In military conflicts, the concept of fire superiority is to deliver a greater volume of fire upon your enemy than they’re inflicting upon you. It’s a critical element of military strategy. Once you’ve established fire superiority, then by definition your enemy will bleed resources. Thus, fire superiority begets even more fire superiority, until your enemy has been defeated and you achieve your objective.
For ground forces, machine guns are a key component of gaining fire superiority, providing the ability to deliver high rates of fire for extended periods of time. This is achieved by firearms designed specifically for this purpose, feeding from belts of ammunition that can seem to be endless if you’re on the business end of one.
In the 1960s, American forces employed the M2 heavy machine gun in .50BMG and the M60 general-purpose machine gun in 7.62mm; both were bulky, heavy, and crew-served weapon systems. The Army wanted a light machine gun that could be carried and employed by a single individual, as part of infantry squads — the Squad Automatic Weapon. This took some time to become a reality; after first considering a new 6mm cartridge, the Army settled on 5.56 NATO and conducted tests and trials throughout the 1970s.
Across the pond, Ernest Vervier of FN Herstal designed a light machine gun they coined the FN Minimi — long before Dr. Evil coopted the name; it’s actually an abbreviation of “mini machine gun” in French. Submitted to the Army’s trials, the Minimi eventually beat out the HK 21, M16 HBAR, and Rodman Laboratories
