MG42- Buzz worse than its Bite?

There is a US training film that addresses that issue..

This weapon is often lauded as the best LMG of WW2- with firing rates up to 1200-1500 RPM. Yet weapons with such fast firing rates have not been adopted post war and surely the stability of the weapon on a bipod must have suffered.

Anybody fire this gun before?

How much more effective was this, than say, a US 30 cal. 1919 machinegun and did it significantly improve the German soldier's offensive and defensive power?

On the battlefield, was a MG42, given its feed system and prodigious firing rate, worth say, 2 Brens or 3 BARs in a defensive situation?

 

have you watched saving private ryan seeing how bad those guys got ripped up along with artillery

 

The US actually reduced the rate of fire of their machineguns because empirical studies showed that higher rates of fire simply wasted ammunition past a certain point. A burst from a 600 rpm machinegun was just as effective as a 900 or 1500 rpm burst in ground combat.
Now, in aerial combat the US upped the rate of their weapons well beyond that of the ground models with the .30 and .50 machineguns having rates of fire of about 900 to 1000 rpm.
The problem in ground combat is feeding the monster ammunition. Lowering the rate of fire increased the availability of ammunition and reduced wastage.

 

Thanks for that information, Mr Gardner.

I had been wondering why post-WWII infantry machine guns had such low rates of fire. Now I know.

 

Are there two schools of thought regarding this issue? The Germans designed the MG42 with the exact opposite idea in mind- that the high fire rate against fleeting targets would increase lethality.

The FN MAG and the M249 have firing rates at 650-1000, 700-1000, while the MG3 has its fire rate reduced to 1150. They have higher firing rates than the Allied MGs, which were generally at 450-600 rpm.

 

The Americans and most of the world it'd appear decided that controllability is more important than the rate of fire, but the Bundeswehr is still blissfully using their MG-3s. MG-42 was a deadly weapon because no one else try to put that kind of automatic firepower in the rifle squad--a case of using much heavier weaponry than people were accustomed to in organizations of the same size. Personally, I still think the MG-42 was a superior weapon to the air-cooled Browning 30. cal, but that was for reasons unrelated to the level of firepower generated.

 

Possibly the MG42 design reflected the perceived circumstances of the Germany army in WW2, whereas the the MAG benefited from Wartime experience of rate of fire and lethality. At a defined target(even if it were fleeting) a fire rate of 700rpm would be more than sufficient, if I remeber rightly the higher rate of fire on the MAG was intended mainly for A/A defence and I can't recall anyone actually authorising a rate change from low to high even when set up as a Medium MG. I regard a rate of 500rpm more than sufficient- in use we were trained to tap off short 4-5round bursts to avoid excessive ammunition use overheating and stress on the weapon.

I agree with Triple C the MG42 is a superior design, it is a pity the ROF is too high.

 

Well, what I´ve read it was one of the most feared voices in the war by the Allied soldiers, so it had some psychological effect that other guns did not.

Agreed with the huge waste of ammo.

 

I believe I've seen the training video you are referring too. Its more of a method of making the US Soldiers not fearful of the gun (a false sense of security) more then trying to say that the MG42 has a worse bark then it does bite. Its like the dehumanification of the Japanese etc - do whatever it takes to stir up a hatred or fear of something to make men act aggressively towards it.

 

The MG 42 was probably the best medium/light machine gun of the war. It was extremely advanced for its time and it is still in use, with some refinements, in the German, Spanish, and other armies today as no one seems to have come up with anything better after all this time!

Based on the MG 34 it introduced a bunch of ingenious features that are still in use to this day, such as a quick change barrel to help prevent overheating. The American browning .30 cal machine gun was an excellent design but it was heavier then the mg-42, and did not have a quick change barrel. The MG 42 was a redesigned MG 34, as the 34 required too much machining. The MG 42 used stampings and spot welding wherever possible in its design and over 500,000 were made.

The rate of fire is indeed a puzzle, as in the mg 34 it was about 900 rpm but in the 42 was raised to an incredible 1200 rpm. To use such firepower took disciplined and trained men, which the Germans had. Each gun was assigned a team of at least two men, one of whom was an assistant gunner who carried ammo and a spare barrel or two. (A hot barrel could be changed for a cool one in less than 10 seconds.) The a-gunner also helped feed the ammo into the gun, as any WW2 footage of german infantry shows. The gun did not really require a second man to hold the ammo, a simple design change could have fixed that - it was designed as a crew served weapon and the second man was there as much for morale reasons as any other.

 

I cannot think of any features in either the MG 34 or 42 that were not refinments of earlier designs.

With regard to quick change barrel, the first service weapon with quick change barrels were the Liati M26 Finland,the Furrer M25 (Swiss) the MG30 (German/Swiss which was designed by Stange the guy who went on to design the MG34) These three weapons had the same type of barrel chnage in that the bolt and barrel were changed as one unit, there is a design convergence in these designs which infers that an earlier expermental weapon with this system existed prior to 1925. All three weapons had different locking systems.

However another rapid change barrel existed -the Czech ZB26 designed by Vaclav and Emmanuel Holek. which entered production in 1926 and it still the fastest quick change barrel of any machine gun.

The Soviet DP M1926 also had a quick change barrel but the Soviets did not use the concept.

