>I was about to say that "OH, NO you don't, because the M2 BMG!" but I
>then discovered that it's from 1933...thought it was older.

It is older—John Browning died in 1926—it just wasn't adopted until then.

>But, it
>does sort of make me wonder...where is/what was the M1 machine gun?

No idea. Designations get used for things that don't end up happening all the time. (Consider, for instance, the fact that though the last of the pre-Abrams American tanks was the M60, there weren't really 55 models of American tank between that and the M4 Sherman. Not that made it to production, anyway.)

Conversely, especially during wartime, things got bought and used without being technically adopted or given a proper designation. The Reising M50 and M55 submachine guns and the M1941 Johnson rifle, for instance; those are the manufacturers' model numbers, not part of the Army's official ordnance scheme, but they were all purchased with government funds and used by uniformed personnel in combat during World War II.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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