A machine gun is a hero’s weapon. Strange but true, even though it wasn’t invented for this.
It cannot be used well when a squad is advancing — too easy to shoot your own squad mates, since you cannot expect to move anywhere as fast as they are moving and will always fall behind. When a squad is defending, the machinegunner is it’s most important, almost sole protection, since they cannot ever hope to generate the same amount of death per square meter as he does. When a machinegunner attacks, he has to do it alone, one against many, he has to lead the charge and everyone else has to trail after. The machinegunner is the most important sniper target next to the commanding officer.
All of this rolls into a ‘one against many’, which is the most important part of hero (or anti-hero) imagery.
I wonder, does the concept of a decisive battlefield superweapon so common in Japanese media have anything to do with this?
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