Dear friends, welcome to the channel the Eastern Front! In 1934, the 7,9 mm MG-34 machine gun was
adopted by the Wehrmacht, the first machine gun in history that could be used as a manual,
anti-aircraft and tank machine gun. In total, 345 thousand such weapons
were manufactured until 1942. With all its advantages, the MG-34 also had a number of
significant drawbacks, the main being sensitivity of its mechanisms to dirt,
high labor intensity and high cost of production. Therefore, already in 1937,
it was decided that it was necessary to create a more advanced machine gun.
In 1942, the Wehrmacht adopted a new single MG-42 machine gun. With all the advantages
of the predecessor, the MG-42 was much simpler, more technologically advanced and more reliable,
the cheapness and speed of its manufacture were achieved by the extensive use of stamping. In
addition, in comparison with the MG-34, in order to simplify, they abandoned the possibility of
feeding the tape from either side, from the possibility of magazine feeding a single fire. As
a result, the cost of MG-42 compared to MG-34 and decreased by 20 percent from 312 to 250 marks.
The MG-34 not only remained in service with the German army
until the end of the war, but also continued to be produced. From 1942 to 1945 another 131,000
of these machine guns were produced. Due to the possibility of feeding the
cartridge belt from both sides and replacing the barrel from behind, rather than from the side,
the MG-34 was more convenient to use on combat vehicles than the MG-42.
The essential difference between these two machine guns was the rate of fire. If in MG-34 it was
800 - 900 rounds per minute, then in MG-42 this figure increased to 1200 - 1500 rounds per minute.
For comparison, the firing rate of the Maxim machine gun was 600 rounds per minute.
Due to such a huge rate of fire, the barrel of the machine gun overheated too quickly
and required replacement. The recommended interval is every 150 shots. The barrel was
changed easily and quickly and took up to 10 seconds for an experienced machine gunner.
By the end of the war, 415,000 MG-42 machine guns were produced.
This device turned out to be a terrible enemy and unfortunately all its technical perfections
were aimed at destroying soviet soldiers. For its high rate of fire, the MG-42 was
nicknamed «bone cutter», and «Hitler's saw». Firstly, the sound from a super-high-speed
machine gun was similar to the sound of a saw, and secondly, at close range,
the machine gun burst could cut a person in half like a saw.
MG-42s were used very effectively in urban defense, installed in the basement floors of
buildings. A few machine gunners with two or three soldiers with panzerfaust could completely stop
the advance of an entire infantry regiment. After the end of the war, the MG-42's career continued.
At the end of the 50s, West Germany adopted a 7.62-millimeter version of the MG-42 modified
for the NATO cartridge under the designation MG-42 59, and later MG-3. This machine gun
is so good that it is still in service with the armies of dozens of countries around the world.