Machine Guns used by the Indian Armed Forces

Machine-Guns in Indian Army

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 :-

  1. Submachine Guns
  2. Light Machine Guns
  3. Medium Machine Guns 
  4. General Purpose Machine Guns
  5. Heavy Machine Guns

List of Machine guns used by Indian Armed Forces 

Submachine Gun

Sub-Machine-Guns

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.

NameCalibreOrigin
Micro UZI9×19mm ParabellumIsrael
Heckler & Koch MP59×19mm ParabellumWest Germany
Brugger & Thomet MP99×19mm ParabellumSwitzerland
SAF Carbine 2A19×19mm ParabellumIndia and United Kingdom
MSMC5.56×30mm MINSASIndia
ASMI9×19mm ParabellumIndia

Light Machine Gun

Light-Machine-Guns

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.

NameCalibreOrigin
FN Minimi5.56×45mm NATOBelgium
IMI Negev NG55.56×45mm NATOIsrael

Medium Machine Gun

Medium-Machine-Guns

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.

NameCalibreOrigin
IMI Negev NG77.62×51mm NATOIsrael

General Purpose Machine Gun

General-Purpose-Machine-Guns

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 CalibreOrigin
MG 2A1/ 5A/ 6A7.62×51mm NATOIndia and Belgium
MK48 Machine Guns 7.62×51mm NATOBelgium and United States
PK Machine Guns7.62×54mmRIndia and Soviet Union

Heavy Machine Gun

Heavy-Machine-Guns

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 CalibreOrigin
NSV Machine Guns 12.7×108mmIndia and Soviet Union
M2 Browning50 BMGUnited States

References From :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Indian_Army#Small_arms