Who designed these GPMGs?

[BigG]

I read the thread about greatest gun designers, which Browning won by a landslide, but what about some of the unsung designers who really advanced the art?

I'm thinking of the gun they called (I think) the Solothurn, either the MG34 and the later MG42 that the Germans fielded during WWII. The latter design is so timeless that it is still one of the top GPMGs in the world, while the Brownings have long been surpassed. Well, all except the Big 50 but I suspect that that is a function of the cartridge more than the platform.

Who designed the German MGs and any other stuff you can relate, if you please. TIA

 

[Nightcrawler]

The Brownings haven't been completely surpassed. The FN Mag, one of the best machine guns ever designed, is basically a Browning BAR action turned upside down and converted to belt feeding.

I'd like to know who designed the PK.

 

[glockten]

I believe the PK was designed by Kalashnikov.

 

[Langenator]

Best info I could find on the PK series and it's orgins was this sentence:

It is a fully automatic gas-operated gun with Kalashnikov rotating bolt, Goryunov cartridge extractor and barrel-change, and Degtyarev feed system and trigger.

I'm going to guess that the gas-operating system is a Kalishnikov derivative as well.

 

[BigG]

Dang Thread Hijackers...

Gee guys, I appreciate your interest in the PK but I was asking about the MG34/42. Kindly start your own thread.

 

[Langenator]

Didn't find much on the web, but you might try this book

If you can find a copy, it'll probalby have more than you want to know.

I did find one fairly comprehensive site, but it was in German, and my language skills aren't up to translating at the moment.

 

[Double Maduro]

BigG

Try this site, it has more info on the mg42 than you need.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG42

The MG34 was designed primarily by Heinrich Vollmer from Mauser Werke,

Now for the mg42

In the late 1930s the MG34 was arguably the best machine gun in the world at the time, but was expensive and time consuming to construct. In order to arm the increasingly large German army, an effort was started to build a simpler gun that could be built much faster. The winning design was offered by a newcommer to the contest, Metall-und-Lackierwarenfabrik Johannes Grossfuss AG, experts in pressed and punched steel parts. Their efforts resulted in a dramatic reduction in complexity – it took 75 man-hours to complete the new gun as opposed to 150 for the MG34, and cost 250RM as opposed to 327RM.

Hope it helps.

DM