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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.
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 ...
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.
Grossfuss Sturmgewehr was a prototype assault rifle designed during World War II by Kurt Horn at the Grossfuss company better known for their contribution to the German arsenal made with the MG 42. History
It's enough to say that e.g. "although the MG 42 could fire at 1,200 rounds per minute German tactical doctrine mandated short, controlled bursts, limiting the effective rate of fire to 154 rpm". If this was a book about the MG 42 there would be space for a digression on the pros and cons of a high rate of fire, with historical examples, but ...