MG 42
The MG 42 is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Entering production in 1942, it was intended to supplement and replace the earlier MG 34, which was more expensive and took much longer to produce, but both weapons were produced until the end of World War II.
Designed to use the standard German fully-powered 7.92×57mm Mauser rifle round and to be cheaper and easier to manufacture, the MG 42 proved to be highly reliable and easy to operate. It is most notable for its very high cyclic rate for a gun using full-power service cartridges: it averaged about 1,200 rounds per minute, compared to around 850 for the MG 34, and 450 to 600 for other common machine guns like the M1919 Browning, FM 24/29, or Bren gun. This made it extremely effective in providing suppressive fire. Its unique sound led to it being nicknamed "Hitler's buzzsaw".
The MG 42 was adopted by several armed organizations after the war, and was both copied and built under licence. The MG 42's lineage continued past Nazi Germany's defeat, forming the basis for the nearly identical MG1, chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO, which subsequently evolved into the MG1A3, and later the Bundeswehr's MG 3, Italian MG 42/59, and Austrian MG 74. In Yugoslavia, an unlicensed, near-identical copy was produced as the Zastava [|M53].
The MG 42 lent many design elements to the Swiss MG 51 and SIG MG 710-3, French AA-52, American M60, the Belgian MAG general-purpose machine guns, and the Spanish 5.56×45mm NATO Ameli light machine gun.
History
Before World War I
Even before World War I, the German military was already looking forward to replacing the heavy machine guns which proved to be such a success in that war. The MG13 was one of the first developments toward a goal of producing a weapon that could perform multiple roles, rather than just one. The MG13 was the result of reengineering the Dreyse Water-cooled machine gun to fit the new requirement. The twin-barreled Gast gun was developed with the goal of providing a high cyclic rate of fire weapon for anti-aircraft use which was reported to have reached cyclic rates of fire as high as 1,600 rounds per minute.1930s
This eventually led to the Einheitsmaschinengewehr introducing an entirely new concept in automatic firepower. By changing its mount, sights and feed mechanism, the operator could radically transform an Einheitsmaschinengewehr for several purposes.The MG 34 is considered to be the first modern general-purpose machine gun or Einheitsmaschinengewehr. It was developed to use the standard German 7.92×57mm Mauser full-power rifle round. It was envisaged and well developed to provide portable light and medium machine gun infantry cover, low level anti-aircraft coverage, and even sniping ability. Equipped with a quick-change barrel and fed either with non-disintegrating metallic-link belts, or from a 50-round Gurttrommel or a 75-round spring-loaded saddle-drum Patronentrommel 34 magazines, the MG 34 could sustain fire for much longer periods of time than other portable squad-level weapons such as the American M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, Soviet Degtyaryov machine gun and the British Bren gun, which were fed by magazines, while also being much lighter and more portable than crew-served weapons like the Browning M1919, SG-43 Goryunov or Vickers machine guns. The MG 34 was also quite versatile; not only was it able to be fed from belted ammunition or a saddle drum magazine, it could also be fired from a bipod, an innovative Lafette 34 tripod or various pintle mounts for armored vehicles. Switching between a bipod and a tripod required no special tools, as the mounting latch was spring-loaded. As the MG 34 Panzerlauf, it was used throughout the war as secondary armament on panzers and other vehicles.
However, the MG 34 did have fundamental drawbacks, such as sensitivity to extreme weather conditions, dirt and mud, and comparatively complex and expensive production. Attempts to incrementally improve the basic MG 34 design failed.
Between 1934 and the adoption of the final MG 34 production version, the Waffenamt realized the MG 34 Einheitsmaschinengewehr was too complex and expensive to mass-produce and started looking for ways to simplify and rationalize the technical concept.
