A crew-served weapon is any weapon system

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

 that requires a crew

Crew

A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard...

 of more than one individual to function at optimum efficiency due to its operational complexity, such as requiring one person to load while another fires. The weight and bulk of the system often also necessitates multiple personnel for transportation. Crew served weapons operated by infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 include medium machine gun

Medium machine gun

A medium machine gun or MMG, in modern terms, usually refers to a belt-fed automatic firearm firing a full-power rifle cartridge.-History:...

s, heavy machine gun

Heavy machine gun

The heavy machine gun or HMG is a larger class of machine gun generally recognized to refer to two separate stages of machine gun development. The term was originally used to refer to the early generation of machine guns which came into widespread use in World War I...

s, automatic grenade launcher

Automatic grenade launcher

An automatic grenade launcher or grenade machine gun is a grenade launcher firing rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine. They can be attached to a tripod. Automatic launchers include the Vektor Y3, AGS-17, and the HK GMG, which all fire at a higher velocity...

s, mortars

Mortar (weapon)

A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....

 with caliber

Caliber

In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

s less than 120 mm (4.72 inches), anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns, recoilless rifle

Recoilless rifle

A recoilless rifle or recoilless gun is a lightweight weapon that fires a heavier projectile than would be practical to fire from a recoiling weapon of comparable size. Technically, only devices that use a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles. Smoothbore variants are recoilless guns...

s, shoulder-launched missile weapon

Shoulder-launched missile weapon

A shoulder-fired missile, shoulder-launched missile or man-portable missile is a projectile fired at a target, small enough to be carried by a single person, and fired while held on one's shoulder...

s, and static anti-tank and anti-aircraft

Surface-to-air missile

A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...

 missiles. Many of these weapon systems can also be mounted on wheeled or tracked vehicles.

See also

• Personal weapon
  Personal weapon
  A personal weapon or ordnance weapon is a weapon that is issued to an individualmember of a military or paramilitary unit, e.g. to individual infantry soldiers, but also side arms carried by officers or other personnel....
  
   and Small arms
  Small arms
  Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light...
  
   for weapons used by individuals
• List of crew-served weapons of the U.S. Armed Forces