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M2 Heavy Machine Gun The Browning .50 calibre machine gun was, like the Browning .30, first used by Canadians in the Second World War as a vehicle mounted weapon, though it was not nearly in common in Canadian service as it was in American service. It was not used in a dismounted ("infantry") role until after the Korean War, though some infantry units used them mounted on halftracks in Korea, using them to good effect against large scale Chinese infantry attacks. In the 1970s, with the defence planning centering on an imagined invasion of the western Europe by Warsaw Pact forces, infantry organizations serving in Europe underwent major changes in doctrine and armament. Each infantry section in rifle platoons serving in Germany were equipped with a .50 calibre machine gun, mounted in the crew commanders hatch of the section's M113 armoured personnel carrier, but often deployed dismounted and used on a tripod. Soviet doctrine at that time was to use waves of infantry and armoured vehicles to overcome opposition; the .50 would have been of use against both dismounted infantry as well as lightly armoured personnel carriers. Each infantry section also had an 84mm Carl Gustav Medium Anti-Armour Weapon (normal scale of issue in Canada was one for every platoon of three sections).
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