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"Ma Deuce" is a bogus nickname. No one in the US military uses this term. It is the creation of pompous asshat Peter Kokalis, a hack writer for various gun magazines.
Referring to a .50 caliber Browning as "Ma Deuce" is a certain indication that the speaker is a fake wannabe "veteran"... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.149.233.160 ( talk) 11:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I served in the U.S. Army mos 11B (infantry) from 1967–1973, Vietnam 69–70, I never heard the term "ma deuce" before reading this article. It's a new one on me. This weapon was called, and always will be, a "fifty cal" 174.24.250.45 ( talk) 21:06, 26 November 2016 (UTC)Anthony Gumbrell
This whole section is silly. Yes it is capable of long range shooting, most machine guns are, and as one of the larger ones it has one of the longer effective ranges. Yes it has been around long enough for some people to make very long range kills with it. But none of this has anything to do with calling it a "sniper rifle", no sniper pair would ever carry an M2 and tripod into their OP. The section is a misunderstanding of what a sniper is and what he does — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.99.175.174 ( talk) 06:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Should be noted the operating handle on an M2 only retracts the bolt, similar to an M16. It does not cycle with the bolt and is less of a safety hazard. The recoil spring is very strong, it can take 2 hands to lock and load a Ma Deuce! 65.129.181.111 ( talk) 15:47, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
I have tried to find information on the exact version of M2 used in Brewster B-239s Finland bought during the Winter war, all of the sources I can find call it "Colt MG53-2" but from what I see all search results on Google are about the Finnish "Buffalos" and/or LKk-42, the reverse-engineered copy of M2 that Finland produced during the Continuation war, is "Colt MG53-2" just the manufacturer's own name for the weapon (AN/M2 etc. are US military designations after all)? Ape89 ( talk) 18:54, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi all guys! First time writing here i have a big question for y'all! Does someone have a book or a source about the effectiveness of AN/M3 .50 Cal Browning Heavy Machine gun in aircraft use such as mounted on F86 Sabres etc... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.40.181.1 ( talk) 23:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
So i was going to add a second variant of the M2 Browning that the Swedish have used but i was unable to unmerge the last row of the table. This is needed for the edit as the Swedish variant i was going to add is the AN/M2 and not the M2HB. Does anyone know how to fix this as i would rather not try to edit the wikitable by going through the code as i have basically no experience with working with the code of wikitables?-- Blockhaj ( talk) 08:44, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
The upgraded M2A1 has a manual trigger block safety.
How could Pershing before July 1917 request a gun to counter an aircraft that first appeared in August 1917? Clairvoyance, or did Junkers give him a tour of their factory? Alansplodge ( talk) 22:15, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I think this section, while trying to clarify the legal discussion surrounding the usage of the gun, is itself completely missing the issue, thus adding more confusion to an already controversial topic.
First of all, to my knowledge the Geneva Conventions would not be relevant as to whether the M2 can be used on personnel; that would be the Hague Conventions of 1899 or the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868. The former is also mentioned in one of the sources. While the section is seemingly correct in that the legal problems surrounding the M2 is often wrongly attributed to the Geneva Conventions, the misconception seems to be that the Geneva Conventions is thought to be the sole source of international law in war.
Secondly, the problem is not with the M2 gun in itself or its 12.7 mm caliber, but explosive and/or incendiary components typically found in such munitions. Ex: the Raufoss Mk 211.
I suggest heavily editing the section (including its header) to explain and address the actual legal problems usually held up by opponents, while possibly retaining some of its points to the degree they concern the legality of using non-expanding solid 12.7mm bullets. As to whether using the M2 on soft targets, is in fact illegal, it seems to hinge on lots of technical and legal details such as what weapons classification the M2 belongs in, the damage typically caused in human tissue, whether the relevant treaties have precedent over other laws or legal concepts such as the right to self defense, etc. Is there anyone with more knowledge on such details that can expand on this part?
If nothing else, I suggest simply removing the current section and replacing it with the first two paragraphs from this section concerning the ammunition., which with a slight edit to make it applicable to the gun itself, seems to cover it pretty well.
Also, I'm not at all an expert on law, so it would be great if anyone with more knowledge could verify or correct the points brought up here, before changes are made to the article.
The abelian fox ( talk) 13:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
References
WP has an article about the Browning M1921, which covers its development and the fact that it was the basis for further development resulting in the M2, which has long been well known.
This article opens with a statement that the M2 was designed at the end of WW1? But that was the M1921? And not the actual M2?
