Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Machine Gun |
Machine GunNoun1. A rapidly firing automatic gun (often mounted). Verb1. Shoot with a machine gun. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definitions |
Multilingual Slang | Spanish (matraca). (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A machine gun is a small-calibre "fully automatic" projectile weapon that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. Generally any "machine gun" with a calibre of more than 12.5mm (0.5 inch) is called an automatic cannon, even through it might operate the same way.
The machine gun's primary role in a ground-combat situation is to provide suppressing fire on an opposing force's position. This forces the enemy to take cover. This either halts an opposing offensive, or allows allied forces to move onto the field with less danger.
To this end, most light machine guns are not designed for repeatability of aim or accuracy. Most are designed with a small degree of inaccuracy, in order to lay down a field of fire. This is referred to as the "cone" of fire, because the rounds spread out. Light machine guns usually have simple iron sights. Laser sights are used by police and anti-terrorist services. An Israeli intuitive aiming system is to alternate solid and tracer rounds, so the shooter can walk the fire into the target, and direct other soldiers' fire.
Many heavy machine guns, such as the M2 0.50Cal machine guns are so accurate that they can actually be used to snipe targets at great distances. Some models have been equipped with aim points that can be preset.
All machine guns follow a cycle. Mechanically, this cycle removes the used round casing, and cocks the hammer. Another round slides into position. Spring tension or a cam then forces the new round and bolt back into the firing chamber. A mechanism makes the firing pin fire the primer. The cycle repeats. This entire cycle takes a fraction of a second.
Machine guns operate by several methods:
Not all machine guns strike the primer in the same way. In blowback machine guns, the act of seating the round also fires the round. In gas operated and recoil-operated guns, a separate step in the firing sequence is needed to strike the round. In progressive-fire guns, the firing pin is cycled by cams.
In weapons where the round seats and fires at the same time, mechanical timing is essential for operator safety, to prevent the round from firing before it is seated properly. This is especially important in weapons like the 40mm grenade launcher, where high explosives are present in the rounds being fired.
Machine guns are controlled by one or more mechanical sears. When a sear is in place, it effectively stops the bolt at some point in its range of motion. Some sears stop the bolt when it is locked to the rear. Other sears stop the firing pin from going forward after the round is locked into the chamber.
Almost all weapons have a "safety" sear, which simply keeps the trigger from engaging.
Typically, the act of pulling the trigger causes something to strike the primer on the round in the chamber, and disengages the sears. This allows continual cycling of the bolt until the trigger is released. A sear then grabs the bolt or firing pin. This stops the machine gun at some point in its cycle.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Machine gun."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Arms | Gun, piece; firearms; artillery, ordnance; siege train, battering train; park, battery; cannon, gun of position, heavy gun, field piece, mortar, howitzer, carronade, culverin, basilisk; falconet, jingal, swivel, pederero, bouche a feu; petard, torpedo; mitrailleur, mitrailleuse; infernal machine; smooth bore, rifled cannon, Armstrong gun, Lancaster gun, Paixhan gun, Whitworth gun, Parrott gun, Krupp gun, Gatling gun, Maxim gun, machine gun; pompom; ten pounder. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Yeah, like the one he gave to take this machine gun. That was a real doosey, wasn't it? (Saving Private Ryan; writing credit: Robert Rodat) Here he comes: Machine Gun Joe! Loved by thousands, hated by millions! (Death Race 2000; writing credit: Ib Melchior; Robert Thom) We cut 'em in half with a machine gun and give 'em a Band-Aid. (Apocalypse Now; writing credit: John Milius ; Francis Ford Coppola) You can't help thinking what a wonderful place it would be to set up a machine gun! Give me a small squad of hand-picked men and I could defend this place indefinitely! (Last of the Summer Wine; writing credit: Roy Clarke) I hope that someone remembered to bring something useful, like a machine gun. (It; writing credit: Stephen King; Lawrence D. Cohen) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Machine Gun Mama (1944) The Aeroplane Machine Gun (1917) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Medicine - Military - Equipment : Russian Communists firing a machine gun in a gas infested area.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Play | Caption | Play | Caption |
 | Machine gun shooting rounds of ammunition. | | Machine gun. |
| A 45 caliber small machine gun or automatic weapon fire. | ||
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Human Rights | Solomon Islands | In June 2000, Malaitan militants in a police patrol boat used a heavy machine gun to support an attack on Guadalcanalese positions, killing perhaps six Guadalcanalese militants. (references) |
