Those WW2 Germans sure knew how to build a machinegun

[Guest]

not that junk the M-60 the U.S uses today...................................................MG-42 (Germany)



caliber: 7.92x57 mm Mauser (also known as 7.9mm or 8mm Mauser)
Weigth: 11.5 kg on bipod; 18 kg on light AA tripod; 32 kg on infantry tripod
Length: 1220 mm
Length of barrel: 530 mm
Feeding: belt, 50 or 250 round
Rate of fire: 1200 - 1300 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity: 710 m/s


Hitlers' Germany entered the World War 2 with the MG-34 as a major multipurpose machine gun, but it soon was discovered that MG-34 was less than suitable for high volume wartime production, being too time- and resource-consuming in manufacture and also somewhat sensitive to fouling and mud. The search for newer, better universal machine gun begain circa 1939, and in 1942 the final design, developed by the German company Metall und Lackierwarenfabrik Johannes Grossfuss AG, was adopted as a MG-42. It was manufactured in large numbers by companies like the Grossfuss itself, Mauser-Werke, Gustloff-Werke, Steyr-Daimler-Puch and some others. Being undoubtfully one of the best machine guns of the World War 2, MG-42 still shines and is still in production in more or less modified forms in many countries. In most countries, like the Germany ,Italy and Pakistan, it is used rechambered for 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition, under the names of MG-42/59 and MG-3. In some countries, like Yugoslavia, it is used in its original chambering, 7.92mm Mauser. In any case, some 60 years since its first adoption, MG-42 and its direct descendants are among the best in the world in its class. Total numbers of the MG-42s built during WW2 are estimated as not less than 400 000, and keeping in mind that it is still manufactured in some countries, total numbers of the MG-42 and ist direct descendants produced in the world up to date, can be near the million.

MG-42 was designed with the some wery basic ideas in mind: it must be universal in use, fast and cheap to manufacture, and as reliable as possible. It also had to provide maximum available firepower by adopting a relatively high rate of fire. To achieve the fast manufacturing and a relatively low cost, Grossfuss company used as much steel stampings as possible. In fact, instead of the separate barrel sleeve and receiver, both machined from blocks of steel (as found in MG-34), MG-42 used a single piece receiver/barrel sleeve unit, stamped from one sheet of steel. This feature alone saved a lot of steel and time, but other measures also have been taken, so overall cost of the MG-42 was about 30% lower than of MG-34, and it required 50% less raw materials and man labour, than MG-34.

MG-42 is a short recoil operated, automatic fire, belt-feed weapon. To simplify the design, select-fire and magazine-feeding features of the MG-34 were abandoned, and MG-42 could be fed only from the left side. The belt feed of the MG-42 is quite simpe and effective, and it was used as a pattern for numerous latter designs. It uses a single swinging arm that operates a belt-feed claws. Both arm and claws are mounted on the hinged receiver feed cover. Arm has a curved cam track, in which the bolt stut rides forward and backward, when receiver is closed, thus oscillating the arm and operating the feed. MG-42 used same belts as MG-34, in same 50-round truncated cone shaped containers or 250 rounds boxes.

MG-42 uses a short recoiling barrel with muzzle recoil booster, somewhat similar in appearance to one found on MG-34. This booster uses muzzle blast to accelerate barrel recoil, and also served as a flash hider. Barrel locking is acieved by the pair of the rollers, located in the bolt head. When bolt becomes in the forwardmost position, bolt body, with its forward inclined part, pushes two rollers aside and into the locking recesses in the barrel extension, achieving a rigid lock between the barrel and the bolt head. When shot is fired, after the short recoil of the barrel with the bolt locked to it, rollers are pushed inward by the shaped cams in the receiver, releasing the bolt head from the barrel. Barrel is then stopped and bolt continued to travel backward, extracting and ejecting a spent case, operating a belt-feed and chambering a fresh round on its return into the battery. MG-42 is fired from the open bolt, allowing for fastest possible barrel cooling. Due to high rate of fire, barrel must be changed quite often (about every 250 - 300 rounds of sustained fire), so a very simple and effective method of barrel change was introduced. Barrel is held iside its sleve by the simple bearing at the muzzle and by the yoke at the rear. To remove the barrel, one must simply unlatch the yoke and swing it out, so rear part of the barrel will be withdrawn out of the sleeve to the right. After that, barrel can be simply withdrawn to the back and replaced by the fresh and cool one. Then, simply turn the yoke back and gun is ready to rock. Barrel replacement could be made in as short time as 6 to 10 seconds, allowing for high practical rate of fire. Every gun usually was issued with two or three spare barrels, which were stored in special containers.

