The Universal Carrier was a fast, lightly armed vehicle developed by the British Army to carry infantry across ground defended by small-arms fire, specifically the Bren light machine gun, hence the name 'Bren Gun Carrier'. This name would stick with the Universal Carrier and all of its future variants. This book details the Carrier, which was employed in a number of roles including carrying ammunition and towing anti-aircraft guns and trailers. All Allies used the Universal Carrier extensively during practically every World War II campaign. By the war's end, the Universal Carrier had proved itself to be an invaluable and successful cross-country vehicle that was both agile and fast for its time.

George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one. Daniel Boone created a legend with one. Abraham Lincoln shot them on the White House lawn. And Teddy Roosevelt had his specially customized. In this first-of-its-kind book, historian Alexander Rose delivers a colorful, engrossing biography of an American icon: the rifle. Drawing on the words of foot soldiers, inventors, and presidents, based on extensive new research, and spanning from the Revolution to the present day, American Rifle is a balanced, wonderfully entertaining history of the rifle and its place in American culture.

Adopted in 1938 and remaining in British service until 1991, the popular and reliable Bren was an iconic light machine gun, and arguably the most recognizable Commonwealth weapon of World War ll. Gas-operated and magazine-fed, it was based on a Czech design and was issued in large numbers during and after World War ll, as a section-level automatic weapon. Offering remarkable accuracy for an LMG, the Bren had an effective range of 600 yards, but could reach out to over 1,500 yards. It was generally fired from the prone position using a bipod, but could be fired from the hip when necessary. If kept clean, the Bren gave a reliable service in the harshest of environments, from the deserts of Libya to the Korean mountains in winter. As well as widespread infantry use, the Bren was widely supplied to resistance movements in Occupied Europe. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork and based on meticulous research, this is an engaging story of the iconic light machine gun that equipped British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and in a host of postwar conflicts, right up to the Falklands and beyond.

During World War I, the British adopted the US-designed Lewis gun as an infantry weapon, realizing that its light weight and the fact that it could be fired both prone and on the move made it ideal for supporting advances and defending captured trenches. Later adopted by an array of countries from the Netherlands to Japan, the Lewis successfully served as the primary or secondary armament in armoured fighting vehicles and in both ground-based anti-aircraft and aircraft-mounted roles. Although it was superseded by the Bren in British service in 1937, the outbreak of World War II meant that thousands returned to active service, and it played a key role as far afield as Libya, with the Long-Range Desert Group, and the Philippines, with the US Marine Corps. Written by an authority on this iconic light machine gun, this is the fascinating story of the innovative and influential Lewis gun, from the trenches of World War I to the Libyan desert and Pacific islands of World War II and beyond.

The machine gun had a dramatic effect on the conduct of warfare; one or two men operating a single machine could produce the same weight of fire as a squadron of rifles, and when used against an inferior enemy, the effect could be devestating. During the First World War, the use of the machine gun in conjunction with massed barbed wire and other obstacles put an end to battlefield mobility until new weapons and tactics could be devised. This book describes the development of the machine gun from the earliest models to the present day. The focus is very much on portable infantry weapons used in the support role, so automatic cannon of 20mm and larger calibres are excluded. The categories of weapon included are, therefore, Light Machine Guns [LMGs], a term which includes the Squad Automatic Weapon [SAW] and Light Support Weapon [LSW]; Medium Machine Guns [MMGs]; Heavy Machine Guns [HMGs] and General Purpose Machine Guns [GPMGs]. One specialist variety of machine guns is included in a separate chapter: the grenade machine gun [GMG], also known as the automatic grenade launcher [AGL]. With a country-by-country breakdown of machine guns, including comprehensive appendices of gun and ammunition data, along with hundreds of photographs, this is a comprehensive study of a most effective battlefield weapon.