Solomon Islands | In March there were machine gun raids carried out by the police, using the patrol boat Lata against Guadalcanal leader Harold Ke'ke; there were unconfirmed reports of deaths from these attacks. (references) | |
Hungary | Trials continued in a number of cases of persons charged with crimes against humanity for shooting into crowds of demonstrators with machine gun fire and for throwing hand grenades during the 1956 Revolution. (references) | |
Minorities | Croatia | In May an unknown assailant fired a machine gun at the home of an ethnic Serb returnee near Zadar; there were no injuries and no arrests. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
Expressions using "machine gun": Browning machine gun ♦ light machine gun ♦ sub machine gun. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
machine gun | 944 |
sub machine gun | 98 |
bb machine gun | 58 |
machine gun kelly | 45 |
m 60 machine gun | 30 |
50 caliber machine gun | 21 |
machine gun fellatio | 19 |
browning machine gun | 18 |
world war 1 machine gun | 15 |
sex machine gun | 10 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "machine gun"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | mitraloz (submachine gun), qëlloj me mitraloz. (various references) | |
Arabic | مدفع رشاش (submachine gun, tommy gun). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | картечница (chatterbox, chopper, coffee grinder), автоматичен пистолет, автомат (automat, automation, robot, submachine gun, tommy gun, zombie). (various references) | |
Czech | strojní puška, kulomet (machinegun). (various references) | |
Danish | tvillingmaskingevaer (multiple barrel machine gun). (various references) | |
Dutch | meerloopsmitrailleur (multiple barrel machine gun). (various references) | |
French | mitrailleuse. (various references) | |
German | MG (m.g., M.wt., Madagascar, mg, milligram, mol.wt, molecular weight, Republic of Madagascar), maschinengewehr (machine-gun), Machinengewehr (m.g.). (various references) | |
Greek | πολυβόλο. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מקלע, מכו ת ירי". (various references) | |
Hungarian | géppuska (gun, machine-gun). (various references) | |
Indonesian | bren (kind of light machine gun). (various references) | |
Italian | mitragliatrice, mitragliare (strafe). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | マグマ溜り (Macedonia, machine, machine language, machine-room, machine-vision, magma reservoir, marshmallow, Maserati, Massachusetts, McGraw Hill, mother complex, Mother Goose, mother tape, mothering, motherland, Mother's Day, Oedipus complex, sexual attraction to one's mother), 機銃 , 機関銃 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | マシンガン , マシーンガン , きか"じゅう, きじゅう. (various references) | |
Manx | lhiggey gunn jeshaght, gunn jeshaght. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | achinemay ungay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | metralhadora (gun, tommy gun), peça usinada. (various references) | |
Romanian | mitralierã, mitralia. (various references) | |
Russian | автомат (automat, automata, automaton, automoton, dispenser, machine, one-armed bandit, robot, submachine gun, tommy gun, vending machine), пулемет (chatterbox, coffee grinder, gun). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | mitraljez (chatterbox, machinegun). (various references) | |
Spanish | ametrallar (strafe), ametralladora (Lewis, tommy gun). (various references) | |
Swedish | kulspruta (machinegun, machine-gun), beskjuta med kulspruta. (various references) | |
Turkish | mitralyöz (gatling, mitrailleuse), makineli tüfek (lewis-gun, mower). (various references) | |
Turkmen | pulemяot (r). (various references) | |
Ukranian | кулемет (shotgun, stutterer), вести вогонь з кулемета. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Machine Gun" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: nachine gun. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-g-h-i-m-n-n-u" | |
-2 letters: chainmen, inhumane, menacing, munching. | |
-3 letters: anguine, enchain, guanine, hangmen, inhuman, machine, meaning, unchain, unhinge. | |
-4 letters: aching, acumen, aecium, anemic, cangue, canine, caning, cannie, chaine, change, cinema, cueing, eching, encina, enigma, gamine, gauche, guanin, guinea, gunman, gunmen, haeing, haemic, haemin, humane, iceman, incage, inhume, macing, manche, naming, neumic, nuance, nuchae, numina, uncage, unciae, unhang. | |
-5 letters: acing, amice, amine, amnic, anime, chain, chang, chime, china, chine, cuing, cumin, ennui, gamic, gamin, genic, genua, hance, hemic, hemin, henna, hinge, human, humic, image, inane, mache, magic, mange, manic, miche, minae, mince, mucin, munch, nance, neigh, niche, nucha, numen, umiac, uncia, unman. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-g-h-i-m-n-n-u" | |
+5 letters: countermarching. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 61 63 68 69 6E 65 47 75 6E |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01000111 01110101 01101110 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M a c h i n e   G u n |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0061 0063 0068 0069 006E 0065 0047 0075 006E |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)476769747580712418780 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Sounds 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Anagrams 14. Orthography 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