Development of the MG 42
A draft specification was made and a contest was held for an MG 34 replacement. Three companies were asked in February 1937 to submit designs: Metall und Lackierwarenfabrik Johannes Großfuß AG of Döbeln, Rheinmetall-Borsig AG of Sömmerda, and Stübgen AG of Erfurt. The design and mock-up gun proposals were submitted in October 1937. Großfuß AG's entry proved to be the best design by far, employing a unique recoil-operated roller locking mechanism whereas the two competing entries used a gas-actuated system. The Großfuß company had no earlier experience in weapons manufacture, specializing in pressed and stamped steel components. Dr.-Ing. Werner Gruner, one of the leading design engineers with Großfuß, knew nothing about machine guns when he was given the task of being involved with the project, although he specialized in the technology of mass production. Gruner would attend an army machine gunner's course to familiarize himself with the utility and characteristics of such a weapon, also seeking input from soldiers. He then recycled an existing Mauser-developed operating system and incorporated features from his experiences with army machine gunners and lessons learned during the early stages of the war.Being made largely out of pressed and stamped appropriately hardened carbon steel metal, only the most important parts were elaborately milled from solid steel, and using spot welding and riveting to connect parts the new design required considerably less machining and fewer high grade steel alloys containing metals that became scarce in Germany during World War II. It was much simpler to build than other machine guns – it took 75 man hours to complete the new gun as opposed to 150 man hours for the MG 34, of raw materials as opposed to for the MG 34 – and cost 250 RM as opposed to 327 RM.
The initial trials of the Großfuß functional model presented in April 1938 gave rise to improvement requests by the machine gun contest board. The resulting Großfuß MG 39 prototype gun presented in February 1939 remained similar to the earlier MG 34 overall, a deliberate decision made to maintain familiarity and capability to use the various mounts and other accessories developed for the MG 34 to adapt the gun to different roles. The only major changes from the gunner's perspective were dropping of the saddle-drum-magazine feed option, leaving the weapon to fire belted ammunition, or from a single 50-round drum-shaped Gurttrommel belt container fitted to the gun's receiver, and simplifying the weapon's open sights for aiming purposes. All these changes were intended to increase, maintain, or accommodate the gun's high cyclic rate of fire and dispersion. Although made of relatively inexpensive and simple parts, the prototypes proved to be considerably more rugged and resistant to jamming than the precisely machined and somewhat temperamental MG 34. Further trials resulted in selecting the Großfuß MG 39 prototype gun for final production development. A limited run of about 1,500 of further improved MG 39/41 pre mass-production model guns, was completed in 1941 and by the end of 1941 tested in combat trials.
Adoption of the MG 42
In early 1942 the final model of the weapon was officially accepted, and manufacturing of the mass-production model began, as the MG 42, contracts going to Großfuß, Mauser-Werke, Gustloff-Werke, Steyr and others. The MG 42 was first deployed in May 1942 by the Deutsches Afrikakorps and introduced by mid-1942 on all fronts. Production during the war amounted to over 400,000 units.In 1943, MG 42 production surpassed MG 34 production and continued to do so until the end of the war. The Germans nevertheless continued widespread production of MG 34s in parallel until the end of the war.
MG 42 nicknames
The distinctive sound caused by the high cyclic firing rate gave rise to a variety of nicknames. The Germans called it the Hitlersäge, Schnelle Spritze, Knochensäge, Tripperspritze and elektrisches MG. The Soviets called it the "Linoleum Ripper", and British and American troops called it "Hitler's Buzzsaw", or "Hitler's Zipper". Like the MG 34, British troops sometimes called it a "Spandau", a traditional generic term for all German machine guns, left over from the famous Allied nickname for the MG 08 Maxim-derivative used by German forces during World War I and derived from its manufacturer's plates noting the city of Spandau where some were produced. Brazilian expeditionary soldiers fighting in Italy used to refer to the MG 42 as Lurdinha; this nickname is due to the fact that the bride of one of the soldiers, named Maria de Lourdes, was a seamstress and the sound of MG 42 was similar to the sound of her sewing machine.Small arms doctrine
The German tactical infantry doctrine of the era based a squad's firepower on the general-purpose machine gun in the light machine gun role. The advantage of the general-purpose machine gun concept was that it added greatly to the overall volume of fire that could be put out by a squad-sized unit.Operating crews could lay down a barrage of fire, pausing only to reload or to replace the barrel, which could be done in less than 10 seconds. This allowed the MG 42 to tie up larger numbers of enemy troops than was otherwise possible. The Americans and the British trained their troops to take cover from the fire of an MG 42, and assault the position during barrel replacement. The rapid firing rate used in emergency/final defensive line situations of the MG 42 was up to 500 rounds per minute.
The Allied nations' infantry doctrines of World War II based a squad's/rifle section's firepower on the rifleman and a magazine-fed light machine gun whose cyclic fire rates were typically 450 to 600 rounds per minute. The Allied nations had machine guns with similar rates of fire, but mounted them almost exclusively in aircraft, where the fleeting opportunities for firing made such high rates necessary. Weapons such as the M1919 Browning machine gun and the Vickers K machine gun, were only issued to infantry in specialized circumstances.