In early beginning of World War II, the Germans used the deadly and effective “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” other wise known as the MG-42 machine gun.The chain-fed light machine gun could pump out 900-1500 per minute of 7.92x57mm Mauser rounds.
Posted on 06/28/2018 5:49:29 AM PDT by w1n1
In early beginning of World War II, the Germans used the deadly and effective “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” other wise known as the MG-42 machine gun.
The chain-fed light machine gun could pump out 900-1500 per minute of 7.92x57mm Mauser rounds.
The sound of the MG-42 was different and when faced against it, you were outgunned.
The good news for the allies was that to have it manufactured was very expensive and time consuming for the Germans.
So the Germans comes out with the MG-34 machine gun.
This firearm was cheaper and quicker to manufacture and put out to the troops.
However, the firing rate was reduced to 800-900 rounds per minute. This weapon was reliable, so it became the general-purpose machine gun of choice for the German Army.
Germany continued to field the MG-42s right alongside the MG-34s.
Soldiers use the machine gun as support weapons to keep Allies heads down while their forces manuevers, very similar to our Squad Automatic gunner of today.
Regular troops carried Mauser rifles and MP40-style submachine guns. See the full footage of German MG-42 and MG-34 here.
Why write an article when you don’t know what you are talking about (AM Shooting Journal). The 34 and 42 represent years, so the 34 came first. It was the more “elegant weapon for a more civilized age”. With the MG 42, the Germans eschewed old school machining for more stamped parts. They also made the barrel easier to change when it overheated, and upped the firing rate. Versions and copies of the MG 42 are still in use around the world.
The idea was to use it like an overgrown shotgun. A burst of a dozen or so rounds would arrive pretty much at the same time and saturate an area. Similar in concept to the later American designed M134 minigun. The MG 42 had an overall much slower firing rate, but didn’t need to spool up multiple barrels rotating like the minigun, so initial bursts are very quick.
The MG-42 replaced the MG-34. This writer can’t even do basic research.
L
Unreadable, as always.
????? No need to waste time reading articles from this magazine.
"The German Infantry Squad in World War 2 for the most part consisted of 1 squad leader and 9 infantry men, thus a total of 10 men. Initially all men besides the machine gunner and his assistant were equipped with the “Karabiner 98 kurz”, the German standard rifle, even the Squad leader, yet around 1941 he was issued a MP40 submachine gun with 6 magazines of 32 shots each. The machine gunner was equipped with an MG 34 and later on with an MG42, he was also issued a pistol and an ammo drum with 50 rounds. The assistant gunner carried 4 ammo drums with 50 shots and a weight of 2.45 kg each. Additionally, one ammo box with 300 rounds weighing 11.53 kg. He was also issued a pistol. There was also an ammo carrier assigned to the machine gunner, whose job was to carry and supply ammunition. He carried two Ammo boxes with 300 rounds each. Unlike the assistant he was issued a rifle not a pistol."
The K98k was a bolt action rifle. NOT a machine gun.
That and the minefields.
“The author of the article got everything bassackwards. The MG 34 was made of machined steel parts so it was heavier and more expensive to purchase.
The MG 42 was made from stamped metal parts so it was made much more easily as a result it was also cheaper.
It was belt fed with metalic linked cartridges. Something all of our belt fed weapons adopted with the M60 machine gun of the Vietnam war era.” [puppypusher, post 17]
Someone needs to rescue the folks at American Shooting Journal. Everything they publish seems to arrive peppered with errors.
In this article, they managed to mis-state basic German infantry tactics of World War Two. The “Universal Machine Gun” (as adopted in the MG34 and MG42) was the offensive element of the German squad; the riflemen were there to protect the machine gun and fired to suppress enemy return fire while the gun team advanced.
American infantry tactics of the day were the opposite: the M1918 BAR was the base-of-fire weapon, suppressing enemy fire to permit the riflemen to advance.
MG34 and MG42 are in actuality rather close in weight: 26.7 pounds versus 25.6 pounds. The major advantages of the MG42 lay in fewer work-hours required to make it (about half that needed to make an MG34), and less consumption of costlier high-grade materials. In the event, German forces never had all the machine guns they wanted, so the MG34 was not replaced by the MG42 but continued to serve right to the end of the war.
The metallic-link belt for machine guns was developed in World War One by the Germans. Originals were of the disintegrating-link type, where the cartridges hold the links together. When the cartridge is removed from the belt for chambering, the links fall apart and are ejected from the gun as individual pieces (just like empty cartridge cases). Early use was in aircraft guns, where storage is at a premium: a canvas belt emptied of cartridges flapping about in the slipstream of the small airplanes of the day becomes a tangle and injury hazard.
By WW2, disintegrating-link belts were common. John M Browning’s belt-fed gun in water-cooled and air-cooled configurations proved easily adaptable to canvas and metallic-link belts and was made in large numbers. It equipped British and American aircraft and ground forces of US and Allied nations. Canvas belts can be seen in still photos and archival film footage from those days, feeding ground guns.
German and Soviet forces of WW2 used non-disintegrating metallic-link belts in various machine guns. The spring-steel links were more durable than canvas belts, less susceptible to degradation from rain or snow or dirt, and more easily cleaned of dirt & fouling.
The US M60 machine gun came to the field late, but this delay allowed designers to incorporate various innovations that had been invented during WW2 and after.
I am an editor.
I shudder when I read articles from this source, and no, I am not a perfectionist.
It’s akin to viewing Youtube videos of horrific accidents, but with words.
They fired their guns and the Russians kept on commin, there weren’t as many as there was a while ago. They fired so fast that they couldn’t locate any ammo any mo. ;^)
From the posts above, it is apparent we are not the only ones fed-up with J. Hines at Am Shooting Journal.
What ya gonna do....
In early beginning of World War II, the Germans used the deadly and effective “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” other wise known as the MG-42 machine gun.So the Germans comes out with the MG-34 machine gun. what a dipsh!t... the 34 was first as in 1934 and the 42 was a cheaper easier produced gun in 42, as in 1942.
dooG ot ton eb Lysdexic.
Yes. The numbers reflect the year: 1934, 1943, et cetera.
Luger P08: 1908. Walther P38: 1938.
Similarly, the Mitsubishi Zero was a reference to 1940, the year the design order was placed.
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