Posted on 05/01/2015 7:43:07 AM PDT by C19fan
In April 1945, an entire brigade of British special forces joined the massive effort to attack the German army until its back was against the Po River.
If successful, the Wehrmacht would have no choice but escape across the river and evacuate Italy — or stay and fight, facing the prospect of heavy losses.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Ever fire one? I have. It sucked cause you cant aim worth crap. Want to throw a few rounds down range, ok it works. Want to hit anything, you have to walk the rounds in.
I much prefer the M-60
Nice gun, but not as feared as the MG 43.
When you have a entire brigade of them — are they really still “special?”
I wonder how many kids are even allowed to play with toy soldiers these days.
When I played with army men as a kid, the molds must have been pretty new as the soldiers carried Vietnam-era equipment. My dad spotted that one and told me that it wasn’t American equipment; looked like a British machine gun.
The toy soldier is only an accurate representation if his head is cocked to one side to use the 1” offset sight (to avoid the dorsal magazine).
Designed for the idiotic idea of “walking fire”, a moronic idea from WWI that they used with bolt action rifles(!) to try and cross no man’s land.
The idea was “hey, what if we had a higher rate of fire?”
Nope, walking fire was still a stupid idea.
Nothing was as feared as the MG-43, and for good reason.
The only downside to the MG42 was that it might shoot too much, but that is an operator issue.
If I had to make a 2 second run in the open, I’d rather have a BAR or Bren shooting 16 rounds at me than an MG42 shooting 40 rounds at me.
For mobility, the MG42 is in the SAW category of the Bren and BAR, and not the M1919, which was 30% heavier.
The Bren was a Czech design modified to British requirements. The Germans used some Czech models too, but without asking nicely like the Brits. One of their tanks also.
So cool, they used it in Star Wars.
One thing the British did was the standarization of A caliber round, for the Lewis, the Bren, the aircraft wing-mounted guns, the SMLE.
http://www.uscg.mil/history/articles/Munro.asp
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.