Vickers .50 machine gun

The Vickers .50 machine gun, officially Gun, Machine, Vickers, .5-in, was a large calibre British automatic weapon that entered service in 1933 and remained in use until 1954. It was commonly mounted as a close in anti aircraft weapon on Royal Navy and Allied ships, typically in a four gun mounting in British use or a two gun mounting in Dutch use, and it also armed tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles. Though similar in design to the standard .303 inch Vickers machine gun, it fired the larger 0.5 inch Vickers round, a cartridge shorter than the American .50 BMG round it is sometimes compared to. It saw service with the United Kingdom and Ireland, including through the Second World War. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/