• borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    They are mainly to kill vehicules and equipment.

    Yeah, not really. Vast majority of .50 cal rounds got expended providing enfilade fire or just locking the T&E to absolutely ravage some poor fuckers at a stand off their small arms can’t hope to deal with. I still nut when I hear “when the long axis of the beaten zone coincides with the long axis of the target”.

    I know I’ve fired SLAAP rounds at people through walls more times than I ever fired a fifty at vehicles, and I was specifically on a CAAT team.

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I’m not surprised with current wars it ends up being used like that but it was originally intended to destroy materiel. Its grandpa used to kill tanks in early WW2 but they got too armored.

      • force@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Actually the development of .50 cal and 13.2mm are completely unrelated, .50 cal wasn’t used for disabling tanks and development of a gun to use it (the Browning machine gun) wasn’t finished until WW1 ended.