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Blast from the Past – The M3 Grease Gun vs. the M1A1 Tommy gun
by Marshall Brain | February 17, 2011
If you’ve watched gangster films, you’ve seen a “Tommy gun”. A Tommy gun is officially known as the M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. It is called a submachine gun because it fires pistol cartridges rather than rifle cartridges. In most cases, a Tommy gun fired .45 caliber bullets, but could also handle 9mm bullets by changing [...]
A bullet is one of the simplest things there is. Here is a rare video where a bullet is shot from a transparent gun to demonstrate just how simple a bullet can be…
Ever since WWI and WWII, tracer bullets have been a common part of warfare. On an airplane’s or helicopter’s machine gun, tracer bullets make it much easier for the pilot to hit the target – the tracers light up the stream of bullets so they look something like a laser blast. Tracer bullets also make it more likely for the target to explode. In WWI, tracer bullets ignited hydrogen-filled zeppelins, for example. Tracers also ignite fuel.
In the following video you can see how tracer bullets help a helicopter gunner hit his targets…
If you are in a field with your enemy and you can see him, chances are you can hit him with a bullet. But what if the enemy is hiding behind a hill, or crouched in a trench, or protected by a brick wall? Then it is a lot harder – nearly impossible sometimes – to get to the target with a rifle or machine gun. You could lob a grenade, but that only works up to a certain distance. What to do? This is where the XM-25 excels…
Machine guns are one of the most important innovations in recent military history. Learn about machine guns and automatic weapons in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
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