MG42
German machine gun MG 42

Machine gun MG42

MG42
Type: light or medium machine gun
History: When the production of MG34 models was obviously insufficient for the German Army's needs, a new design of weapon was begun, one which would be easier to mass-produce. For the first time the design was not left entirely in the hands of gun­makers; a Doktor Grunow of the Johannes Grossfuss Metall und Lackierwarenfabrik of Döbeln, experts in pressing and stamping metal, was called in to advise at an early stage in design. As a result the final design was specifically laid out to suit stamping and pressing processes, with welding and riveting used for assembly.

The German MG42 in its light machine gun role.

The action of the MG42 was modified to use a non-rotating bolt locking into a barrel extension by two rollers caromed outwards. Unless the rollers were out, locking the breech, the firing pin could not pass through the centre of the bolt. On recoil the barrel, bolt and barrel extension recoiled locked together until cam tracks in the gun body moved the rollers inwards to release the bolt.
Movement of the bolt drove a feed arm mounted in the top cover of the gun which in turn operated pawls to feed the ammunition belt; the design was most ingenious and fed the belt smoothly and reliably and has been widely copied in other weapons since its original appearance in the MG42.

One of the results of the re-design was
to raise the rate of fire to an astonishing 1200rpm, much higher than any other contemporary machine gun and a rate which has only rarely since been exceeded. As a result the barrel had to be designed for quick-changing - every 250 rounds was the recommended figure - and this was done by unlatching the breech end and swinging it out through a long slot in the right-hand side of the barrel casing; a fresh barrel could be fitted in five seconds.
As with the MG34, the MG42 was used on a bipod as a light machine gun or on a tripod as a medium gun, though the high rate of fire made it difficult to control on a bipod. It was extremely reliable, highly resistant to dust and cold conditions and was extremely popular with the Wehrmacht - and understandably less popular with their enemies. Its first use in action is said to have been by the Afrika Korps at Gazala in May 1942. it has been reported that 750,000 MG42s were made before the war ended.

German partatroopers guarding a rode in Rome, 1944. An MG42 and a Panzerfaust is ready for use.

At the war's end many countries who seized stocks of the guns adopted them into their own armies, among them France and Yugoslavia, and when the German Bundeswehr was reconstituted and required a machine gun they simply put the MG42 back into production in 7.62mm NATO caliber as the MG1. An interesting point about this is that the original engineering drawings were destroyed at the end of the war, and the draughtsmen had to obtain an MG42 from a museum in the USA, strip it, and produce fresh drawings to guide manufacture.