Every MG-42 has a light, folding bipod from which it could be fired in Light machinegun role. It also could be used from earlier infantry and Anti-Aircraft tripods, designed for MG-34. It was issued mostly to infantry and was rarely seen on the vehicles or tanks, because the MG-34, with its ambidextrous feed capabilities and straight-backward barrel withdrawal, was more suited for tank mountings. There also was less dirt inside the tanks than in front trenches, so MG-34 worked quite well in this role, while MG-42's unsurpassed reliability ruled the battlefields.

As a last note, i should point out that MG-42 system of operations is often confused with one, developed by the Mauser-Werke in 1945 and made famous by various CETME and Heckler & Koch rifles (G3), machine guns (HK21, HK23) and submachine guns (MP5). These systems, while both using two rollers located between the bolt head and the bolt body, are completely different in operations. In MG-42, the barrel is movable and recoils for short time, while being rigidly locked. In H&K designs, barrel does not move, and rollers are used not to lock the barrel, but only to slow down the bolt head rearward motion at the initial stages of the reloading cycle. The only other weapon, produced in large numbers, that used MG-42 roller locking, is a Czech-made vz.52 pistol, not to mention the MG-3 machine gun, which, in this respect, is the same as MG-42.

[Tab]

Well what about our Sten Gun, now that would work if you dropped it, jumped of a back of lorry or even fell over, and you didn't even have to cock it, for it to empty it's magazine. The only thing it would stop, would be your pay for the illegal discharge of a weapon, it got such a stage that no one would want to carry one.

[dalo]

too right the mg42 sounded crazy i heard that when it fired the noise was so violent like paper ripping apart probably would have been hard to control and it probably eat up ammo very quickly (1000 odd rounds a minute) thats crazy for 1942

[Guest]

too right the mg42 sounded crazy i heard that when it fired the noise was so violent like paper ripping apart probably would have been hard to control and it probably eat up ammo very quickly (1000 odd rounds a minute) thats crazy for 1942

....................................................Dalo the worst nightmare a allied infantry had was a MG42 near by you could not escape the valume of fire thrown at you once the gunner had you in his sight the gun is not un controlable at all . Ill take a MG42 over a M-60 any day the only thing the M-60 have is that is a bit lighter but not as well built as a MG42 the M-60 needs rebuilts and recivers are known to break the MG42 was built to last 100 years the americans try to copy the gun in the 40s but they fail "idiots in the tech dept" they could not get the gun to work in inches the gun was a metric specs. the german stills uses the gun along with other countrys. the difrence is = is now chamber in 7.62 x51 nato instead of 8mm mauser the closes thing the american have is the mini gun = much faster but not a pratical gun to be carry in the fields"or imposible" . forget that scene were arnold shoots the alien with the minigun but you could come close with a real MG42 . [/quote]

[dalo]

bad thing about m60 is that every 250 rounds fired the barrel would have to be changed and thats would not be good when being ambushed by the sneaky vietcong or nva i mean it would be quite a weight to carry i have felt the weight of a gpmg and that weighs around the same as the m60 and also there would be spare barrels and lots of ammo being carried and carrying all that through the jungle with all the heat and humidity you would need a very muscular and fit person to do this. but in all the vietnam photos i have seen on the internet its all smaller guys who are carrying them lol

[Guest]

Well what about our Sten Gun, now that would work if you dropped it, jumped of a back of lorry or even fell over, and you didn't even have to cock it, for it to empty it's magazine. The only thing it would stop, would be your pay for the illegal discharge of a weapon, it got such a stage that no one would want to carry one.

IM A STEN EXPERT I KILL 2 MILLION GERMAN BEFORE WITH ONE ok i did not but here it is = we had a sten gun built from gun kit "another word every original sten parts minus the reciver tube" the reciver tube is from u.s after we screen"or weed out" the bad magazines "this were war surplus mags" the sten was rented at our gunshop and gun range along with other full autos subs, mp5,uzi, etc the gun had thousands" of rounds shot thru it "it never broke" "many times it was plain digusting dirty with powder residue" it hardly ever jam. and the gun had no modification at all " exept we made sure the mags that did not feed were weed out. those mags that did feed never gave us a problem ever after. maybe the very first war production sten had quality problem but the later guns did not " the gun could go off but it would take a hell of a drop and it would have to fall [perfect of the stock end first and maybe it might go off" in many cases i would prefer the sten gun over a modern HK MP5 any day and i have shot both thousands of time each and had to clean and repair them when needed. the sten never broke , the HK mp 5 extractor spring did break once "cheap and easy to replace but never the less it broke" this guns were fired a hell of a lot more than any swat team in any country forget the soldier hes lucky enough to fire six mag or 10 before the battle is over or his allready dead. theres a lot of myth about Sten that is not true = same thing with foreskins.

