air-cooled, crew-served, general-purpose machine gun. Its versatility is demonstrated by its ability to be fired effectively from its integral bipod, mounted on a tripod, on ground vehicles, watercraft and aircraft.

It was first adopted by the U.S. Army in 1977, as a coaxial tank gun, and slowly adopted for more applications in the 1980s and 1990s. The M240 and M240E1 were adopted for use on vehicles. This led to further adoption in more uses, especially