Germans overlooked making a .50 Cal. MG

[lcm1947]

The question really is why do you suppose the German's overlooked or didn't really see the need for a .50 Cal. MG? It sure seems like a speciality weapon to me that had a wide range of uses and functions that they didn't have. It's not like they didn't have the know how or couldn't design or product one. They must just not have felt one was needed but I can't imagine why such a small thing could have been overlooked or not wanted. Anybody have an answer or knowledge on the subject? The reason I ask is that I am constantly knocking out thin skinned vehicles be it jeeps, other HT's or armor vehciles like the Puma and it just stuck me as odd.

[tools4fools]

Maybe the use 20mm guns instead?

[lcm1947]

Well yeah, that might be the answer Tools-4-Fools but the 20 mm wasn't as easy to carry and the fire rate wouldn't have been anything close to what the .50 Cal. could put out so I still think they missed the boat on not coming up with something comparable, but that certainly could be why. Good answer. Then you wonder why the American's didn't come up with a 20mm then, don't you?

[klapton]

MG42 can kill allied halftracks

[Dandelion]

Lee

Germany was forbidden to develop heavy machineguns by the Versailles Treaty. Their earlier (WWI) such projects were scrapped.

Thus they focused their efforts to produce a light one instead. One to be as versatile as possible. The MG42 was covertly designed for use in all roles, including sustained heavy fire when mouned on a tripod - the role of the heavy machinegun - but was still limited to 7.92mm calibre.

The MG42, like the M2 50 calibre, was a design so ingenious that it is still in use (in a slightly modified version). It had not quite the punch of the M2, nor the reliability, but was very light, versatile and had extreme rate of fire. Such a rate that the firing of it sounds much like somebody tearing apart a piece of cloth (though you can actually regulate the rate). It also has strangely low recoil. It feels less than a 7.62mm AK. Rather like a 5.56mm. I'm not sure why.

The barrel itself was very popular with the men. But the rate of fire was a mixed blessing, as the amount of munitions carried was often excessive, negating some of the lightness of the gun istelf. Troops as well as quartermasters were known to complain, and it is not to look butch that German troops so frequently wear machinegun ammunition belts around their necks on photo's. The whole squad had to help carry some.

The Germans used a whole set of various munition types, apart from the three standard types. This included armour piercing variants as well as what can really only be regarded as a dum-dum variant (thus illegal) with hollow point. I'm not sure how frequent the non-standard munitions were.

As the war progressed, the Germans made it a priority to raise firepower of their squads and platoons (developing the MP43 or StG44) rather than company (where you'd find the Hvy MG). By then they had generous detrimental experience not only of the 50 calibre but also the Soviet 12.7mm, and thus they must have made the active choice of not seeing a need, or at leats a priority, for such a piece. I don't know why. Maybe they just din't want to clutter up their already impossible supply situation. Or maybe they simply didn't have enough pre-war research to work with, to create something credible in reasonable time.

The Germans rarely encountered thinskin vehicles on a battlefield. Halftracks were not normally used in battle by any nation in WWII. Survivability was zero, usability even less. HT in WWII were designed as largely roadbound battlefield buses, in which troops could reach battles without being annihilated by artillery shrapnel. They had limited terrain capacity. Normally, they were left at the rear vehicle park of the armoured Division, both in allied and German divisions. The crews of the German SPWs then formed a fourth rifle squad in the platoon and fought like all others. Not sure if the latter is true for Western allies also. There were some exceptions. Before 42 the Germans are seen carrying out assaults mounted in HTs in the east. Even after that they used HTs for fire support, preferrably such mounting homemade obscene anti-infantry weapons, like a twin or quad 20mm. Human-wave stoppers. But in the West I have seen none of this in any German accounts.

Armoured cars were not combat vehicles either, although possessing a higher capacity of shooting and driving their way out of dire circumstance and thus less apprehensive about placing themselves in such. But during operations, the people most frequently encountering enemy reconnaissance units were and are actually the friendly reconnaissance units. German such used 37mm ATRs mounted on SPWs, as well as 20mm guns, to combat enemy ACs. Later on the Puma mounts a 5cm.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by lcm1947:

The question really is why do you suppose the German's overlooked or didn't really see the need for a .50 Cal. MG? It sure seems like a speciality weapon to me that had a wide range of uses and functions that they didn't have. It's not like they didn't have the know how or couldn't design or product one. They must just not have felt one was needed but I can't imagine why such a small thing could have been overlooked or not wanted. Anybody have an answer or knowledge on the subject? The reason I ask is that I am constantly knocking out thin skinned vehicles be it jeeps, other HT's or armor vehciles like the Puma and it just stuck me as odd.

