Machines | Machine Gun Comparison -- U.S. .30 caliber vs. German MG-34 and MG-42
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WW2 machine gun comparison -- U.S. .30 caliber vs. German MG-34 and MG-42. The backbone of infantry firepower, the machine guns. Testing their accuracy at 300 yards. American light .30 caliber on bipod vs. American heavy .30 on tripod vs. German MG-34 on bipod vs. German MG-42 on tripod.
Comments
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Pure Propaganda. The Gunner for the German Guns have Order for bad shooting. 50 MG42 on D Day kills 6000 Gis in 2 hours. Not bad for a so crabby MG in this fake propaganda Movie. We Germans know, what the MG42 can do. We must not be a "Fanboy, when we like the MG42
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But MG42 sucks at grazing fire, this is only propaganda because by definition EVERYTHING officially made by a nation at war is propaganda regardless of how true any parts of it are. They are right that the MG42 isn't all it's cracked up to be, evidenced in how not a single nation that fought against the MG42 chose to adopt it, only former Axis or closely related to axis nations, or they bought some German tank in the cold war and an MG42 was thrown in for free.
Why does it suck? The problem is in the nature of how soldiers attempt to achieve dominance over each other since the First World War.
The film above shows soldiers apparently shoulder to shoulder as if charging the machine gun, they'd never do that. Why would they need to run up to a machine gun when they have rifles that shoot bullets? The shoulder to shoulder targets and long engagement time could only possibly represent an MG engaging a skirmish line from an enfilade position as looking that way though the soldiers are longitudinally displaced to you the lateral displacement may be very low. But the problem is the MG42 has such low mobility, it's 50% heavier than a BREN and much longer too and is a crew served weapon, it needs an ammo bearer to stay close to them.
Realise those the terms "suppression" ("neutralise" in UK/Commonwealth parlance) are for all the ways that fire can stop an enemy firing at you. It may be because the bullets directly hit and kill the enemy, it may directly hit and only wound the enemy, it may be the fact that such bullets can wound or kill them forces them to stay so low down. Whether dead, casualties or cowering, it doesn't matter, they are suppressed.
MG42 wasn't any better at laying EFFECTIVE fire onto a skirmish line, they both MG42 and BREN had the same sustained fire rate, MG42's higher cyclic rate was let down by how it mandated longer pauses after each burst to adjust from the excessive recoil of such a high recoil weapon. Both were expected to lay down about 250 rounds every 2 minutes (one box of ammo for MG42 every 2 minutes, 4 mags per minute with BREN and so on). So considering the overall rate of fire is the same, what about effectiveness of that fire.
The above video is at least useful as an objective comparison of measuring density of fire, imagine there is a head and some shoulders in the middle of the standing-shoulder-to-shoulder targets, the chance of hitting them or getting so close to hitting a head+shoulder sized target within that is based on density of fire in the standardised area.
MG34 only scored 13/30, 43% density
M1919 LMG scored 22/30, 73% of maximum density
M1917 24/30, 80% density and probably much higher as you can see it's very clustered towards the middle
MG42 16/30, even with the tripod mount it barely breaks 50% density.
So where's this supposed massive advantage in suppression fire capability? Even a lowly M1919 is going to be about 70% more effective at suppressing an enemy position.
It is a pure myth is that you "just need to get the lead down range" as if the bullets missing because they are going so wide is the same as the bullets missing because they hit so close the targeted enemy is forced to dive deep into cover and stay there.. The fire MUST still be accurate. Suppressive fire is HITTING fire that the only way to avoid being killed is by it is to disengage.
But lets say MG42 can just about keep up, it has a good firing position and it has suppressed an enemy position, now what?
It's all about lateral movements, as I pointed out was obvious, they wouldn't have to advance on an enemy who is above their firing line, they could shoot directly at them. Now they need a more advantageous position to fire from. Now rifles are excellent at picking off targets with little lateral movement but hitting a target moving laterally is bloody hard. It's hard enough to even aim at at target moving laterally but if you do aim directly at them you'll probably miss as despite the bullet moving 800m/s that's long enough flight time at 100m.
This is where machine guns are REALLY important for doing more than suppressing the enemy but also pinning them down. A skirmish line of riflemen may do as well as a machine gun at suppressing an enemy position so they are forced down into cover as if they ever stick their head up they'll have it shot off. Where rifles fall-short is if the enemy forces in the defensive position scatter or try to move laterally to a better position to fire on you from. Remember, German MG42 was only one per squad, but if an Allied rifle squad/section can spread out enough then multiple firing angles on one MG42 it cannot aim 10 different ways at once! But they have to actually be able to spread out.