 

MG 42 was pretty effective from examples like Omaha beach. But I think the main problem with the MG-42 was that the gunners tended to waste untold amounts of ammunition when firing, as most of the rounds generally missed (like in any weapon system), and 1200 RPM gives the shooter a little over-confidence. This was the same problem experienced by some US soldiers when they were issued the M1 Garand; they fired quicker than their enemy, but they ended up wasting a lot of ammo as a result.

 

In my humble opinion, after attending a nation-wide machine gun shoot in Kentucky a few years ago, I was able to shoot an MG-42, Browning .30, M2 .50, and a myriad of others....the MG-42 was 2nd only to the .50 cal in fun, and certainly the most bad ass in sound. I wasn't buying the ammo so I didn't care if I wasted it, but it was sickenly fast. You could just wave down range and murder your target with no problems. I would love to have one, just for the converstation aspect of it. In comparison, the Browning just seemed to chug chug chug the bullets out.

 

Any personal account by Allied soldiers will tell you things like
"It tore us apart"
"We didnt have time to run"
"In the blink of an eye"

The MG42 was a very superior weapon unmatched by anything on the field. Its ability to spit rounds at an insanely fast rate gave it the potential to cut down whole platoons in seconds. It really made truth of the term "Air filled with lead"

 

The MG42's strong suit is its reliability and its quick change bbl, not its rate of fire. But the rate of fire would definitely have a strong psychological effect.

Bear in mind that a machinegun is an area weapon, not a pinpoint accuracy weapon. Indeed, the reduced rate on a BAR often resulted in multiple hits being wasted on one body.

I think that the finest recommendation of the MG42 comes from the Bundeswehr's adopting it above all contenders---to include some a generation or so later in development. They did so only on performance and the memory of its proven performance, unburdened by any existing stocks.

 

The rate of fire issue seems to come up repeatedly but the Germans obviously chose the high rate of fire of 1200 rpm for the MG 42 deliberately. Having plenty of combat experience by then and considering the MG 42 was a redesign of the MG 34, and having an opportunity to raise or lower the rate of fire of the MG 34 or keep it the same, they chose to raise the rate of fire in the newer weapon despite all the drawbacks of doing this. The germans obviously felt their soldiers would be more effective with the MG 42 as it was the foundation of their infantry squads and platoons (armed mainly with the bolt action KAR 98 all through the war).

The German riflemen were mainly intended to protect the machine gun and maneuver around its base of fire. Being armed for the most part with bolt action rifles they were forced to adapt to the weapons issued and as history shows, were usually pretty effective.

But once the war on the eastern front turned against Germany's favor and the germans were fighting battles where they were outnumbered 10, or 20 to 1 on the battlefield, the Germans knew they needed some fast firing weapons for their riflemen but with more power than a submachine gun. German industry responded with the G43 semi auto (500,000 made) and later the MP-44 (500,000 made also). These weapons made the Germans more effective when fighting outnumbered, which was almost always, and may have prolonged the war by several months.

In the 1930's and 1940's, Generals in almost all armies everywhere, as a rule tended to strongly resist semi auto designs even after they became practical. The first thought in the minds of the Generals was always something like "the dumb troops will simply waste all their ammo shooting at nothing and we will have to supply too much ammo, so we do not want a fast-firing rifle!" This is why the bolt action rifle stuck around in so many armies for so many years.

 

I find it hard to fight effectively with a bolt action rifle.


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In a computer game that is, LOL.

I can only assume that troops that fought in WW2 were not so suicidally aggressive as those in movies and games.

 

In the 1930's and 1940's, Generals in almost all armies everywhere, as a rule tended to strongly resist semi auto designs even after they became practical. The first thought in the minds of the Generals was always something like "the dumb troops will simply waste all their ammo shooting at nothing and we will have to supply too much ammo, so we do not want a fast-firing rifle!" This is why the bolt action rifle stuck around in so many armies for so many years.[/quote]

This is the same mindset that caused US troops to counter Spanish Mausers w 1873 single shot Springfields! Perhaps it is not the troops who are the dumb ones.

 

the bite was definately worse then it's buzz, just remember what happened to the Americans and the British during the D-Day invasion on the shores of france. The RPM was so high probably because during the invasion when the Allied soldiers arived in there Higgins Boats they were an easy target. Right as the door fell the Germans poored lead on them, it doesn'y matter if it was accurate if you just aimed toward the direction you were bound to hit something/someone.

 

The MG42 did it's job perfectly. With the brilliant tripod system it could be used in many roles. Our regiments shooting range was used by the germans during the war, and they did shoots at 1200m with the MG 42 on the tripod.

As for the rate of fire there are several ways of adjusting that. The muzzlecap has a series of holes in them, and there are several types of muzzelcaps. But more importantly the the bolt itself comes in several types (this is also true for the 'modern' MG3)

The insane rate of fire is ofcourse good help on air targets, and in a target rich envirorment.

In my opinion the MG42 was just right. The training film that is refered to by Wolfy is a prozac for the GI's who have to face it. The veterans all say they feared the 'spandau', and compared to their own kit it was space technology.

I favour that gun myself. I have always loved that big lump of metal. It is great to shoot with, and never fails.

I don't base my opinions on experience from Call of Duty or Medal of Honour.

I have shoot the bloody thing since 1996.

Jaeger.