Good God, do I love the United States Marine Corps.
Not just because I served in the Marine Corps and because the cult brainwashing runs deep, but because of the Marine Corps attitude of improvising, overcoming, and adapting. Until recently, the Marine Corps has been famously known for receiving the Army’s leftovers. It’s why they had Springfield M1903s in World War 2 instead of Garands and why some Marines still had M16A2 rifles in Afghanistan in 2008. They made do, and in World War 2, they had quite the talent for improvisation. This resulted in the machine gun known as the M2 Stinger.
The Stinger is the nickname given to the gun by the Marines who used it. The Stinger, also known as the M2 Stinger, is a rather radical version of the M1919 machine gun. It’s not the M2 of 50-caliber fame. M2 comes from the name .30 AN/M2, which is an aviation version of the M1919 machine gun. John Browning designed the M1919 machine gun as a multi-purpose weapon. It’s a belt-fed, air or water-cooled machine gun that fired the mighty American .30-06 round and was used on aircraft, armor, Jeeps, and by the infantry.
