Browning M1917A1 Vs Schweres MG-42

[user1000]

Browning M1917A1 Vs Schweres MG-42

Who would win If these two groups were battling in real life.

 

Edited July 27, 2016 by user1000

[womble]

Well, the Browning's bigger and heavier, and got more stamina. And they always say a good big'un will beat a good little'un, so for all its speed, I think the 1917 would take the 42 down about round 5.

Seriously though, context is all. You don't give any, so it's a pointless question.

[user1000]

A fun question not to be too critical..

Edited July 27, 2016 by user1000

[JonS]

I vote @womble by a knockout in the third

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Run a hundred iterations in CM and let us know.

[user1000]

1 hour ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

Run a hundred iterations in CM and let us know.

I'll leave that for you

[kohlenklau]

...it depends on who is pulling the trigger...

[user1000]

1 hour ago, kohlenklau said:

...it depends on who is pulling the trigger...

 

^ HAHA! I have always wondered just how long the water cooled can go if they keep changing out the water. The range is extremely good on it as well. In the winter would you even need to put water in it?

Edited July 27, 2016 by user1000

[Michael Emrys]

47 minutes ago, user1000 said:

I have always wondered just how long the water cooled can go if they keep changing out the water.

As I recall, at some point early in its history the Vickers MMG gave a demonstration. They sewed many belts of ammo together and fired continuously for several days. That's continuously as in non-stop. I suppose they kept the water topped up, but I never heard anything about its being changed.

48 minutes ago, user1000 said:

In the winter would you even need to put water in it?

I imagine you would, unless you were at the South Pole perhaps or some other ungodly cold place. Water absorbs much more heat than air does, even cold air.

Michael

[Sublime]

The water starts to evaporate as the barrel heats. Theres plenty of stories of aoldiers having to urinate to keep the gun going. So yes you.d need water.

Also I recall hearing about the several day firing demonstration. Im sure they kept filling the water jacket with water. 

[user1000]

1 hour ago, Sublime said:

Theres plenty of stories of aoldiers having to urinate to keep the gun going. So yes you.d need water.

 

Interesting I heard the pee story but it wasn't related to this gun. That story was most likely winter in the Ardennes, and they were peeing on their frozen garands to thaw them.

Edited July 28, 2016 by user1000

[Sublime]

Ive definitely heard the pee story for both the browning and the vickers. I could see it being a fairly common expedient.

[John Kettler]

Michael Emrys,

Here is the famous account of the Vickers in sustained fire. Bold mine.  Taken from https://forums.spacebattles. (usual) /threads/machine-guns-for-artillery-the-vickers-long-range-fire.355968/

in a thread started by Alamo, the Mod.

Wasn't sure how BFC would view a direct link, so decided to hedge.Wanted to note for the record that when Ian Hogg wrote of the Second Somme Offensive MG event below, he said nothing of barrel changes, just water and ammunition, but the expenditures per gun are modest relative to the 1963 single Vickers test also reported.

(Fair Use)

"On August 24th, 1916 British machine gunners fired the longest and heaviest machine gun barrage of the war in support of the second Somme offensive. Ten Vickers fired just under a million rounds on target areas over 2000 yards away. The barrage and supporting fire lasted over 12 hours, and required a constant supply of ammunition. The attack by follow-up infantry was entirely successful, and German counter-attacks were disrupted on reverse slopes before they could even form up.

The Vickers was particularly suited to this type of continuous sustained fire. Of the ten guns used in this attack there were no major breakdowns and all were completely operational at the end of the barrage. In a 1963 military test a Vickers fired 5 million rounds of continuous fire. The test lasted over seven days and nights, only stopping to change the barrel every hour. There was no measurable wear on the weapon afterwards.

The success of this attack on the Somme was such that the normally conservative British military establishment openly embraced the use of the Vickers in a role normally seen for artillery. Liaison and Forward Observation Officers (FOO) were assigned from special machine gun battalions to the front-line troops they supported. Fire was made in cooperation with artillery units, and its employment was defined to include the use of protective, creeping, standing and enfilade barrages. In the later stages of WWI the Vickers was used to harass the enemy's secondary lines and even to provide counter-battery fire against German artillery!"

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[Michael Emrys]

On July 28, 2016 at 8:30 AM, user1000 said:

Interesting I heard the pee story but it wasn't related to this gun. That story was most likely winter in the Ardennes, and they were peeing on their frozen garands to thaw them.

Well, that's a new one on me. It might have happened, but that procedure could have turned out to be counterproductive when the pee in turn froze. The more common cure for cold weather freeze ups was to issue graphite lubricants in place of grease which will congeal in extreme conditions.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Re using MGs for indirect fire on unobserved targets, there was an interesting incident that occurred during the Korean War and was related in The Last Parallel by Martin Russ. He was a Marine infantryman and used frequently go off on nighttime patrols into enemy territory. These usually ended in hasty withdrawals back to friendly lines pursued by Chinese soldiers. But one night the author claims that he was able to prepare a little surprised for his pursuers. It seems that there was an M16, also known as "the Meatchopper" in the battalion area and he worked out a deal with the crew. Together, they were able to register a location through which the patrol planned to withdraw that night. I should also mention that the patrol established direct radio communication with the M16 crew.

