The Browning "50-cal" has become the longest serving weapon in the US inventory first entering service in 1933 and it will remain in use for many years to come. The "fifty" has been employed in every imaginable role for a machine gun - antipersonnel, light antiarmor, antiaircraft, mounted on aircraft as both defensive and offensive armament, defensive armament aboard vehicles (armored and soft-skin), mounted on watercraft, and others. It is considered such an effective and reliable weapon that few countries ever attempted to develop an equivalent weapon. Instead the US 50-cal is used worldwide.

Development: the making of a legend -- Use: the .50-cal in combat, from the trenches to the skies -- Impact: the world's most enduring machine gun.