None of this diminishes what Murphy and Company B faced. Six tanks and 250 infantry, whatever formation they come from, is a substantial attacking force against eighteen men with two M10 tank destroyers, and those M10s were knocked out in the first minutes of the engagement.
## The Specific Weapon: The M2 Browning .50-Caliber
The weapon Murphy used on the burning M10 — the M2 Browning heavy machine gun, caliber .50 — was one of the most effective infantry support weapons of the Second World War, and it remained in U.S. military service for decades afterward.
The M2 fires a .50-caliber (12.7mm) round at a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,900 feet per second, with a cyclic rate of approximately 450-600 rounds per minute. Its effective range against personnel targets was approximately 1,800 meters, and its maximum range was substantially greater. Against the German infantry advancing from Holtzwihr across open ground, the .50-caliber was capable of effective fire at the ranges involved — the open fields between Holtzwihr and the forest edge were well within the weapon’s effective envelope.
The weapon was not effective against the frontal armor of German medium or heavy tanks. The 3-inch guns of the M10s had already demonstrated this problem in the opening minutes of the engagement, with rounds that largely bounced off the German armor. Murphy firing the .50-caliber at the German Panzer IVs or Panthers that may have been present was not going to stop those vehicles. But he was not primarily targeting the tanks. He was targeting the infantry.