Night came and the patrol went out and stirred up a little trouble and sure enough, soon the chase was on. Once the patrol had passed the critical point, the M16 crew was alerted and told to open fire. I don't recall that the author reports that they hung around to observe their handiwork, but he does mention that there was no further pursuit that night.

Michael

[nik mond]

Having an M16 do that must have been really been confusing to the attackers, all that hell raining on them and nobody to be seen.

As to the 30 cal vs mg42 Im surprised nobody posted that ww2 propaganda training film on why our browning is actually better than their mg42. Whenever German weapon superiority started to take on an anecdotal life of its own, the defence department would come out with some interesting myth buster type training flic and give it maximum distribution.

 

[c3k]

11 hours ago, John Kettler said:

Michael Emrys,

Here is the famous account of the Vickers in sustained fire. Bold mine.  Taken from https://forums.spacebattles. (usual) /threads/machine-guns-for-artillery-the-vickers-long-range-fire.355968/

in a thread started by Alamo, the Mod.

Wasn't sure how BFC would view a direct link, so decided to hedge.Wanted to note for the record that when Ian Hogg wrote of the Second Somme Offensive MG event below, he said nothing of barrel changes, just water and ammunition, but the expenditures per gun are modest relative to the 1963 single Vickers test also reported.

(Fair Use)

"On August 24th, 1916 British machine gunners fired the longest and heaviest machine gun barrage of the war in support of the second Somme offensive. Ten Vickers fired just under a million rounds on target areas over 2000 yards away. The barrage and supporting fire lasted over 12 hours, and required a constant supply of ammunition. The attack by follow-up infantry was entirely successful, and German counter-attacks were disrupted on reverse slopes before they could even form up.

The Vickers was particularly suited to this type of continuous sustained fire. Of the ten guns used in this attack there were no major breakdowns and all were completely operational at the end of the barrage. In a 1963 military test a Vickers fired 5 million rounds of continuous fire. The test lasted over seven days and nights, only stopping to change the barrel every hour. There was no measurable wear on the weapon afterwards.

The success of this attack on the Somme was such that the normally conservative British military establishment openly embraced the use of the Vickers in a role normally seen for artillery. Liaison and Forward Observation Officers (FOO) were assigned from special machine gun battalions to the front-line troops they supported. Fire was made in cooperation with artillery units, and its employment was defined to include the use of protective, creeping, standing and enfilade barrages. In the later stages of WWI the Vickers was used to harass the enemy's secondary lines and even to provide counter-battery fire against German artillery!"

Regards,

John Kettler

 

Using those numbers (I've got several Somme books, not worth double-checking the veracity: just using your numbers...) let's round up to 1 million rounds fired by 10 guns in 12 hours. That's 100,000 per gun in 12 hours. 100,000 rounds divided by 12 hours gives rounds per hour: dividing by 60 min/hr gives rounds per minute...  The sustained ROF of these water cooled weapons was 139 rounds per minute.

 

Various sources give the official ROF as being about 500 rpm. Very interesting that the real-world sustained rate was less than 1/3 of the official rof (closer to 1/4).

Not taking away from the robustness of the design, just doing a bit of ROF calculations...

 

(Using the 1963 test of 5 million rounds over 7 days and nights with no stops...  5,000,000 divided by the appropriate times yields about 500 rounds per minute. THAT'S a test...)

 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

139 rpm is roughly 2 rounds per second.  Keeping that up over time is actually pretty impressive.

[c3k]

1 hour ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

139 rpm is roughly 2 rounds per second.  Keeping that up over time is actually pretty impressive.

500 rpm is roughly 8 rounds per second. Keeping that up over a week is actually pretty more impressive.

[nik mond]

ah, here it is. Well that explains it. 

 

[jtsjc1]

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 5:03 PM, kohlenklau said:

...it depends on who is pulling the trigger...

Manila John and M1917A1 did a pretty good job in Guadalcanal.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

21 hours ago, c3k said:

500 rpm is roughly 8 rounds per second. Keeping that up over a week is actually pretty more impressive.

Definitely!

[RockinHarry]

On 31.7.2016 at 0:05 AM, nik mond said:

ah, here it is. Well that explains it. 

 

At last it doesnt matter, if you kill 2 wooden guys with 16 or 22 rounds. But it does matter how many rounds you put on human targets in shortest of time, before they can actually dive down to cover. Nothing more to say about that and I know what machine gun I´d choose on a battlefield, though not necessarily in the CM game.