How 'bout this one? The crew of this Pershing protected their vehicle’s gun mantlet with some additional armour of a German Panther - as it was written about this photo…
Fraser’s action mightn’t have had much effect on his section, but the loss of a BAR or equivalent in a section is an entirely different matter.
The USMC in the Pacific learned to base their section tactics around the BAR and with good reason, and good effect.
I wouldn’t accept a section member ditching the LMG section weapon for his personal convenience because he was too lazy to carry, clean and properly maintain it.
And I’d be seriously pissed off if the LM gunner put my section at risk by trading his weapon for another rifle, of which there were already plenty in the section and arranged on tactics around the LM gunner actually having an LMG which the section LM gunner had ditched for personal convenience.
I believe this is one of the “Super Pershings” that was upgraded to “super” in the field. Two were sent from the factory…
Ha! I just got Hunnicut’s book on the M-26 Pershing. I have several more pic’s of the above tank if anyone wants to see them, including its unceremonious, ignominious decommissioning in June of 1945 (which seems ridiculous actually).
It was delivered as a “Super” from the factory with a longer, more powerful 90mm gun generating superior muzzle-velocity and on-par with the King Tiger’s 88mm gun performance. They decided to up armor the tank with spare Panther parts as well to sort of make an American ‘King Tiger’ or sorts. But this is not an unusual field modification, as I’ve read recently that several “Jumbo Shermans” owned by the US and British Armies were up=gunned with either the 76mm or the 17-pdr…
Of course we want to see them (well, I do anyway,) especially the de-commissioning.
I’ll try to scan it later in that Pershing & US heavy tanks thread…
I broadly agree. However, to clarify Bowen’s case, he was the squad leader and in between Normandy and Holland he decided to acquire an extra BAR for himself in order to beef up his squad’s firepower. But after lugging it around for a few execises, he decided to bin it. So I’d put this down to acceptable personal affectation rather than dereliction of duty. 
Luckily, the US army now uses belgian light MG’s in their squads.
This is definately “incongrous”, trying to capture a russian without magazine in your submachinegun…:shock:
It worked seemingly.
Maybe he had one round left in the chamber…
Too bad that the pic is not from the left side, if so I could see if it is charged ( bolt fully back), probably not even that.
Its like the charms of a woman, half in what they have, the other half in what you think they have,
By now I am just getting women with just half…of each part.:lol:
This is interesting too, an “geballte ladung” but made with egg grenades not the cilindrical head sthd 24.
I notice the Bren holder has sub-machine gun mag pouches on his belt. I suspect he was just photed with a captured Bren.
Deaf
Agreed…it looks like he is almost “mockingly” smiling with his captured prize.
He is a happy troopie, he finally has a good and trusty weapon.
That reminds me of this one of the extremely light Soviet AA action:
And general purpose ones too…
An effective tactic if you have enough riflemen, and a plane flying low and fast enough. I believe some US pilots in Vietnam ran into trouble if there were enough VC/NVA firing small arms at them unexpectedly at low level…
I guess the fact that they are using scopes wouldn’t make it easier to score a hit because of limited vision…