Machine Guns (Machinengewehr.)

 

MG13:

An air-cooled rebuild of an old World War 1 Dreyse MG15 water-cooled  machine gun. It entered service with the German Army in 1932, but by 1938 most of these guns (by then known as the MG13) were sold off to Portugal & a number also ended up being used in the Spanish civil war. Some, however, remained in German service and were used in small numbers by various second-line & police units.  It finally ended it's days being used by the Volksturm in 1945 due to shortages of more modern weapons. The standard box magazine of the MG13 contained 25 rounds, however a special twin drum was developed in the mid-30's that contained 75 rounds.  Prior to the advent of the MG34 & 42, the shorter barrel version of the MG13 was mounted in various aircraft and tanks including the Panzer Mk1.

 

 


 

 

MG34:

The MG34 was a considerable improvement on WW1 machine guns and was superior in every way. The quality in design and finish also made for a comparably slow production and a high price of 327RM per weapon. A brilliant design, the weapon immediately was agreed upon as the standard machine gun of the Wehrmacht, however, the precision machined parts proved to be very  sensitive and prone to malfunction in the harsh conditions of field use. When clean the weapon was extremely efficient & accurate, however, when dirty, constant breakdowns rendered it less useful. When the MG42 entered service, most MG34's were withdrawn & used in aircraft & tanks where they were more efficient in a relatively cleaner environment.  The MG34 could use both magazine-fed and belt-fed 7.92mm standard infantry ammunition which was fed by Doppeltrommel (double drum) saddle drum magazines of 75 rounds and Gegurtete Munition (linked/belted ammunition) belts of 50 rounds and 250 rounds. It could be mounted on a Lafette tripod and used as a Heavy machine gun. Early models 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 subsequent models did not have this switch. Later weapons were set at a fixed rate of fire between 800 and 900 rounds per minute. The vehicle-mounted version of the MG 34 was fitted with a Schwerer Lauf (heavy barrel) or Panzer lauf (armour barrel.)  The MG34 was produced until the end of the war and a total number of 354,020 were manufactured.

 

 

 

MG42:

The comparably complicated construction of the MG34 restricted mass production, therefore the numbers demanded by the army could never be met. It was soon obvious that a simpler model was needed. The new MG42, known as the 'Hitler Scythe' ( because of it’s high rate of fire and the fact that it could literally cut a person in half ), was to be manufactured from pressed and punched steel parts, rendering it simpler, quicker and cheaper to manufacture.  The weapon was air-cooled and recoil-operated with a slightly recoiling barrel & the recoil mechanism based on a newly invented construction of a breech with rollers. The belted mauser 7.92mm ammunition was fed from the left. The unmatched simplicity, functionality and effectiveness of the design not only resulted in a an astonishing ruggedness and immunity to the conditions of front use, but it took only 75 work hours to complete a MG42 as opposed to the 150 necessary for the MG34 and cost only 250RM to produce, compared to the MG34's 327RM. The firing rate could reach between 1200 to 1500 rpm depending on the role in which it was used.  In its heavy machine gun role it was used with a Lafette 42 tripod (seen in the illustration and using different attachments than the MG34 Lafette ) but this sometimes had to be weighted down with sandbags due to the instability of the gun when used in prolonged automatic fire mode. Over 400,000 were manufactured by the war's end.  Even today the MG42 is still regarded by many experts as the best machine gun construction ever.