Besa machine gun

The Besa machine gun was a British version of the Czechoslovak ZB-53 air-cooled, belt-fed machine gun, known in Czechoslovak service as the TK vz. 37. Its name came from the Birmingham Small Arms Company, which licensed manufacturing rights from the Czechoslovak maker of a design originally by Vaclav Holek. Following a War Office order in 1938, production began in 1939 with some design changes, and the weapon served throughout the Second World War as armored vehicle armament, replacing the heavier water cooled Vickers gun despite requiring a larger hull opening for installation. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/