Browning M1919 vs MG42

The BAR is the M1918. We are talking about the Browning M1919 .30 cal.

 

Sorry sometimes i forget the minor numbers that i choose to ignore... errr.

 

The fact of the matter is that the mg42 was just rebored for the 7.62 nato round and became the mg3 and is still in use today 60 yrs later and the m1919 30 cal was not.

Point to note the .50 cal is also still being used today.

If a very high rpm rate is not desired, then why make the minigun going at 6000 rpm.

the mg42 has been noted as the father of all modern day GPMG's

 

The "minigun" is not comparable to a platoon level MG, as they are designed for different purposes. The minigun is excess in size, weight, ammunition expenditure, and complexity to perform at platoon level. AFAIK, the smallest minigun made is The Air Force GAU-2B/A 7.62 mm.

It was designed to provide a light weight high rate of fire armament package for use on helicopters and light fixed-wing aircraft (and not serve the purpose of a MG). Imagine lugging this around (and the recoil)!



Sometime in the 1980s, the Air Force considered giving the GAU-8 a lower ROF, but decided against it, since the pilots get limited time to fire the weapon and want maximum rounds on target.

 

there's a 5.56 mm version (Sixpak), but I forget the designation (M239??).

Watch Predator - apparently Arnie saw one and asked if the firearms SFX guys could rig a body harness. They laughed at him until Jesse Ventura walked in and picked it up... ALthough as a practical weapon it's not really viable, AFAIK he had gas canisters to simulate muzzle flash, rather than the weight of the ammo.

 

Hmm... googled "M239", found nothing... anybody have more info?

 

I googled 5.56mm Minigun and the first link provided this little snippet:

from: http://world.guns.ru/machine/minigun-e.htm

A quick check of a few other sites corroborate this.

 

I sorry but I have shot all of those guns and the mg34 is okay but the mg42 is a great gun to shoot. It puts more rounds out and is more accurate than the mg34. The m60 is very accurate and is probally my first machine gun pick besides the mg42. The mother of all machine guns for hevyness is the .50 MG. That gun alomst broke off my arms.

 

If I remember corrctly, the XM214 had a safety switch that reduced rate of fire to only 600 rpm if it wasn't mounted in a tripod. I'll try to find where i saw this.

But is too heavy for being only a 5'56mm, not the gun weight, but all the "accesories", like batteries, and ammo. At that ROF how do you carry enough ammo?
And if you mount it in a vehicle, then use the 7'62 version.

 

I like the GECAL 50, 3 or 6 barrels depending upon application.
PS apologies for mis-remembering the XM-214 number, I just went blank :lol:

 

We had both 7.62 gpmg's and 0.5 mounted on our M113's, i remember we had to use 2 hands just to cock the 0.5 and the barrel itself weighed 20kg+, we used to manpack the bloody thing because in the jungle the ability to shoot through a medium tree was very desirable, but it took 4 men so was deemed not worth it.

The gpmg we were using was/is ? the same the one used by the british, I forgot it's designation or even where it came from, we just use to call it GPMG, can anyone enlighten me.

PS: was serving in the Singapore Army. Armour .

I wonder those countries which bought the leopard 1 and 2 do they come with the MG42 or can they use their own gpmg.

 

Finnish Leo2 are fitted with original MG3's.

 

MG42 was capable of 1800 RPM with some parts chaged. Otherwise it fired about 1200 RPM. It was cheap to produce, easy to operate and the barel was easy to replace. The LMG MG42 is one thing, and the HMG Mg42 is another. The LMG could be fired acurately from someone's shoulder, and was easy to deploy. The gunners had 70 rouds belts, 2 or 3 issued with the weapon. Since the rest of the platoon depended on then, I don't think they were triger happy. The HMG was a LMG on a tripod. The tripod had a special device, that made the weapon shoot in an arch, a set amount of rounds. It was not neaded for the gunner to aim and control the recoil as the weapon fires. The 50. cal is good if you fire at vehicles, but against infantry is not that usefull. (By the way, I can't imagine a seasoned german infantry man shocked by the sound of 50.cal. But for a marine to see the guy next to him cut in half by MG42 is certainly an experience).

