drives and the shooter sprays bullets and the reaction time is very little if the victim is not prepared.

It's true though, it's such a lame and out dated piece of crap, but it's cheaper than a new tank, you know? And come on, who DOESN'T like a gattling gun!

Well seeing how i served on a "gun truck" for a year in Iraq i can atest they are pretty damn effective.

Granted a Humvee is a little more protected then a pick up truck.
But we did run into plenty of "technicals" which is what is shown in your picture. The bastards fly around at 80 mph and blaze their machine guns at get out of the area before we can track them down. But if we do get bullets on target they go down very easily.

SheaSummers
It's a mobile cannon pretty much. It's true that the shooter is a sitting duck, but the vehicle is moving and a moving target is always more difficult to nail than a stationary target. Also, the driver drives and the shooter sprays bullets and the reaction time is very little if the victim is not prepared.

It's true though, it's such a lame and out dated piece of crap, but it's cheaper than a new tank, you know? And come on, who DOESN'T like a gattling gun!

By the looks of it its a M2 50. cal machine gun. Not a gatling gun but still wicked as all hell.

Why do they bother with ground troops?

They can be sniped or killed easily by small arms fire, An RPG rocket can easily blow that thing up, Roadside bombs and landmines... or even primitive spikes on the road can easily punch holes in their feet making them stop moving.

Any tank, helicopter, or plane can shred very large groups of them to pieces.

Each one is also a sitting duck. There is no way theycan evade incoming bullets except by ducking behind or under something.

Why are these things still used in battlefields? If they have an bazooka or something else wicked awesome, then I guess that would be justifiable.

They'd be better off with bombs strapped to them doing suicide raids.

Phantom Penguin

SheaSummers
By the looks of it its a M2 50. cal machine gun. Not a gatling gun but still wicked as all hell.

Ah, my mistake.

The military term is a "technical" the point is cheap, easy to construct mobile firepower, if you need to shoot an unarmoured target then get away quickly having a gun welded to a truck helps.

Plus remember Trucks can carry more ammo than a normal infantryman, having the weapon mounted helps compensate for recoil and they move faster than people on foot.

They are effective versus infantry and are more cost effective than any armoured vehicle.

why WOULDN'T fighters on a budget use them?

I like to strap M2 50. cal machine guns to pretty much anything I can.
Cars
Motorcycles
Ice cream trucks
Local fauna
Another M2 50. cal machine gun

What isn't made better by strapping a M2 50. cal machine gun to it. Someone was probably walking along carrying their M2 and someone else was walking along carrying a pick up truck and they bumped into each other, dropping their equipment and one of them was all like "hey! you got your M2 50. cal machine gun in my pick up truck" and the other one was all like "No, you got your pick up truck in my m2 50. cal machine gun" and then they both look over at it and the announcer is all like "two great tastes that taste great together!"

you work with what you got

Am I the only one that sees this as a practical alternative to the terrible traffic problems palgueing society?

Trucks with heavy machine guns like that can take VERY expensive helicopters pretty simply. One of those could easily kill an Apache. It's true. Think about the cost of an Apache, Blackhawk, C-130 transport plane or something like that compared to a truck and a heavy machine gun. A few thousand dollars compared to a few million. The ecconomic sense is obvious. You can afford to throw away a lot more trucks than you can Apaches.

Low flying slow aircraft are extremely vulnruble, especially in cities. As Iraq has shown.

Well if a techinal managed to sneak underneath a black hawk and let loose a burst of 50 cal it might knock it out of the sky, but it will probably at least make the choper combat in-effective.

Well I know there have been quite a few choppers lost in Iraq. Granted pilot error and mechanical failure was a factor in some cases, but I know a few were brought down due to enemy action as well. That includes Apaches and Blackhawks as far as I know. I doubt they have any SAMs, though it's possibly, and RPG's shouldn't have the range, speed or accuracy (but I'm definitely NO expert there). I'd think cannon would be too rare, bulky and a bit less portable. So logic tends to suggest heavy machine guns. What do you think?
They do tend to deliberately minimise and disguise news about those sorts of losses though...

I like to strap m-50's to each one of a helicopter's roatary blades

The Stinger missle is used all the time in Iraq. Its a Anti-Jet fighter missle that has more then enough range and speed to take out a helicopter

Phantom Penguin
Its a Anti-Jet fighter missle that has more then enough range and speed to take out a helicopter

Obviously.
I've never heard of one of them being used by insurgents though. Ever. Not even the Russian version. That's a new bit of info! New to me anyway.

Yeah, we sold them to the Mujahadeen (sp?) in Afganistan during the Soviet invasion. So the Taliban has them.

We sold them to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. So they got 'em also.

Hmmm, but those are extremely finite, especially given the original cost of the missles, there can't be that many. And they're not crude, easy things to make like Katyusha rockets.
Plus, the old just batteries don't last (and those are complicated).
They may get a few new ones from Iran, but even then I'd imagine they'd be quite rare, (due to the cost of manufacture and Iran wanting to stockpile them incase they're needed).

I think they were given rather than sold to Osama and his Mujahadeen mates, then most were collected back up afterwards, apparently.

That's why I tend toward the idea of simple heavy machine guns: Easy to fix, maintain, and hide, and the ammo is cheap and easy to come accross.

Its true that they would be a bit old. but think of this...


We ran into a Insurgent using a MG42 with the original WW2 ammo.
If they could keep that working, no doubt they can keep a stinger usable.

Phantom Penguin
We ran into a Insurgent using a MG42 with the original WW2 ammo.
If they could keep that working, no doubt they can keep a stinger usable.

Amazing, truely amazing :)
But as I say, machine guns are a lot easier to maintain, not to mention the ammunition. Given the time and tools they could probably even build their own.
A stinger missle system is much more complicated. Each missle originally cost several thoushad dollars, they still do. It's not like a few old boxes of bullets.

There's a good artical [en.wikipedia.org] about them over at WIkipedia. -never %100 sure how accurate those are, but it's interesting.