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September 15, 2008: The U.S. Army has given up on getting a replacement for the nearly century old M2 .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine-gun. At least not anytime soon. Many of the current ones are wearing out, so the army is replacing over 80 percent of its 36,600 M2 machine-guns in the next five years, with new M2s. Efforts to develop a replacements for the M2 have failed so far.

For example, three years ago, field testing of the XM-312, the chief contender to replace the M-2, began, in the United States and overseas. Then, nothing. That's because the test results were not encouraging, the biggest shortcoming being the low rate of fire (about 260 rounds per minute). This is about half the rate of the M2, and was believed adequate for the 25mm smart shells the XM312 was originally designed for (as the XM307). But for 12.7mm bullets, it didn't impress the troops. There were some reliability problems (the M2 has one jam per 10,000 rounds), which were believed fixable. The rate-of-fire issue, however, has proved to be more difficult. Meanwhile, a new upgrade for the M2 has been fielded, and Ma Deuce still rules the battlefield. The new M2E2 has a quick change barrel, flash hider and lot of small improvements. It is much in demand.The M-2, nicknamed "Ma Deuce" by the troops, has been around so long because it was very good at what it did. Accurate, reliable, rugged and easy to use, many of the M-2s currently in use are decades old, and finally wearing out. The army didn't want to build new ones, and wasn't sure it could do without the venerable, and very useful, Ma Deuce.

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