General-purpose machine gun ||This article is incomplete. (July
2011)| ||This article needs additional citations for
verification. (October 2007)| A general-purpose machine gun
(GPMG) is a belt-fed weapon used in a variety of roles, from
bipod- or tripod-mounted infantry support to deployment as a
helicopter door gun or a vehicle-mounted support weapon. It can
provide fire support for vehicles or infantry from a variety of
mounts. In modern practice, it is an air-cooled medium machine
gun, firing rifle cartridges such as the 7.62×51mm NATO,
7.62×54mmR Warsaw pact, or 7.92x57mm Mauser. It is generally
operated from a stationary position from either a bipod or
tripod, or otherwise mounted on a vehicle, as it is usually too
powerful and heavy to be fired effectively on foot from an
unsupported standing position or on the move. The GPMG barrel
can be removed and replaced within seconds - in use, the barrel
quickly heats up, necessitating its replacement after 400 rounds
of continuous fire; once cooled down, the b