Posted on 11/22/2018 5:37:01 AM PST by vannrox
“...the FG 42 belt fed that I know of is the Light Automatic Machine Gun T44...” [vannrox, posts 39 thru 42]
Excellent job, finding imagery. I’d read a little about the T44 project but never encountered these pics before. The Army Dept is spotty, concerning what they will allow DTIC to release and what they won’t. Doesn’t seem to correspond to any of the classification rules the rest of us lived with. Seen the loopiest OCAs make more rational decisions.
I should have been more clear at the outset. After spending a decade in the field of operational testing, I refer to a system as fielded and rarely give it further thought. So theT44 project may have used FG-42 parts, but was not an FG-42 as the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe used them.
Haven’t been fortunate enough to examine either Johnson light machine gun up close, so I’ll defer to you on its feed cover orientation.
The M60 was described as incorporating some MG42 concepts. Never verified myself; while in uniform, I used the M60 only a couple times, and wasn’t able to do a side-by-side comparison with the MG42.
Designing and producing a workable light machine gun is a difficult endeavor: so many constraints apply. US Army Ordnance never did a good job of it: rejected the Lewis gun (which Isaac N Lewis had swiped from Samuel MacLean), adopted the Benet-Mercie M1909 (which later succeeded as the Hotchkiss Portative), fastened onto the BAR for a stretch of 40 years, bungled the English/metric conversions during WW2, killing the MG42 copy, adopted the M1919A6 (rather heavy for a light gun), rejected the FAL for the M14 (pretending that either could sub for a light machine gun), adopted the M60 (problem-prone early variants), adopted FN’s Minimi (sometimes cursed by users, or so I hear), avoided FN’s MAG until about 1997 (40 years after its debut). Ditched some promising designs at intervals along the way (including one each from John C Garand, William B Ruger, and David Marshall Williams - if my memory is accurate).
Many praise the MP44 but the best that can be said for it is that it pioneered concepts that became universal: select fire, intermediate cartridge. Darned thing outweighs a loaded M14 and comes close to the weight of a BAR, while handling characteristics cannot be rated as anything better than “clunky & awkward.” The late Jeff Cooper once opined that a Pennsylvania deer hunter armed with a Winchester carbine would likely come out the victor in any house-to-house scuffle against troops armed with MP44s.
” “...The BD 38 was rebuilt from the ground up, and the company spent an awful lot of time, and money, gearing up for the production...’
“...this BD-38 is not a “tube gun” as you have implied...” [vannrox, post 42]
Kudos to Dittrich. But even if ATF and the US State Dept stop fiddling about and approve import, the US civilian market won’t be very big. US gun buyers are convinced they’re entitled to “good deals”, and forking over $6,000.00-plus for a closed-bolt copy of a Wehrmacht subgun which still must be registered with the agency as a short-barreled rifle - $200.00 tx stamp required - does not sound like a good deal.
Apologies for lack of clarity. The US-built replicas of STEns, MP40s, and the like were identical copies and original parts interchanged; all had to be registered with the agency as true “machine guns,” and are subject to NFA transfer restrictions, including the $200.00 tax stamp. Prices circa 1990 were but a percentage of those for true 100 percent originals and they could not take advantage of C&R status. Haven’t checked the classifieds of late, but I’m guessing the price gap is that much bigger today.
RE: true-crime-style color illustration from metallicman’s original blog post
Is it just me, or are other forum members wondering just what the relevance is, of the Prezio (?) painting to an retrospective that doesn’t mention either P08s or Thompsons?
Just a few technical discrepancies:
- the dying Nazi villain has just let go of a very special P08, a mirror-image one: safety, takedown lever, and takedown latch plate are all on the right side. I’ve not seen every P08 ever made, but I have yet to see one where these features are anyplace but on the left side of the pistol.
- the US GI with the five-o’clock shadow blazing away with his Thompson doesn’t appear to be carrying any spare magazines. He does, however, appear to be wearing the standard web pouch belt which could in each compartment hold a pair of M1903 chargers or a single M1 Garand clip.
- there is no string of empty cases popping out of the Thompson gun’s ejection port. Pretty unlikely, given the gun’s cyclic rate of some 700 rds/min. And considering the position and angle of the ejection port, that stream of empties ought to be bouncing off the room’s door and flying all over, in front of the GI, into his pockets, down his shirt, whatever.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Combat is pretty chaotic, and any soldier might be toting any given personal weapon at any moment, depending on what’s available among battlefield pickups. Even the weapons of the enemy.
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