[Redhand]

Good post spliff.

Dalo, right about the paper ripping, depending on the weight of the bolt, the rate of fire would go up or down, with the really light bolt, it became known as the 'Hitler zipper'.

Funny thing, you look at alot of WWII German equipment (tanks, firearms, etc)...superb craftmanship. The Germans deffinitely knew how to go to war

It's been joked that the present Iraq conflict is simply not on a grand enough scale for them to join!

[Guest]

We lost a lad to the Sten-gun in Palestine, in the bloody galley of all places, it was dropped, it fired a whole mag, it always was a piece of cheap shite.

Aye Owdun.

sure ok we lost thousand of customers becouse the sten would go full auto and no one could stop it then it would reload it self again "i saw this" it would walk to the magazine box reload the next mag would open the doors and fire at any passing vehicle and was finally kill by a FN FAL we did not trust the british FAL they would go off too .

[Guest]

[quote="dalo"]bad thing about m60 is that every 250 rounds fired the barrel would have to be changed or 300 thats still a lots of rounds barrrel change is great even the smart german had it on the MG42 a over heated barrel can be change in seconds or a damage one with a fix barrel you are SCREW. the allies 30 caliber machine gun were fix barrels and heavy well built becouse it was a browning design gun but those early design had a water cooled barrels in fix position so weight and cooling was not a problem .

[Tab]

The Sten Gun cost 7schillings and 6 pence to make it was a very cheap and nasty. If you held the gun at the high port and jumped of a back of a lorry the bolt would would drop a couple of inches then carry a round forward and fire it, if the gun felt like it, it would then fire of the whole magazine. Also to load magazine fully you had to that brass loading gadget which again was a pain in the rear, unless you fancied going into action with a magazine with out a full load. I have seen these damn guns go off often with out reason and they did not have to be cocked for this to happen. You never tried to aim this gun you just used it like a hose pipe
and sprayed the area. My where we glad when we went over to the Stirling

[Redhand]

what about the Thompson SMG Tab? You ever squeeze off on of those in any of your training/operations? I've heard mixed things.

[Guest]

The Sten Gun cost 7schillings and 6 pence to make it was a very cheap and nasty. If you held the gun at the high port and jumped of a back of a lorry the bolt would would drop a couple of inches then carry a round forward and fire it, if the gun felt like it, it would then fire of the whole magazine. Also to load magazine fully you had to that brass loading gadget which again was a pain in the rear, unless you fancied going into action with a magazine with out a full load. I have seen these damn guns go off often with out reason and they did not have to be cocked for this to happen. You never tried to aim this gun you just used it like a hose pipe
and sprayed the area. My where we glad when we went over to the Stirling

............................................................the sten had a cut slot were you could lock the bolt so that would not happen you say it cost 7 chillin well my friend try to have one built today then get back to me ok i seen real junk built this days for $300.00 and more and they dont work forget about reliability the sten was very reliable. i witness it my self. the original sten magazine reloader we used was a delight to use =easy= very well made. i used the sight on the sten lots of time i could drill you at short range 70 to 100 yards anything behond that is not good with pistol rounds. ps no ones goes to battle this day with a few mags .[/quote]

[Guest]

what about the Thompson SMG Tab? You ever squeeze off on of those in any of your training/operations? I've heard mixed things.

"spliff" we had a uzi, sten, hk mp5, mac 10,and a thompson ww 2 version much simpler than the original 1930s gun the thompson was well made but the magazine were flimsy very delicate magazine lips you would have be very carefull with rough handling and i would not go into battle unless i have test the magazine for reliable feed a bad mag i would trash in war time =destroy it before it gets some alse kill " feed jam" most of all ww2 submachine guns magazines had a quality control problem including the german mp38 and mp40 and the thompson was a boat anchor too i would had taken a BAR first or later from a down soldier i would not even consider a M1 carbine since it was not neither a submachine gun or a full battle rifle and was not a assault rifle like the MP44 but it was the closest thing to it with the very late version in selective fire semi/auto and 30 round magazine instead of the 99% 15 round mags the MP 44 had a superior caliber than the 30 caliber carbine it was more like our present 7.62x39 AK round

[Redhand]

You ever fired an M1 Carbine? My dads a gunsmith and wanted to get it as a Christmas present for me...but it never turned out. How's it handle?