The Browning machine gun was designed by John Moses Browning (1855-1926).
The M1921 was a water-cooled .50-caliber machine gun developed from the prototype .50-caliber M1918, itself developed from .30-caliber M1917 water-cooled machine gun. The M1921 did not enter production until 1929. A slightly improved version, the M1921A1, was introduced in 1930 with all of the M1921s being upgraded. The gun weighed 79 pounds (without water), was 56 inches long, and had a 36-inch long barrel. The gun was mounted on a pedestal mount with three horizontal legs. It had a 500-650 rounds per minute rate of fire.
Development continued and the M1921A1 was replaced by the M2 water-cooled Browning .50-caliber in 1933. Ground and aircraft air-cooled versions of the M2 were also adopted at the same time.
Both the US Army and the US Navy adopted the M1921 after World War I, using it mostly as a static anti-aircraft weapon due to its 121 lb weight.
Famous quotes containing the words browning, machine and/or gun:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“I find it hard to believe that the machine would go into the creative artist’s hand even were that magic hand in true place. It has been too far exploited by industrialism and science at expense to art and true religion.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1869–1959)
“As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)