India is ranked third in terms of military expenditure throughout the world. This huge budget of ₹525,166 crore is used to buy the equipment for the Indian Armed forces which has 14,55,000 active personnel and 11,55,000 reserved personnel. An army this huge requires more equipment like Assault rifles, Bulletproof Jackets etc. This article consists of information about the machine guns used by the Indian Armed Forces.
What are Machine Guns ?
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic rifles are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower.
Machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod. A tripod is a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils.
Types of Machine Guns
There are 5 types of Machine guns :-
- Submachine Guns
- Light Machine Guns
- Medium Machine Guns
- General Purpose Machine Guns
- Heavy Machine Guns
List of Machine guns used by Indian Armed Forces
Submachine Gun
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. Submachine guns are used by special forces, police, and counter-terrorist units.
They operate in urban environments or cramped interior areas. Submachine guns are also defence weapons for air crews, combat vehicle crews, and naval personnel.
| Name | Calibre | Origin |
| Micro UZI | 9×19mm Parabellum | Israel |
| Heckler & Koch MP5 | 9×19mm Parabellum | West Germany |
| Brugger & Thomet MP9 | 9×19mm Parabellum | Switzerland |
| SAF Carbine 2A1 | 9×19mm Parabellum | India and United Kingdom |
| MSMC | 5.56×30mm MINSAS | India |
| ASMI | 9×19mm Parabellum | India |
Light Machine Gun
A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridges of the same calibre as the other riflemen of the same combat unit are often referred to as squad automatic weapons.
| Name | Calibre | Origin |
| FN Minimi | 5.56×45mm NATO | Belgium |
| IMI Negev NG5 | 5.56×45mm NATO | Israel |
Medium Machine Gun
A medium machine gun (MMG), in modern terms, usually refers to a belt-fed machine gun firing a full-powered rifle cartridge, and is considered “medium” in weight. Medium machine guns are light enough to be infantry-portable, but still cumbersome enough to require a crew for optimal operational efficiency.
| Name | Calibre | Origin |
| IMI Negev NG7 | 7.62×51mm NATO | Israel |
General Purpose Machine Gun
A general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) is an air-cooled, usually belt-fed machine gun that can be adapted flexibly to various tactical roles for light and medium machine guns. It is an infantry support weapon or squad automatic weapon.
| Name | Calibre | Origin |
| MG 2A1/ 5A/ 6A | 7.62×51mm NATO | India and Belgium |
| MK48 Machine Guns | 7.62×51mm NATO | Belgium and United States |
| PK Machine Guns | 7.62×54mmR | India and Soviet Union |
Heavy Machine Gun
A heavy machine gun (HMG) is significantly larger than light, medium or general-purpose machine guns. HMGs are typically too heavy to be man-portable and require mounting onto a weapons platform to be operably stable or tactically mobile, have more formidable firepower, and generally require a team of personnel for operation and maintenance.
| Name | Calibre | Origin |
| NSV Machine Guns | 12.7×108mm | India and Soviet Union |
| M2 Browning | 50 BMG | United States |
References From :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Indian_Army#Small_arms
