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Old 11-06-2015, 04:57 PM
 
Location: Montgomery County, PA
16,563 posts, read 15,127,385 times
Reputation: 14584

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Arguably, the nastiest machine gun ever produced, the MG42 is legendary. It proved itself in all theaters and other than eating rounds like crazy I am not aware of any weaknesses. Looking at heavy machine guns even today, I don’t see the MG42 lacking much. So was it abandoned after the war? How does it stack up agains the competition today some 70 years later?
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Old 11-06-2015, 05:21 PM
 
Location: Caverns measureless to man...
7,588 posts, read 6,578,626 times
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"Hitler's Bonesaw," eh? Some versions of it are still in use. The Austrian MG 74 is just an improved model of the 42. A number of other countries adopted it with minor improvements immediately after the war, and I distinctly remember seeing footage of Portuguese troops using original MG 42s in Africa back in the late 60s and early 70s. The West German army modified it slightly in the late 40 or early 50s, and called it the MG 3. It's still in service in the Bundeswehr, as far as I recall. It's basically the same weapon, rechambered with the smaller NATO round and with a few improvements like a chrome-lined barrel.

It's pretty hard to improve upon perfection, and the MG 42 was pretty damned close to perfect for a small unit suppressing fire weapon.
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Old 11-06-2015, 08:10 PM
 
Location: Montgomery County, PA
16,563 posts, read 15,127,385 times
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I know how much a single box of ammo weighs so I have always wondered how do you feed a machine in the middle of nowhere that consumes 1200 rounds per minute? You need a ammo truck to follow the crew. Apparently Germans used it with a 6 man crew. That’s a lot of people.
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Old 11-06-2015, 08:34 PM
 
Location: Caverns measureless to man...
7,588 posts, read 6,578,626 times
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Yeah, that was the problem. It was great for fixed defenses if you could stockpile ammo, but hard to carry enough rounds to keep it in business when you're on the move. In the dedicated machine gun squad, no fewer than 3 men were tasked with carrying spare ammunition and barrels, and sometimes another was assigned to drive a horsedrawn trailer full of ammunition and other gear.

But sometimes even that wasn't enough. Quite often, every soldier in the company was issued extra machine gun ammunition to carry with them, so there'd always be plenty available. The ammo consumption was its biggest weakness.
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Old 11-06-2015, 09:35 PM
 
Location: Montgomery County, PA
16,563 posts, read 15,127,385 times
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This is why the army that has figured out the logistics is the likely winner. There are other machines that have voracious appetite for ammo.
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Old 11-06-2015, 09:49 PM
 
Location: Caverns measureless to man...
7,588 posts, read 6,578,626 times
Reputation: 17966
Especially in this example. Don't go to war against the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States all at once on 3 fronts when half your army is transported by horsedrawn carriages.

What was that line in "Band of Brothers?" "Look at all this - we've got Ford, GM, Chrysler.... and you've got horses!! What were you thinking???"
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Old 11-07-2015, 04:57 AM
 
Location: Finland
24,144 posts, read 24,665,839 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyRider View Post
I know how much a single box of ammo weighs so I have always wondered how do you feed a machine in the middle of nowhere that consumes 1200 rounds per minute? You need a ammo truck to follow the crew. Apparently Germans used it with a 6 man crew. That’s a lot of people.
The Germans used the MG42 also as a squad weapon, with one manning the gun, one observer and one rifleman carrying ammo. They also used the round box magazines which reduced weight. The heavy-mg configuration with a tripod and scope had a 6-man crew.

The theoretical rate of fire is just for display, as you will fire short bursts anyway. You have to aim, change targets and know that you have to conserve ammo anyway. And obviously if you just fire away for long even the best air-cooled weapons simply gets too hot to be operable. We used the domestic KK62 which has almost as high rate of fire (1100 rounds per minute), and a 100-round belt usually lasted perfectly well for a while, as in any case you fire only less-than-a-second bursts.

The MG 3 is still used as the standard support mg in German and Italian tanks, IFV:s and APC:s, so there there is no problem with carrying ammo. Finland uses it also on NH90 helicopters, as the design is simply so great.
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Old 11-07-2015, 07:17 AM
 
23 posts, read 107,838 times
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MG42 was manufactured in Spain under licence during years, also in Yugoslavia. Both countries sold those weapons to a very large number of armies. As to the usage, the Spanish army used the weapon as a squad weapon, as mentioned in the post above. Later, during the 80's, Spain designed AMELIS (MG82) that was based on MG42 and that obtained excelent results and was bought in large numbers by the British Army and other armies elsewhere.
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