The high ROF is better then low ROF, because we talk about WW2, when it matter not if you shoot 2000 round or 1 round. Colateral damage is not an isue in WW2. It would matter if you would be pinned in a position and you have no way to get aditional ammo, but otherwise is not. (Please, do not compare how weapons and players act in games. Is not real!)

 

There is no doubt that the MG 42 was a much superior MG to the Browning M1918. It was not only lighter and faster-firing, it had a quick-change barrel as well.

The reason for the very high RoF was that when most infantry come under MG fire the first thing they will do is dive for cover. So you may only have a second or two to hit them before they are out of sight. So slinging 20 rounds down in that first second gives you a better chance of scoring hits than if you only send 8 rounds down.

Note that modern 5.56mm MGs are often very fast-firing too: the FN Minimi fires at up to 1,000 rpm, the Negev can be set to over 1,000 rpm, the Ameli 900 rpm.

The .50 M2 is a different class of weapon altogether. It is more popular now than ever it was in WW2, because there are far more vehicles in the US Army to mount it on. As has been said, if you have to manpack the thing it rapidly loses its appeal (not just the gun, but the very heavy ammo as well).

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

I think you answered this best yourself.

First of all, you compare two completely different things. What is this statement supposed to prove? How is this an argument?, Your "imagining" is irrelevant, as "imagining" something does not make it true at all.

Ammunition expenditure is the point. Collateral damage is not the point.

 

The MG42 had a ROF of 900 RPM in general (if I remember correctly) and a maximum of 1500 RPM. I don't know where the number of 1800 came from, Selesque, but I've never seen it before.

Why would a German soldier have less trouble with being shot at by a weapon capable of penetrating most light armour and conventional cover, than an American soldier with being shot at by a machine gun with a higher ROF but incapable of penetrating the halftrack/sandbags/wall he is using for cover? Are you suggesting the German soldier would be more naturally accustomed to warfare? :lol:

 

Well, I guess that if they are hiding in a halftrack and get shot by a 50cal. they would get wounded or killed. But in an anti-infantry role, the 50cal. is not as usefull as the MG42. This was allready discused.

Roel said

They have been prepared for war (hitlerjugen training camps). But also they had at least 2 years of experience in warfare. So, yes, they were better soldiers. But not naturally.

When soldiers are running all over the place, I would rather have a high ROF, wouldn't you? Besides, you can't hit what you don't see. And if you fire blindly, not only you waste ammo, but you paint a target on you. You might as well say some prayers if you are at it!

 

What you're saying is, even though infantry is seeking cover they will still fall victim to the .50cal, yet this weapon is not effective against infantry? That doesn't make sense. My point is, you don't need to spit out three times as many bullets a minute if a single bullet does more damage than three bullets of a smaller calibre.

You are assuming that this is a 1941 scenario, which is unlikely since the US hadn't joined the war by then (hence no marines and no .50cal M2s). The further we go down the chronology of WW2, the worse the quality of the average German soldier gets. By the end of the war the Volksgrenadier divisions are pretty shameful excuses for infantry divisions, consisting of two regiments of two batallions each manned by soldiers who have recieved two weeks of basic training and haven't seen a single second of war before in their lives except when their home city was bombed by the Allies.

Who said we were shooting blindly?

 

You could use the same type of argument to show that a 20mm cannon was a better automatic weapon than the .50, or that a 37mm was better than a 20mm....

The MG 42 was a far better infantry weapon than the .50 M2, for the simple reason that it was powerful enough for most anti-personnel purposes while being far lighter and handier - and that doesn't just mean the gun, the .50 ammo weighed four or five times as much as the 7.92mm. If you had to manpack all that, you would soon come to much prefer the MG 42

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

This figure is repeated a lot on the net - IIRC it is the standard MG42 with a lightweight bolt fitted for a higher rate of fire.