machine gun

Like other nations which faced German troops, the USA gave a great deal of attention to German machine guns. Early experiments to convert the MG 42 to the US rifle calibre, carried out by the Saginaw Steering Gear division of General Motors Corp with the T24 prototype, resulted in a complete failure, because someone ‘forgot’ that the US .30-06 cartridge is about 6 mm (1/4 of an inch) longer than the German 7.92mm Mauser cartridge. Despite that setback, the US Army set out to develop a general purpose machine gun for its troops, and in 1945 started a series of trials to test guns developed by various state armories, American private companies and some systems from foreign contractors.
In 1946 the US Army tested the .30-06 calibre T44 machine gun, an interesting weapon which combined features from two remarkable German designs – the action of the FG42 machine rifle and the belt feed unit from the MG42 machine gun. The most notable feature of the T44 was the placement of the belt feed module, which was located on the left side of the receiver (with the belt passing vertically from bottom to top) instead of the more common top position with a lateral belt movement.
The development of the T44 was stopped in 1948, when it was decided to concentrate on a new, shortened 7.62mm T65 cartridge. Work on a new prototype, designated T52, commenced in 1947 and was continued up until 1952, when it was decided to persuade a derivative of the T52 design, known as the T52E3, under the new designation T161. Originally chambered in .30-06 (as a backup measure for the guns chambered for new 7.62mm T65E3 ammunition), the T161 went through several versions, starting with the 7.62mm T161E1 and up to T161E3, which was finally adopted in 1957 as the “machine gun, 7.62mm, M60”.