From Bruce Canfield's "U.S. Model of 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle": By the time of the Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918, a total of 52,238 Browning Automatic Rifles had been delivered to the government ...

The U.S. Model of 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle’s first combat use was recorded on Sept. 22, 1918, by the men of the 79th Infantry Division. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dubbed “Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918,” one of the men who received the weapon was 2nd Lt. Val Browning, son of the new rifle’s designer. He quickly put it to good use.

The Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, was the standard light machine gun of the U.S. military throughout WWII. Typically chambered for .30-06 ammunition and weighing between 13 and 24 pounds, BARs ...

Contrary to popular belief that we were armed only with broomsticks and pikes, I was equipped and fully trained to use, a Browning automatic rifle among other weapons including live hand grenades.