M240 (7.62 mm)

The M240 on top of the M1 Abrams turret

Description

The M240 is an American 7.62 mm General Purpose Machine Gun. The M240 is the American designation for a version of the Belgian FN MAG GPMG, designed for use as a co-axial machine gun for tanks. In-game the M240 is predominantly found as a co-axial (and on some tanks roof-mounted) machine gun on high rank American tanks. Being only a 7.62 mm machine gun it is largely ineffective against all but the most weakly armoured, or open cabin, vehicles.

General info

Despite being a version of the FN MAG the M240 performs differently. The M240 has the highest rate of fire of any American (or British) 7.62 mm machine gun at 750 rounds per minute, and a decent belt capacity. The ballistic performance is the same as other 7.62 mm machine guns.

Available ammunition

The M240 can only be equipped with one ammo belt consisting of one Armour Piercing (AP) bullet, followed by one Tracer (T) bullet. Neither bullet has much penetration (maximum of 13 mm), however the AP bullet performs much better than the tracer bullet.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
	10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
AP	13	12	7	3	2	0
T	5	4	2	1	0	0

Shell details
Ammunition	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
						0%	50%	100%
AP	853	0.01	-	-	-	47°	56°	65°
T	835	0.01	-	-	-	47°	56°	65°

Comparison with analogues

Compared to other 7.62 mm machine guns, the M240 has a very good rate of fire at 750 rounds per minute. This puts it ahead of all other American and British 7.62 mm machine guns by a minimum of 100 rounds per minute, and as much as 250 rounds per minute when compared to the M1919A4's 500 rounds per minute rate of fire (in other words the M240 has 50% more RPM than the M1919A4). Its belt capacity of 200 is less than the M1919A4, but more than guns like the M60D.

Usage in battles

Due to the very low penetration this weapon is largely ineffective against enemy armour (although you may be able to penetrate some vehicles with extremely thin armour). The gun is primarily useful for incapacitating exposed crew members in open topped vehicles (although there are few such vehicles at the battle ratings this gun is found at). The gun can also be used for ranging on some vehicles, as well as marking enemy vehicles and obscuring the view of enemy players (by shooting at their gun sight). You can use the gun against aircraft however it does minimal damage, and being co-axially mounted on most tanks can often not be brought / kept on target against aircraft.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Best rate of fire of any British or American 7.62 mm machine gun
• Good rate of fire compared to most other 7.62 mm machine guns
• Decent belt capacity

Cons:

• Slightly worse ammo belt other than FN MAG 60-40 derivatives (1/2 AP instead of 2/3 AP)
• Low penetration makes it ineffective against armour
• Low damage

History

A M240 coaxial machine gun to the left of the gunner position in an M1A1 Abrams.

The M240 is an American 7.62 mm General Purpose Machine Gun, chambering the 7.62×51mm NATO round, it is an American built copy of the Belgian FN MAG GPMG. The history of the M240 began with the failure of the M73 (7.62 mm) co-axial machine gun being used on American tanks in the 1960s and early 1970s. The despite being designed from the ground up as a tank co-axial machine gun the M73 proved to be very poor at the role due to an extremely high failure and jamming rate. Despite attempts to fix the M73 the issues remained and in 1971 the US Army looked to replace it. A competition was launched to develop a replacement, however this was cut short in 1973 by the Yom Kippur War. The Israelis had used the M73 on their Magach (M60) tanks during the war and its performance had been so dire that they deemed it unfit for purpose and demanded the Americans replace it with something better. The program to develop new machine guns was abandoned and the Army looked to existing machine guns to fill the role. In the end the two final candidates were the FN MAG 60-40 and M60, with the MAG winning due to better reliability.

The FN MAG was adopted as the U.S. Army's standard vehicle machine gun in 1977, replacing the M73 on vehicles. The M240 also proved popular with other section of the US armed forces and as an infantry gun. The M240 slowly replaced other American machine guns such as the M60.

Media

Images

• 

  The M240 on the M1 Abrams

Videos

M240 Bravo: America Replaces the M60 - By: Forgotten Weapons

See also

• FN MAG 60-40 (7.62 mm)
• M73 (7.62 mm)

External links

• [Wikipedia] M240 machine gun

Tank machine guns
USA
7.62 mm	M37 · M60D · M73 · M240 · M1919A4 · Mk.52
12.7 mm	FN M3P · M2HB · M80 · M85
Germany
5.56 mm	MG4
7.62 mm	C6 · MG3A1
7.92 mm	MG13 Dreyse · MG34 · MG37(t) · MG42
12.7 mm	S.MG.50
USSR
7.62 mm	DT · PKMB · PKT · PKTM · RP-46 · SGMT
12.7 mm	DK · DShK · 6P49 · NSVT
14.5 mm	KPVT
Britain
7.62 mm	Browning MG4 · L3A1 · L8A1 · L8A2 · L37A1 · L37A2 · L94A1
7.7 mm	Vickers
7.92 mm	BESA
12.7 mm	L21A1
Japan
6.5 mm	Type 91
7.62 mm	Type 74
7.7 mm	Type 97
12.7 mm	Type 60 (B)
China
5.8 mm	QJT
7.62 mm	Type 55 · Type 59 · Type 86
12.7 mm	QJC88A · Type 54
14.5 mm	QJG02
Italy
7.62 mm	Beretta MG42/59 · FN MAG 60-40
8 mm	34/40M · Breda Mod. 38
13.2 mm	Breda Model 31
France
7.5 mm	AAT-52 · MAC 31
7.62 mm	A-A-F1N
8 mm	Hotchkiss Mle 1914
Sweden
6.5 mm	ksp m/14-29
7.62 mm	ksp 39 C · ksp 58 · ksp 94
8 mm	ksp m/36 · ksp m/39B
12.7 mm	ksp 88