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The MG 42 (shortened from German: Maschinengewehr 42, or "machine gun 42") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II.
US experimental T44 belt-feeding machine gun developed from the German FG 42 and MG 42. The American M41 Johnson LMG has many parallels with the contemporary FG 42. Both had in-line stocks, fed from the left side, and both fired from the open bolt in automatic mode and closed bolt in semi-automatic mode.
The MG-42 type general-purpose machine guns in both bipod and tripod configurations. The tall tripod on the right is for anti-aircraft use. A general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) is an air-cooled, usually belt-fed machine gun that can be adapted flexibly to various tactical roles for light and medium machine guns. [1]
The MG 42 was a prime example. When US soldiers first saw the MG 42 it was ridiculed for its use of stamped steel parts, until it was realized how much quicker and more cheaply guns of this type could be manufactured. By February 1943, US ordnance authorities published the first report on the MG 42, following testing of a captured gun.
A further development of the MG 1A1 was the MG 1A2 (known also as the MG 42/59), which had a heavier bolt (950 g (33.51 oz) for a slower 700–900 rounds per minute cyclic rate of fire, compared to 550 g (19.40 oz)), and a new friction ring buffer made suitable for using the heavier bolt.
While Frerking coordinated the artillery fire of the battery at Houtteville from a bunker, Severloh says he manned an MG 42 machine gun, [12] and fired on approaching American troops with the machine gun and two Karabiner 98k rifles; while a sergeant whom he did not know, kept him supplied with ammunition from a nearby ammo bunker until 15:30 ...
MG 42 with inserted Gurt 34 reusable non-disintegrating metal ammunition belt. In 1937 the feed was redesigned to use reusable non-disintegrating Gurt 33 and Gurt 34 metal belts and a 50-round Gurttrommel 34 (belt drum). The feeding system was based on the direct push-through of the cartridge out of the link into the gun's chamber.
The MG 42's lineage continued past World War II, forming the basis for the nearly identical MG1 (MG 42/59), chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO, which subsequently evolved into the MG1A3, and later the Bundeswehr's MG 3, Italian MG 42/59, and Austrian MG 74. It also spawned the Yugoslav unlicensed nearly identical Zastava M53.