The Browning Automatic Rifle

For nearly fifty years, the hard-hitting, mobile Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, served in US infantry units as a light squad automatic “base of fire” weapon, providing quick bursts of concentrated fire. Designed in World War One, it didn't reach the front until September 1918. In the interwar years, US forces used the BAR across the world, from China to Nicaragua.

It also became a favourite of notorious gangsters like Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who prized its ability to punch through police armoured cars. At the outset of World War II, the US armed forces decided to adapt the BAR for a light machine gun role. The BAR was not without its flaws; it was heavy and difficult to dismantle and reassemble, and it didn't cope well with sustained fire. Nevertheless, the BAR saw action in every major theatre of World War II and went on to be used in Korea and in the opening stages of the Vietnam War.

Featuring arresting first-hand accounts, specially drawn full-colour artwork, and close-up photographs, many in colour, this lively study offers a vivid portrait of this powerful, long-lived, and innovative weapon that saw service with US and other forces across the world for much of the 20th century.