I'm very confused by this. Anyone else spot this? 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:A09B:229B:CF76:530E ( talk) 16:22, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
M2 Browning article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
"Ma Deuce" is a bogus nickname. No one in the US military uses this term. It is the creation of pompous asshat Peter Kokalis, a hack writer for various gun magazines.
Referring to a .50 caliber Browning as "Ma Deuce" is a certain indication that the speaker is a fake wannabe "veteran"... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.149.233.160 ( talk) 11:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I served in the U.S. Army mos 11B (infantry) from 1967–1973, Vietnam 69–70, I never heard the term "ma deuce" before reading this article. It's a new one on me. This weapon was called, and always will be, a "fifty cal" 174.24.250.45 ( talk) 21:06, 26 November 2016 (UTC)Anthony Gumbrell
This whole section is silly. Yes it is capable of long range shooting, most machine guns are, and as one of the larger ones it has one of the longer effective ranges. Yes it has been around long enough for some people to make very long range kills with it. But none of this has anything to do with calling it a "sniper rifle", no sniper pair would ever carry an M2 and tripod into their OP. The section is a misunderstanding of what a sniper is and what he does — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.99.175.174 ( talk) 06:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Should be noted the operating handle on an M2 only retracts the bolt, similar to an M16. It does not cycle with the bolt and is less of a safety hazard. The recoil spring is very strong, it can take 2 hands to lock and load a Ma Deuce! 65.129.181.111 ( talk) 15:47, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
I have tried to find information on the exact version of M2 used in Brewster B-239s Finland bought during the Winter war, all of the sources I can find call it "Colt MG53-2" but from what I see all search results on Google are about the Finnish "Buffalos" and/or LKk-42, the reverse-engineered copy of M2 that Finland produced during the Continuation war, is "Colt MG53-2" just the manufacturer's own name for the weapon (AN/M2 etc. are US military designations after all)? Ape89 ( talk) 18:54, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi all guys! First time writing here i have a big question for y'all! Does someone have a book or a source about the effectiveness of AN/M3 .50 Cal Browning Heavy Machine gun in aircraft use such as mounted on F86 Sabres etc... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.40.181.1 ( talk) 23:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
So i was going to add a second variant of the M2 Browning that the Swedish have used but i was unable to unmerge the last row of the table. This is needed for the edit as the Swedish variant i was going to add is the AN/M2 and not the M2HB. Does anyone know how to fix this as i would rather not try to edit the wikitable by going through the code as i have basically no experience with working with the code of wikitables?-- Blockhaj ( talk) 08:44, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
The upgraded M2A1 has a manual trigger block safety.
How could Pershing before July 1917 request a gun to counter an aircraft that first appeared in August 1917? Clairvoyance, or did Junkers give him a tour of their factory? Alansplodge ( talk) 22:15, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
I think this section, while trying to clarify the legal discussion surrounding the usage of the gun, is itself completely missing the issue, thus adding more confusion to an already controversial topic.
First of all, to my knowledge the Geneva Conventions would not be relevant as to whether the M2 can be used on personnel; that would be the Hague Conventions of 1899 or the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868. The former is also mentioned in one of the sources. While the section is seemingly correct in that the legal problems surrounding the M2 is often wrongly attributed to the Geneva Conventions, the misconception seems to be that the Geneva Conventions is thought to be the sole source of international law in war.
Secondly, the problem is not with the M2 gun in itself or its 12.7 mm caliber, but explosive and/or incendiary components typically found in such munitions. Ex: the Raufoss Mk 211.
I suggest heavily editing the section (including its header) to explain and address the actual legal problems usually held up by opponents, while possibly retaining some of its points to the degree they concern the legality of using non-expanding solid 12.7mm bullets. As to whether using the M2 on soft targets, is in fact illegal, it seems to hinge on lots of technical and legal details such as what weapons classification the M2 belongs in, the damage typically caused in human tissue, whether the relevant treaties have precedent over other laws or legal concepts such as the right to self defense, etc. Is there anyone with more knowledge on such details that can expand on this part?
If nothing else, I suggest simply removing the current section and replacing it with the first two paragraphs from this section concerning the ammunition., which with a slight edit to make it applicable to the gun itself, seems to cover it pretty well.
Also, I'm not at all an expert on law, so it would be great if anyone with more knowledge could verify or correct the points brought up here, before changes are made to the article.
The abelian fox ( talk) 13:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
References
WP has an article about the Browning M1921, which covers its development and the fact that it was the basis for further development resulting in the M2, which has long been well known.
This article opens with a statement that the M2 was designed at the end of WW1? But that was the M1921? And not the actual M2?
I'm very confused by this. Anyone else spot this? 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:A09B:229B:CF76:530E ( talk) 16:22, 31 December 2022 (UTC)