Better question is why didn't the US develope a decent squad machinegun? The Germans used a hell of a lot of machineguns and it is best to have one that can be used in a variety of roles.

The MG34/42 is very portable, quite capable of taking out halftracks and such, it is vastly superior to the BAR as a squad weapon and it uses the most common ammunition available in the army. The .50 is a heavy hunk-o-metal (its heavy, its tripod is heavy and its ammo is heavy), it is useless in anything but a support role and it uses special ammunition.

I'd say the Germans made the right choice. Also, the Germans had a plethora of 2cm FlaK in their units, so what do they need the .50 for?

[tar]

Even in aircraft armaments, the Germans didn't produce a 13mm machine gun until relatively late. When they did so, it used a much smaller (shorter) round than the US M2 .50 caliber, and thus would not have been a comparable weapon.

On the other hand, even from the start of the war, their aircraft carried mixed 7.92mm and 20mm gun batteries.

I suspect that the answer was that the MG42 was superior as an anti-infantry weapon: light, high rate of fire, relatively light ammo; It would also work against unarmored vehicles and against light armored vehicles they would use a bigger gun, 20mm or 37mm.

[Maj. Battaglia]

A lot of good points have been raised here. The US use of the .50 has been raised before, both as an infantry weapon and mounted on Allied tanks.

I would suggest, as others have, that the Germans relied on their MG34/42 for infantry and 20 mm for light AA use (and used in a ground role if needed). Therefore, given that they had their bases covered with these two weapons, why add a 12.7 mm MG? The question should be put into the context of what purpose the 50 cal was intended by the US Army.

The US intended the M2 to be used as an AA weapon. That is one reason why (in addition to ammo weight and girth) that Shermans and other tanks only carried a fraction the number of rounds as they did 30 cal. rounds. In German TO&E's, there is a lot of inherent AA in regiments and battalions, made up by 20 mm guns. Not so in the US formations: this role is filled by the 50's. AA units were attached separately and typically used heavy quad 50 mounts and 40 mm guns.

In the US infantry TO&Es that I have seen, the M2 is not included for use by rifle companies. Battalions have them, but only three to six (TO&E's I've seen say three, interviews I've read mentioned six). All the research I've done on this topic points to an error including the 50 cal as organic to US rifle companies and as the backbone of the heavy weapons companies (which, through Korea, was the M1917). The 50's are in the hands of battalion trains and units needing rear area AA protection primarily and protection from roving light enemy armor, plus whose mobility is already limited by their primary weapons or nature of the unit.

So in other words, I think they are over represented in CM:BO, particularly in the context of US offensive operations. If they were less common in CM, perhaps we would not be asking why the Germans had none of these powerful guns if they played a less influential role in the game as I believe they did in real US infantry engagements.

That is not to say they made no appearance in the hands of the infantry. They did, but it was the result of someone's initiative. They should not be organic to rifle companies, rather available for separate purchase/inclusion.

Please see these two links for the full background from the previous discussions:

Use of 50 cal on Sherman

Most common US HMG

[lcm1947]

Damn guys you overwhelmed me with information and I thank all of you and Maj. Battaglia the links were excellent, thank you so much. Well, I guess that answered my question by 100 or so. Outstanding stuff. I would love to comment back about a lot of it but there was so much that I'd be here all day so again I will just say thanks ever so much to all of you. Damn interesting! Oh and while he's not here I would still like to thank JasonC for his marvelous comments on that link. Man, you guys are good.

[flamingknives]

Original .50 cal use was AT rather then AA, was it not?

This web page has a bit of information on the U.S. use (or lack thereof) of 20mm aircraft armament.

[todd]

i think a better question than why didn't the germans make a 50 cal is why didn't the allies make a better bazooka? we had pleanty of access to captured german fausts and shreks why didn't we impove the bazooka to at least keep pace?.

todd

[Dandelion]

Todd,

Actually the Panzerschreck was developed using captured US Bazookas as models. It had greater firepower but several drawbacks, such as a tremendous backblast and an embarrassing smoke cloud compromising the AT team. Making it rather impopular by users. It was also very heavy, as were the shells. So all in all I don't feel the Schreck was as good a design as the Bazooka.

The US did develop the Bazooka concept. Resulting in the later models of recoilless rifles, used in larger numbers in Korea... and then by the Viet Minh against the French.

The Panzerfaust however remained strangely uncopied by the Western allies. The Soviets seemed far more impressed, developing the RPG much along the same lines and using German research.

I am also curious as to why the allies never felt a need for a self propelled rocket, one-shot LAW during WWII.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[YankeeDog]

Actually, the Germans did have a couple of machine gun designs similar in size and power to the US .50 cal that were used during the war.