This is where machine gun's "Grazing fire" is important, it can put a continual stream of bullets across the direction you see the enemy moving. It is far more important that you can sustain this steam than have a short high concentration burst. The conventional fire rate of Maxim/BREN/BAR is more than adequate for this. What is not any damn good is the MG42 which by the nature of the extremely excessive fire rate needs extremely short burst of duration only about 0.2 sec long, that is drawing a line for such a short moment that it's only fractionally better than aiming with an actual rifle.
That explains the many accounts of Allied soldiers who faced the MG42 they were amazed how they could run around in front of an MG42 and not get hit. Accounts like that from the first world war were nearly unheard of, if you tried to move laterally in front of a Vickers or MG08 machine gun then they could easily draw a stream of fire across where you are going. Entire battalions were cut down in that way. Yet MG42's atrocious firing ergonomics meant it had to be used more like an extremely unwieldy shotgun to nearly directly point the burst to juuuust in from of the manoeuvring infantry or the burst would be too far ahead of them.
This pinning down is so important, it's just not good enough to suppress a position if they then retreat to another position to ambush you again or manoeuvre laterally to get enfilade fire on you. The British learned this to terrible results in the 2nd Boer War where they couldn't stop Boer Militia manoeuvring laterally to a high defilade position where their whole British firing line was enfilade. Within seconds these riflemen could bring down a concentration of rifle fire that destroyed their position.
All these ideas of "Allies should have jsut adopted the MG42" are train-spotters who do nothing but look at the cyclic rate, note that it is higher and ignorantly presume higher is always better. -
All the MG-42 fanboys losing their shit up in here
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With machine guns, accuracy is good but is not the top priority in them. Fire rate is. The machine gun was created to cut down mass amounts of infantry or cavalry in the open, not to pick off individual targets. So, the German guns are much better, but of course expensive because of the ammunition usage.
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Isn't it the Japanese Type-92 that were the most accurate because of their low fire rate?
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Well, all 4 are pretty accurate but I am pretty sure that with a good shooter, the 34 and the 42 would be as accurate as the others, but this was ww2 and propaganda was such that we could not make a German gun better than an American Gun
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Goddamn the tripod MG42 is insane!
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Also, later in the war, the MG-42 may have gained fire superiority...but then the GIs would call the gun bunnies.
"See your 7.92 machinegun squad and raise you a 105mm battery." -
The MG 42 would have been a better fit for the US Army--we could afford the ammo and spare barrels--and the US MGs would've been a better fit for the German army-better use of the ammo.
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It wasn't the accuracy the Germans were looking into, it was the sheer shit storm of lead and terror that the weapon brought
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"Fuck it! Ammunition is cheap. I have no problem killing two of you GI JOE homosexual lovers joined at the hips, with 16 hits instead of 22... you ain't running through my machine gun fire over Omaha beach... not at 2100 rpm... you can eat your Omaha sand!" -- Heinrich Severloh (auf Deutsch, of course...)
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Yeah dude, but ROF allows to catch running enemies as well as a much better SUPRESSION to the foes...
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typical murican propaganda. poor solds thought they had a chance against the 42
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1942 to Present day
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/MG-3_Infanter%C3%ADa_de_Marina.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/IL%C3%9C_2012_-_MG3.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Austrian_forces_at_Combined_Resolve_II_%2814236022975%29.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Norwegian_soldier_-_Battle_Griffin_2005.jpg
The mg3 is the machine gun you see in the pictures, it is the mg42 chambered in 7.62x51.
It is still used by:
Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Spain to name a few.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG3#Users -
Nice propaganda, worth a try.
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Then how did mgs kill so many more than brownings
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they even said that you could use a mg 34 and 42 as a sniper cause it was so accurate
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Propaganda. Miało to pokazać, że amerykańskie karabiny maszynowe są lepsze bo... mają mniejszą szybkostrzelność. Równie dobrze można w ten sposób porównać MG 42 do M1 Garand i oczywiście ten drugi by był "lepszy" bo bardziej celny.
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MG34 and MG42 the song of fire is different
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42's where so bad, the US troops where ordered not to move until the 42's had to reload.