No shelter from "my little friend" (MG42)

Damn what a fast gun! I couldn't tell that it was firing auto until I saw the cases hit the bench. Wow, how did we win WW2?
 
1100-1200 rounds per minute !!! We made a copy in 30-06 but it didn't work well -they forgot to change one of the dimensions for our longer case ! This gun of course was the beginning of the whole HK G3 series of guns which is still around .Great for woodchucks .
 
Jedi_Knife said:
Damn what a fast gun! I couldn't tell that it was firing auto until I saw the cases hit the bench. Wow, how did we win WW2?
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The russians and outlasting(supply and manufacturing) a country the size of georgia.;)

Hitler's zipper.


Paul
 
The M60 borrowed heavily from the MG-42 and the FG-42 (paratrooper's automatic rifle). Germany still uses the MG-42 in .308 as the MG-3. IIRC the barrels overheat very fast, but they can be changed very quickly. Quite a frightening gun.

Our infantry rifles were better, our vehicles could be made cheaper and were more reliable, and we had far more manufacturing capacity. Plus the Germans abandoned surface naval warfare early on. It would have been interesting to see how things worked out if they hadn't taken on the USSR.
 
ABTOMAT-47 said:
It would have been interesting to see how things worked out if they hadn't taken on the USSR.
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Talk about alternate history! :D

The whole rationale of Hitlerite Germany was taking on the USSR to wipe out the Slavs and fill the great European plain with Germans.
 
The US Army made an instructional film about quelling the troops fear of Hilter's Zipper.
From what I read the M-60 MG was a diluted re-design of the '42.
Once in a while you'll see footage (probably propaganda footage) of a German MG team with the poor A-Gunner holding the bipod and acting as the rest.
Ouchie on the ears.
:eek:
 
Ebbtide said:
From what I read the M-60 MG was a diluted re-design of the '42.
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Absolutely. If you look at the two of them together there are components that look very similar. Especially the feed tray. Of course the M-60 only had a rate of fire of around 550 to 650 IIRC.

KR
 
They show the training film mentioned on some of the History channel's Tales of the Gun segments. "Hear that gun? Fast, isn't it!"

The Wehrmacht used machine guns extensively at the squad level, and the MG42 was a good gun. The high rate of fire was intimidating, but of course it did cause some logistic problems.
As mentioned above, we were sufficiently impressed to take several design features (including the nice quick-change barrell) for our own M60. The M60 fires at about 600rpm, you can almost count the shots.
 
The new 240s have a lot higher cyclic rate, but firing at that rate just wears the barrel and the mg down faster. It's adjustable from 650-950. If you hit a guy with 4 bullets or 40 he's pretty dead either way. The rest are just for fun.

The M60 fires at about 600rpm, you can almost count the
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Only at sustained or rapid fire, at cyclic you would have trouble counting 10 shots every second. You rarely hear or see an MG firing on cyclic you will melt he barrel quickly if you have enough ammo and ruin it. You will get yelled at to. :)
 
mwerner said:
...........................As mentioned above, we were sufficiently impressed to take several design features (including the nice quick-change barrell) for our own M60. The M60 fires at about 600rpm, you can almost count the shots.
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Interestingly, the first version of the M60 didn't have a quick change barrel. You had to be very careful in firing the thing as not to overheat it, and when the barrel got bad enough, it had to go to the armorer to be rebarrelled. I never could figure out how they let that design flaw slip by, but they did, for several years.

Many were used in the early years of the Vietnam war without the barrel change feature.
 
And once they did put that feature in you still needed that rediculous asbestos mitten.
 
ABTOMAT-47 said:
And once they did put that feature in you still needed that rediculous asbestos mitten.
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I was gonna mention the glove, which of course no one ever had when you needed it. :eek: :eek: :D :D

KR
 
The weapons we were issued in Germany in the mid-sixties all had the quick-change feature; odd that this would not have been issued to guys going into combat!
I never saw any M60 crews use the asbestos glove, they just grabbed the bipod. Now, on the .50.... I saw one idiot blaze away with a Browning till the barrell started to glow...He indeed got yelled at.

The big problem with .50 was getting the headspace right when changing barrels. Our guys were given a "go-no-go" guage, and some gunners were quite clever, while others were not. (always the case with things mechanical)
 
mwerner said:
The weapons we were issued in Germany in the mid-sixties all had the quick-change feature; odd that this would not have been issued to guys going into combat!
I never saw any M60 crews use the asbestos glove, they just grabbed the bipod. Now, on the .50.... I saw one idiot blaze away with a Browning till the barrell started to glow...He indeed got yelled at.

The big problem with .50 was getting the headspace right when changing barrels. Our guys were given a "go-no-go" guage, and some gunners were quite clever, while others were not. (always the case with things mechanical)
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I think they figured the Russians a bigger threat at the time than those pesky little North Vietnamese and Viet Cong;), so the troops facing eastern Europe got the better weapons. Just a guess here.:confused:


On the mechanical thing, I guess that's why the government has to over engineer these things. it has to be proofed against the lowest common denominator, or idiot proofed.

I know that usually the majority of troops whose life depends on the weapon(s) will take pretty good care of it/them, but like you say, there are some real dummies that slip through the net.;)
 
On a historical note, in the final months pulling back for the Russian frontier, squads of MG42 gunners wre formed for the express purpose of setting up ambushes to delay the advancing enemy. Needless to say, they slowed things down until a countermeasure could be survived and implemented on a broader scale.
 
Just imagine that sweet weapon in 308, which is what many forces are using today! :D

I bet the Stones would be pissed if they found out their music was being used in that context! :D :p
 
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