Rheinmetall RMG.50

The Rheinmetall RMG.50 is a German heavy machine gun developed by the company Rheinmetall for the Bundeswehr, as a replacement for the recoil-operated Browning M2HB heavy machine gun of the same calibre. Rheinmetall began work in 2008 and the first firings took place at the end of 2009. A second prototype started trials in August 2010, a third prototype was delivered in 2011 for internal qualification, and pre-series weapons reached the German Ministry of Defence test authority in 2012. The gun fires the 12.7x99 mm NATO round, known as .50 BMG, from a dual linkless feed at about 600 rounds per minute. It is not recoil operated: a gearbox-driven crank works the action and an external power source drives it, and the gun weighs about 25 kilograms. Because of that weight and the need for outside power it is mounted only on vehicles such as the Puma. The source states that it entered service with the German Bundeswehr in 2014.