The germans had both 13mm and 15mm heavy MG designs. Both were primarly deployed on aircraft, or on the ground in light AAA mounts. However, late in the war there are documented cases of the Germans using both calibres as ground weapons as the Luftwaffe became mostly an afterthought. If you are interested in specifics, look for information on the MG 131 (13mm) or MG 151 (15mm).

So the question is why the Germans chose not to deploy either their 13mm or 15mm design in an infantry platform, not whether they were capable of manufacturing one.

If I were the Germans, I would have focused on manufacturing more MG42s, MP44s, Panzerschrecks and Panzerfausts for my infantry rather than shunting resources off to manufacture enough 13mm MGs to deploy them in any appreciable quantity on the ground. This is, of course, largely what the Germans did.

A heavy-slug, man-portable MG would have been useful against light armor that the Allies used primarily in a scouting role. Against heavier targets like Shermans, it would have been mostly useless. Of course, it would also have been effective against infantry, but probably not significantly more so than the lighter MG42, which also had the advantage of using a more standard infantry calibre round.

Production issues aside, German infantry companies hauling around MG 131s would have to give up another heavy weapon - an 81mm mortar, or HMG 42, or Panzershreck, in order to carry and crew the HMG. I'm honestly not sure the trade-off would be worth it. It would be nice to be able to knock off Greyhounds at 500m without revealing an ATG, but I'm not sure I'd give up a Shreck or Mortar, or even an HMG42, to have it.

Cheers,

YD

[lcm1947]

Well, Yankee Dog I agree with your thinking but would personally have thought a super heavy MG like the .50 cal. or a 13mm like they already had would have been an asset on HT's and other light vehicles. I didn't necessarily mean hauling them around by hand. Also since they were on the defense most of the time anyway it seems to me like it would have been good to have them even with the foot soldiers since in a defense role. Anyway, thanks for your as usual interesting and learned opinion. Very interesting Dandelion I too thought that we should have copied the Schreck and was not aware that they had copied the bazooka. I do kind of wonder if the game really portrays the two correctly. In the game I'd trade 3 bazooka's for one schreck, I wonder in real life if that would be the case?

[tar]

I'm not really sure that the .50 caliber WAS more effective against infantry than .30 caliber MGs. I think this is an area where the .50 is a bit overmodeled in CMBO. The exception would be in cases where the infantry was under cover. But the CM series doesn't model round penetration for anti-infantry weapons.

That means that in order to get better results against units protected by cover, you have to have higher firepower. Which results in what I claim is excessive effectiveness of the .50 caliber against targets which are not under cover. In the open, the higher ROF of .30 weapons and the greater ammo load would make them more effective.

[laxx]

slightly off-topic but in a recent QB with a PBEM opponent, I had a Jeep with a mounted .50 mg kill a Hetzer.

my jeep was hovering in the rear trying to smoke out the enemy hetzers, while in the front my M10s where waiting. Well there was a shooting match between one m10 and a hetzer, i ordered the jeep to shoot at the hetzer's rear.

I had to look at the jeep kill stats to be shure that it was confirmed kill. Interestingly the hetzer did not bother to use the rear MG against the jeep, probably busing with the m10 in the front.

hooo!

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

I am also curious as to why the allies never felt a need for a self propelled rocket, one-shot LAW during WWII.

I think it was a question of production costs. It was thought that a unit only needs an X amount of Bazookas; after that only the actual munitions would have to be supplied.

Perhaps the Germans noticed that an average infantryman rarely had a chance to take an another shot with a portable AT weapon: also, it was likely a bitch to attempt running away, lugging a rocket launcher on your back instead of just tossing the fuser part away.

A single-shot weapon was also more module-like, requiring less maintenance than a reloadable launcher, and was also less prone to technical malfunctions. And obviously, a dent in Bazooka might render the weapon and it's munitions useless, while a busted 'Faust was only a fraction of a German squad's AT potential.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

I am also curious as to why the allies never felt a need for a self propelled rocket, one-shot LAW during WWII.

There just weren't enough German Panzers about to bother, would be my guess.

[tar]

And for those Panzers that were around, you were likely able to expect there to be enough Shermans somewhere nearby...

[Dandelion]

Lee,

The antitank effect of the Baz and Schreck might be fairly portrayed in the game. But we don't see is user perspective.

The Schreck (used here as collective term for a number of RPzB designs) weighed almost twice as much as a Baz - give or take for various models - and was of course larger and bulkier. The small shield you see on it is to protect the firer from the 2 meter long fireblast of the rocket. Lest his face be torched. Initial models had no shield. The troops had to use asbestos ponchos and masks. Still it hurt a lot. When the shield was mounted, the effect was to give this recoilless weapon a recoil, as the blast hit the shield. But at least that hurt the firer a lot less than the torchflame. Still, hearing one of the "AAAaarrrggh!" wavs whenever a Schreck is discharged would not feel unrealistic.

