Triggers: Weapons That Changed the World

- Season 2

(2013)

Could the mighty M2 be the greatest machine gun in history? Nicknamed the Â"Ma DeuceÂ", this fifty caliber American machine gun has been rocking the battlefield for over eighty years. Host Wil Willis puts this legendary weapon to the ultimate test.

Deadly at close quarters the Combat Shotgun is a powerful tool of any army. Host Wil Willis fires history's greatest shotguns, from the Blunderbuss to the modern Benelli M4 and Mossburg 590.

The Aerial Gatling Gun has the highest rate of fire of any military machine gun in the world. Host Wil Willis flys in an F16 to see the six thousand round a minute Vulcan rip apart targets and fires the Minigun from a helicopter at exploding cars.

For today's elite warriors, their last line of defence are the Spec Ops Pistols. Host Wil Willis tests the Navy Seal Sig Sauer P226, then fires the greatest forerunners like Jame Bond's Walther PPK, the Soviet Tokarev and the massive Desert Eagle.

The M1 Abrams Tank is the world's most potent armored vehicle. We'll track its development through such forerunners as the WWII-era M18 Hellcat and the Cold War-era Soviet T-55 tank and see why these Â"beast-boxesÂ" have ruled ground warfare for decades.

The light machine gun launched mobile warfare by blending massive firepower with the portability of a rifle. We'll see the evolution of this revolutionary weapon from its use in World War I to its modern incarnation Â- the SAW or Squad Automatic Weapon.