Which is better, the Bren or MG42? A debate almost as old as the weapons themselves

[Erwin]

Fun video.  Shows one doesn't have to be too accurate when shooting 25 rounds/sec.

But, these rounds cost money.  Anyone hazard a guess as to how many college tuition fees were used up in the video??

[Anthony P.]

On the topic of reload times: I only just noticed that (at least) German HMGs have very long reload times when deployed, roughly half a minute (!) compared to just 3-4 seconds when used un-mounted.

Is this intended? Does it apply to all HMGs?

[George MC]

Different MGs; different roles; different doctrines. 

[Vacillator]

6 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

I only just noticed that (at least) German HMGs have very long reload times when deployed, roughly half a minute (!)

Maybe they're changing the barrel as well?  Every time?

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, George MC said:

Different MGs; different roles; different doctrines. 

I support reminding people that reality is more complicated than they think. I oppose using that as an excuse to not have a discussion.

Frankly no two weapons are exactly the same, have exactly the same role, or exactly the same doctrine for their use. So taken to an extreme this means that no two pieces of equipment can ever be compared. It's worth reminding people that fair and meaningful comparisons are far more difficult and complicated than they assume. But we don't want those reminders to become a way of hand waving any attempt at making comparisons. The complexity involved in making a fair comparison between such different weapons requires digging deeper into the technical characteristics, design philosophies and tradeoffs, the theoretical doctrine, and the real world tactics of the weapons. All of which I think makes for an inherently valuable discussion even if no conclusion is actually reached about which one is better.

In any case, the issue of "different roles" is exactly why I limited the discussion to the LMG configuration of the MG42. The MG42's "role" is different in that it can be configured for a number of different roles. In its LMG configuration the MG42 is not filling a different role from the Bren at all. It is filling the role of the squad LMG, which is precisely the same role as the Bren.

Your point about different doctrines is precisely one of the things that I think is worth exploring in greater detail. It is entirely possible that one of these doctrines ended up being a better fit for the reality of 1940s infantry combat than the other. If so, why? If not, why not?

But I think you have made an important point. No weapon in any army is a perfect counterpart to any weapon in any other army. Ultimately we fight with formations, not with individual pieces of equipment. Each individual weapon is designed to fit into its respective formation in a certain way. So in the long run we really want to be comparing whole formations. But that's an even more complicated question, of which this thread's question is only a very small subcomponent. Every piece of equipment, every point of doctrine, the full organizational structure, the logistics, communications, repair, and replacement systems, everything that effects the capability of the formations would need to be compared. All of that is well worth doing, but it probably can't all be done at once. That's the sort of thing you work your way through over a lifetime.

[Anthony P.]

15 hours ago, Vacillator said:

Maybe they're changing the barrel as well?  Every time?

I did think that barrel changes and waiting for the gun to cool down (though that shouldn't be necessary considering barrel changes), but I compared it to a HMG team not deployed: when area firing at the same range (~300m), they maintained the exact same rate of fire, so there should be no larger need for barrel changes when the gun is deployed than when it's fired from its bipod. If anything reloads should be faster since there's a rifleman helping out with the reload process when the gun is deployed whereas when fired from its bipod, the gunner reloads on his own (looking at what the unit list states that the individual team members are doing ("Aiming", "Spotting", etc.)).

Really it makes me wonder about not just why the reload rate is slower for the mounted gun, but also why it doesn't benefit from a higher rate of fire. Granted, the tripod probably isn't needed at the shorter range I just tried, but if used surely it should keep down recoil a great deal and allow longer bursts?

[Anthony P.]

Made another brief MG trial: one mounted MG42 in the second story of a house, one dismounted in another house. Both were shooting under their own control at a US Army infantry squad (stationary and not returning fire) in the open at 500m, with a tall brick wall separating the targets into lanes. Some difference was obvious right away, but not much, and on the whole not necessarily a good difference either.

The mounted MG did seem to have better accuracy and rate of fire at this range: after 10 turns, they'd caused 7 casualties whereas the dismounted MG had only caused 5 casualties. That's certainly a difference, but is it statistically significant? Not after just one test run at least.

The ammunition consumption differed, but only in that the mounted MG had fired 200 rounds more after 10 turns. On the one hand 20 rounds more or less per turn doesn't look like much, but that's considering the odd half minute long reload times compared to 4-5 seconds for the dismounted gun. But on the other hand, those strangely long reload times aren't exactly optional, so in practice the rate of fire doesn't differ much after all.

What really makes me question the value of mounting the MG42 though is spotting: not target spotting, but itself being spotted. The mounted MG had a strong tentative spot already after 2-3 turns and was repeatedly spotted by what was a well suppressed and scared enemy, whereas the dismounted MG was never picked up at all by its target squad, not even suspected.

 

This makes me question the benefits of mounting MG42s (and likely 34s as well) for possibly anything other than area fire at long range targets, i.e. upwards of 1000m where it's unlikely that the team would make a spot itself (so area fire). It's possible that this affects just the MG34 and 42 due to their high rates of fire (they might be capped at that, and so aren't gaining much by being mounted on tripods whereas other MGs like the .30 cal Browning, M240, etc. with more "normal" rates of fire might actually benefit more from being mounted). Hoping that was a fluke, otherwise mounting HMGs at normal combat ranges only incurs major detection and reload punishments for really quite small accuracy improvements. Gonna have to test some more times and with other MGs as well.

It still doesn't explain the very long reload times either though.

Edited May 2 by Anthony P.