BAR LMG or Assault gun

was the BAR an LMG or an Assault gun ?

Neither. And by 'Assault gun' I assume you mean 'Assault Rifle'?

It was a heavy Self Loading Rifle, effectively neither fish nor fowl and given the design parameters thats fair enough.

It was intended to be a weapon that could be carried and fired on the move during infantry attacks.

In summary, too heavy to be a good AR, too light to be an effective LMG.

IBM

It was designed near the end of WW1 as a weapon to be used by soldiers assaulting trenches. It ended up fulfilling the light machine gun role in the US forces because there were plenty of them on hand and it was more portable than the Browning M1919 tripod mounted weapon. There was an LMG version of the Browning Model 1919 devoloped during WW2 but it was rather heavy for the role and never supplanted the BAR.

tim gueguen 101867

Depends on who is doing the classifying (sp?). Not an assault weapon because it uses full power rifle cartridges and had no semi-auto setting. I'd call it a machine rifle.

I would hardly call anything that heavy an assault gun. TE, ret.

Well, not quite either if you want to be really strict about it. It's lack of an interchangable barrel and small magazine capacity as well as low rate of fire hobbled it somewhat in the LMG role. On the other hand, it was a trifle heavy and awkward for a true assault rifle. So it was not optimized for either role.

But at the same time, it was handier than the average squad LMG and produced more firepower than the average assault rifle.

Cheers and all

It was a light machine gun, fired usually from a prone position, with a bipod support. Further, the BAR man had an assistant to carry additional magazines.

all the best

The BAR was too light to be a proper LMG as well as having no quick change barrel and limited ammo capacity.

It was too heavy to be an assault gun - assault rifle.

It's one of those transitional weapon designs that for some reason or another wasn't phased out and kept on going.

That being said the BAR and the US infantry squad structure and weaponry was very different from those of most other armies in WWII, that still relied on bolt action rifles supported by an LMG. And within that context it kinda

A BAR could be fired one shot at a time. If you had a quick trigger finger. Sometimes a second shot would surprise you but a 20 round clip lasted for more triggerpulls than a 30 rd clip out of an AK. Firing from an open bolt is not as disadvantagous as it seems if the shooter has some experience with the weapon. Larry

BAR has often been critized as being too big and heavy for a rifle and too light, too small magazine capacity and lacking ability to change barrels to make it a machine gun. BAR today would be classified today as SQUAD AUTOMATIC WEAPON (SAW) or squad base of fire weapon. It had many good qualities being lighter and easier to handle than a full blown machine gun - normal crew was 2, gunner with BAR and assistant carrying extra 20 round magazines. Light MG would normally require 2-3 men carrying ammo and tools like spare barrels. US Marines by 1944 had developed new means of organization to utilize it. Instead of 1 MG per squad of 10-12 men Marines used triangular organization of 13 men divided into 3 4 man teams based around BAR man. Soviets would later modify their AK 47 into BAR type weapon called RPK. Basically a AK47 with longer heavier barrel and larger butt.