Why did water-cooled MG's mostly stop being produced after ww1?

I understand on the the infantry level why it was obsolete due to it's lack of mobility and need for water, but why was there never any attempt to put them in bunkers or watchtowers where mobility was a non-issue and a several gallons of water could have been easily stored? Wouldn't the ability to sustain fire for so much longer have been seen as a huge advantage?

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it was better to reduce the rate of fire than to fiddle around with arcane cooling devices
and it was better to reduce the weight and carry a second machine gun than it was to fire the same gun longer

Reasons against:
Water on metal = rust. More maintenance.
Additional complexity.
More for the gun crew to manage.

Improved tech allowed for better barrel changes.

heavy water cooled machineguns in WW1 doctrine filled the role of light artillery. They weren't just meant for sustained direct fire at waves of men, but also long range indirect fire. Those roles made heavy, static mounts feasible.

But the role of WW1 heavy machineguns was taken over by multiple platforms later on. Direct fire mounted guns don't generally require the kind of sustained firing that requires water cooling (rather than just a heavy barrel), and replaceable barrels ended up coming along to make for a more durable way to ensure sustained fire. So for this direct fire role, belt-fed GPMGs and medium machineguns could do the job just as well as a water-cooled gun.

For the indirect fire role, armies went a different direction entirely. Mortars ended up providing the same kind of light indirect fire support that water-cooled machineguns did, and were generally better in every way.

I understand all that... but I still think a vehicle-mounted LMG with its own water cooling system (hooked up to the radiator, perhaps) would have been the tits for suppressive fire.

Jew loving Californian

tanks are small and cramped, they will take light weight machine guns with a slow firing rate over bigger machine guns almost all the time

the australian sentinel had a hull mounted vickers and it would have been use less in a real fight
extra rate of fire or longer sustained fire gives diminishing returns, so people design their rates of fire around what is practical

2 heavy

Yes, but you also think that little boys are sexually attractive.

A heavy-barreled machinegun is more than enough for suppressive fire for a vehicle mount. If a vehicle mounted machinegun is firing for long enough that water cooling would make a difference, they've got much bigger things to worry about than the machinegun overheating.

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Dude, I don't know if you know this, but water is heavy. I mean, water is REALLY fucking heavy. Dudes these days complain about carrying a 20 lb SAW. Could you imagine making somebody carry two? Or making his buddy carry a rifle AND a saw, except the SAW is like 3 times bigger and much more awkward to haul around?

I'm well aware of that, as I stated in the question. I'm asking about its' usage as a stationary weapon where weight and mobility aren't issues

well the neggros would have panic and try to drink the gun

i think im not joking the french have come this probleme in the africans colonies in ww1, thats why they buld the worst HMG of all time.

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Partially logistics also; I can use my LMG, MMG and HMG for tanks, bunkers, trucks, and can be transported by infantry for quick set up and fortifications andor use as an portable automatic weapon, instead of "alright this FOB/base is gonna be here a while, set up the heavy 7.62 we hauled out here and save the lighter one for over there". You can just use the 240B for both and not worry about having 2 different machine guns that fire the same round and fulfill the same role 90% of the time.

Chidits carried Vickers guns for months at a time behind enemy lines inna Burmese jungle, which is probably one of the shittiest environments possible to do hard stuff in, and they loved them. So I guess although lighter is better it's not the be all and end all.

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Air cooled is easier and metal is good enough now

they were used in that role in WW2, the vickers was an excellent defensive weapon

but it was too much of a niche that other guns could do adequately
and its better to simplify your supply chain anyways, so the vickers was shown the door after the war, being replaced by heavy barrel GPMGs

its extra cost, extra maintenance, extra training, for a gun that is useful only in a few situations
even defensively, you want a lighter gun anways, so that you dont lose the weapon if you make an emergency withdrawal and its easier to move forward when the front line shifts in your favor

They were often used as mobile baseline guns, which, potentially, requires moving them fairly often. In These instances of use were essentially the same as a modern infantry company might use it's machine gun platoon, the Vickers was the GPMG of the day. Definitely not for LMG role to be carried into the assault but they were employed in quicker and more mobile roles than static defence.

are good answers

another issue is that while tactical roles for water cooled mgs were declining in favour of lighter more mobile guns there was a fairly massive surplus of decent condition water cooled mgs in most nations arsenal post war, after all most nations acquired as many as they could and the damn things may have been heavy but they were also extremely hard to break, the ones that survived the war could continue in service for decades with only occasional upgrades.

pretty much all the water cooled machine guns the world would ever need had been built by the end of ww1

Modern warfare is a highly mobile exercise, one which water-cooled weapons have little place in. The same century-old guns are actually pulled out on rare occasions in Eastern Europe where more mobile guns aren't to be found, and while they can defend a paremeter good, their immobile nature leaves them vulnerable to artillery, especially of the long-ranged rocket kind.

What do you guys think about water cooled Gatling guns/cannons?

>Engine coolant with water cooler mg
I have a mighty need

Modern gun teams might use an FN Mag with a tripod, gun operated by two men. A water cooled gun is much the same, just heavier. Two men can, did and do grab both and move them in a hurry. Lighter equipment just makes the move quicker and less painful.

Immobile isn't the right word, your exaggerating their awkwardness. No doubt they are obsolete though.

You'd have to carry a SHIT load of ammo to make that worth it. I rigged up a Mk-19 mount for my 240 and had about 2500 rounds in my turret and another 2000 in my truck and I never needed more than a barrel change.

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The heaviest part of that weapon system would be the ammunition. If an air-cooled system can fire off something like 150-200lbs of ammo without much of a problem there's just no way to justify a more durable system unless it's going to be static.

Hell even in a static situation air cooled systems are usually sufficient.

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Lel, i did something similar for my M2. 280 rounds of fuck you

Seriously fuck reloads

The short answer was that it's easier to just change the barrel. Yes, it's a pause in the firing but ammo belt's had finite length anyway and water systems were prone to leak.