Semantics....

[Trooper]

The FN-MAG is a pretty straightforward development of the Bren. The two are in current service in my unit and if you've been trained in on one, it doesn't take much to learn to service the other. Absolutely no recoil off the MAG at all. On my first shoot, we had individual rounds on the belt (spaced out a bit), and four individual shots went down no problem. For the fifth, I didn't pull the belt through far enough, so the round wasn't in the feed position. Pull the trigger, the action slid forward, locked with a resounding 'thunk' and the rifle jerked forward as it did with all the other four rounds. The lack of 'Bang' was not noticed due to hearing protection and other guys shooting at the same time. The first inclination I had that I had dry-fired the weapon was when I was clearing the gun, I opened the top-cover, and the round is just sitting there. (Case in point as to why perform clearing drills)

In the Falklands, the British had the MAGs, and the Argentinians had both 7.62mm MGs and .50 Cals. Apparently the British were very respectful of the things, and they took every opportunity to capture them intact (and then use them on the enemy). Although overkill, with a lesser rate of fire, the ability to shoot through walls, rocks or more earth which would have protected against lesser rounds was highly respected. Irish infantry battalions are currently equipped with .50 cals on tripod mounts.

As to doctrine, the MG is the 'raison d'etre' of the Irish infantry section. Whilst used in support of the rest of the section's attack, if it is taken out, the section effectively is non-combatant until a replacement is found. (Or so both my corporal and common sense tell me!) Two MGs in a section is even better.

DWH

Manic Moran

[Los]

Regarding adjustable ROFs in MGs another more practical design solution than using different bolts is adjusting the gas tube to control how much gas is going back to the bolt/operating rod,assembly. A prime example of this is the M249 SAW (made by FN). You just take a small wrench and half twist on the agas tube extension switch between two cyclic rates. (though no one every really messes with this normally.)

[Gromit]

Here's some info I found on the Fallschirmjagergewehr 42. (From US War Dept)

It is listed as Model 42 Automatic Rifle.

"Although the German nomenclature indicates that this rifle is intended to be an automatic weapon for use by parachute troops, it also can be used as a light machine gun or a machine carbine. The weapon is designed more like a light machine gun than a rifle. It is gas-operated, fitted with a permanently attached folding bipod, and can be fired automatically or single shot."

It had a compensator attached to the muzzle, along with bayonet and provision for telescopic sight. Mag is held horizontally on left side. Rear sight graduated from 100m to 1200m.

A later model was slightly heavier and more solidly constructed with the bipod mounted closer to the muzzle.

Caliber 7.92mm

Length w bayonet 43.75 in

Weight 9 pounds

Feed 20 round magazine

As for what the book says on the larger caliber guns:

The Model 15 Machine Gun (M.G. 15) was 7.92mm light weapon w/ a practical ROF of 300 rpm. Only weighed 15 pounds 12 ounces and used a 75-round saddle magazine. Short recoil, auto-only

The Model 151/20 (M.G. 151/20) "has been found on an improvised ground mount as an antitank weapon and triple-mounted on a half-tracked vehicle." "The 15mm M.G. 151 is sometimes used instead of the M.G. 151/20 on the triple-mount. It often is supposed that these two are the same gun fitted with interchangable barrels; this is not the case, although the guns are very similar in construction."

Caliber 20mm, Weight 93.5 pounds, Feed Disintegrating metallic-link belt, ROF 800rpm

Ammunition "This gun fires HE, AP, and APHE ammunition."

One snippet I found interesting was that the Americans say under the M.G. 42 section, "The weapon is fundamentally similar to the M.G. 34 and has the same short recoil action. It has no provision for single-shot fire, however."

This implies that the M.G. 34 DOES have single-shot fire capability, although this fact is not represented in the previous section describing the 34. Hmmmm... can anybody verify this and elaborate on the single-shot capability of the M.G. 34?

I would be interested to find out whether or not this was used much by the German Maschinengewehr crews.

Thanks!

[This message has been edited by Gromit (edited 12-12-99).]

[Los]

I have heard that about the MG34 from other anecdotal sources but have never seen any hard data. But then again an experienced gunner can single shot most machineguns, it takes a fine touch. In fact if you are trying to impress others on how well you can handle a machinegun, (from the Fifty on down) then what you want to do on the range is pop off one or two round bursts. (Of course many guns are just as posiible to jam with 1-2 round burst as it is with 100 round bursts) Any idiot can get behind the thing and squeeze off a long ten second burst. IN fact it's considered bad form to pop off more than 6-8 at a time (amongst the machinegunner-snob crowd at the range.)

Los ;-p

[howardb]

hahah.. nice post LOS

[Herr Jung]

Regarding the single fire feature of MG34:

Well, it's no rumour (coming from my beautiful dummy ).

The difference is in the trigger design. Like the MG13, MG34 has a double trigger with the upper part marked ¡°E¡± for Einzelfeurer/single fire and the lower trigger marked ¡°D¡± for Dauerfeurer/continuous fire. So you don't even have to turn a selector or anything - very convenient. This was a standard feature (undoubtedly contributing to its unbearable production cost and time), and its larger, double crescent shaped trigger is easily distinguishable from the thinner MG42¡¯s. The later versions of MG34, which were not officially adopted, left out this feature as did MG42s. So the double trigger was probably of limited use – although it might be useful when ammo is running low or determining range to the target without letting loose all hell. Perhaps as a coaxial MG of a tank, the single fire feature might just come in handy in place of spending the bigger round.

For basic info on German infantry AT weapons and MGs, I highly recommend the 'Panzerfaust page':

http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust5.htm This site writes:

early models (of MG34) could fire at a rate of either 600 or 1000 rounds per minute by toggling a switch on the pistol grip; soon this was abandoned and most models did not have this switch, the weapons were finished at the factory set at a fixed rate between 800 and 900 rounds per minute. After first experiences on the eastern front experiments with a MG 34 S called version took place: with a shorter barrel of 50cm it achieved rates of fire up to 1,700 rounds per minute; however, this drastically reduced reliability and life expectancy of the weapon to a degree where this weapon was considered unfeasible. Another, actually produced version was the MG34/41. The weapon used many new parts, including the spring of the successor MG42, to achieve it's rate of fire of 1,200 /min. Length of the MG34/41 was 112cm; barrel length 56cm; 1,707 (other sources: 1,705) were built from February to June (other sources: May) 1942.

Life expectancy of the barrel was 5,000 to 6,000 rounds provided that it was changed according to manual.

Herr Jung