Light machine gun

A light machine gun or LMG is a machine gun that is generally lighter than other machine guns of the same period, and is usually designed to be carried by an individual soldier, with or without an assistant. Modern light machine guns often fire smaller-caliber cartridges than medium machine guns, and are usually lighter and more compact. LMGs are often used as squad automatic weapons.

There is confusion between what is a true light machine gun and what is a medium machine gun. Some weapons on this page, as written, are not in any way light machine guns (for example, the Browning 1919).

The term "light machine gun" is both literal and context-sensitive. Some machine guns - notably General purpose machine guns - may be deployed as either a light machine gun or a medium machine gun. As a general rule, if a machine gun is deployed with a bipod it is a light machine gun; if deployed on a tripod it is a medium machine gun (unless it has a barrel diameter of about 10mm or larger, making it a heavy machine gun).

Originally, the machinegun was the antithesis of infantry tactics, as was especially obvious in World War One and the high casualties of 1914 and 1915. It was obvious to several militaries that a light machinegun at the platoon or squad level would boost the firepower of infantry and allow them to suppress targets like enemy machinegun posts. By the end of the war, light machineguns were sometimes being issued on a scale of one per section or squad, and the modern infantry squad had emerged with tactics that were built around the use of LMGs.

It is possible to fire a light machine gun from the hip or on the move, but this is seldom accurate. They are usually fired from a prone position, especially when using a bipod. Early light machine guns (especially those derived from automatic rifles, such as the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle) were sometimes magazine-fed. Some LMGs, such as the Russian RPK, are modifications of existing assault rifle designs. Adaptations generally include a larger magazine, heavier barrel to resist overheating, more robust action to support sustained fire, and often a bipod. Modern light machine guns are designed to fire more rounds of a smaller caliber ammunition and as such tend to use a belt of ammunition; this allows them to fire for longer periods of time without the need to reload. Other modern light machine guns, such as the FN Minimi, are capable of firing from either an ammunition belt or a detachable box magazine