Also hurtful was the fact that the 2 meter long fireblast acted pointing finger, marking the firers exact spot. Excessive smoke was also a problem. I'm not sure if this is reflected in spotting. Sure feels like it is when I try to use the Schrecks.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

YD

Yes technically they could have, had they wanted to. There can of course have been many reasons to why they didn't, other than merely not feeling a need. I agree with you though, they probably saw no real need for any heavier calibre automatic weapon for infantry use to insert between 7.92mm and 20mm. Thus any other obstacle would be secondary anyway.

That it was possible is I think proven not least by the Japanese, who took the MG 131, removed the electric ignition to make it viable as a ground weapon and used is as Type 2, much like the M2HB as I understand it.

By end of WWI, the manufacturing plants and research material for heavy machineguns of German design were dismantled and seized under UN (ok LN)supervision. Hm, that strikes me as having a familiar ring to it as I write it. Anyway, the Weimar Republic abided by the clauses in the Versailles Treaty, which explicitly forbad German development or manufacture of heavy machineguns for any use.

The Germans were allowed to keep the some designs - relevant for infantry would be the Solothurn MG30 heavy machinegun - but only as basis for researching newer light model designs. As no airforce was allowed, no Bordwaffe model was kept. Thus the MG30 is the mother of the MG34. I believe licensed(!) Swiss Oerlikon designs were used to catch up on research on Bordwaffen. The research on the MG34 began in the early 1920s, but was as the name implies not completed until 1934. I think the MG 151 came in 35, MG 131 in 38 - both starting covert development after Nazi takeover in 33. Interesting also that the 151/20 replaced them both as far as could be achieved. Indicating further that the Germans indeed saw 20mm as the next step in usable calibre after 7.92mm.

As intermin solution, the German infantry used the MG13, which was merely an adaptation of the Dreyse M1918 to 7.92mm calibre. Used by the Reichswehr, quite a few were still in circulation by 1939. One can see them on some early war photo's. And in photo's of the various Freikorps bands and red guards.

I've read books where the entire German prolonging of the war is blamed in the MG34/42 (and others blaming the 88). The MG34 wasn't that a flawless design. It weighed some 12 kilos empty (the MG42 about 10 I think) so it wasn't supra light as in modern terms. The rate of fire made sustained fire impossible, as despite the low recoil experienced the gunner would loose control of the barrel after the intial rounds. The mechanism was a bit overly complex, with too many moving parts. Much of that was fixed with the MG42, but as rate of fire was raised to an incredible max of somewhere around 1300 rpm, there was instead a very serious problem with both barrel wear and accidental discharge due to overheating. Given the amount of munitions and spare barrels that had to be carried along, the lightness of the MG42 system is more than credibly reduced. The prime cause for jam with this robust weapon was also the rate of fire.

The Americans did make some very serious attempts at copying the MG42. But it proved impossible at the time to adapt it to their longer 7.92mm cartridge. In the middle of the war it was disagreeable to create a whole new standard cartridge. In fact the Americans had opted that out even before the war, when declining the superior 7mm cartridge for their rifles. (Of course, German designers apparently never felt creativity restrained by practicalities and happily designed new standards throughout the war). Later on, the Americans adapted the MG42 design to the NATO standard 7.62mm and voila, enter the M60. Same goes for G1.

Regards

Dandelion

[lcm1947]

Quite interesting reading Dandelion. Well, that explains it pretty well and so my question has been answered many times over which I sincerely thank each and everyone of you that replied. Huh! Interesting.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

Later on, the Americans adapted the MG42 design to the NATO standard 7.62mm and voila, enter the M60. Same goes for G1.

Regards

Dandelion

Wasn't it designated the M60 because it had 18 more design faults than the MG42 it was based on? Or is that an urban myth?

Regards

Jim R.

[Dandelion]

LOL! Hey Lee, I see you sneaking away there! You're not trying to slip away in one piece from this intensely obscure debate are you? We'll have a book written here on the finer alterations of Albanian machinegun models of 1927 before were done

You gotta love this site. Grog paradise and they've let us all in. After all these years believeing I was all alone in the world with these interests and heaps of unusable knowledge.

Returning in haste to the topic, I was not aware of that reputation of the M60, Reichmann. It had many design flaws? Was it unpopular with the men?

Regards

Dandelion

[flamingknives]

The M60 is not a nice weapon to use, AFAIK. Heavy, difficult to change barrels (you need some kind of asbestos glove) and it looks sucky.

The US army has since switched over to using the M240B, which is their designation for the FN MAG.