Who had the best machine guns? The Nazis or America? MOVIE

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PTMCCAIN

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I thought you guys would appreciate this old Army movie.

I'm still trying to put my feelings about it into words, but it is apparent it was intended to bolster confidence in American machine guns in light of the overwhelming superiority of the German machine guns.

Here is the movie, see what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35R2WENXMl8
 
Ours (the 1919) fired from a closed bolt
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Oh??

Not the ones I used between 1964 and whenever it was I saw my first M-60.

All Browning LMG's fired from an open bolt, and always did, as far as I know.

One could give the Germans credit for the quick-change barrel on the MG34/MG42.
Our M60 used a lot of features from the MG32/MG42 later in the 1950's.

But one has to question the unrealistically high rate of fire of the MG42 if you were the one trying to pack enough ammo to feed them and keep them running during a battle.

rc
 
rcmodel said:
All Browning LMG's fired from an open bolt, and always did, as far as I know.
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I have heard that open bolt conversions were done to 1919s around the Vietnam era for vehicle mount, but WWII 1919's were closed bolt.
 
But one has to question the unrealistically high rate of fire of the MG42 if you were the one trying to pack enough ammo to feed them and keep them running during a battle.
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...especially given that it used full-power, full-sized rifle ammo. I've heard plenty of guys complain about humping extras for SAW gunners. Imagine carting that loadout in 7.92x57...
 
The Germans had the best LMG of WWII, the MG42.

The U.S. had the best infantry rifle of WWII, the M1 Garand.

This makes sense because the German squad "base of fire" centered on the LMG, while the American "base of fire" consisted of the individual riflemen.

A meaningful comparison would pit the firepower of squad vs. squad, taking into account ammunition supply, rather than comparing weapons of particular categories.
 
We won, so our MG must have been better! :D

Seriously we all know that had nothing to do with anything.

But still, we are still using Browning .50 MG's, and not using MG-42's, or the MG-42 derivative M60s, much.

rc
 
The reason the US won was several fold. Most important was we had OIL!

The Germans had better airplanes (ask the old pilots who flew against them). The Germans had better tanks. The Germans had better rockets ( oops, the US didn't have any rockets). And, the Germans had damn good small arms.

The Germans didn't have the fuel to run their war machine. They were fighting on two fronts and lost many troops in Russia.

But the main thing was the Germans lacked the fuel to run their war machine. This same energy 'shortage' caused manufacturing slowdowns and reduction of materials needed on the fighting front.

And all of this talk about machine guns. The US militia doesn't need machine guns. Our Congress and Supreme Court have so decided. So, it is a fact.

Ron
 
Seems like America didn't learn much from WWII, we went into the war with a powerful semi-automatic rifle and then scrambled to equip our troops with more submachine guns and intermediate weapons like the M1 carbine. After the war when looking for a replacement rifle they went to the 7.62x51 in the M14. It's only advantages over the Garand were it's detachable mag and the largely useless ability to fire in full auto.

I wonder how long it would have taken to dump the M14 if McNamara hadn't forced the M-16 adoption.
 
But still, we are still using Browning .50 MG's, and not using MG-42's,
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We're not, but the basic design is still in widespread use. Both Germany and Italy are among those using the MG-3, which is an improved version, Austria runs a version of it, and the Swiss MG71 is basically a beefed up version.

The US tried copying it for our use during the war but the .30-06 ammo was apparently too powerful for it.
 
If I remember correctly, one of those TV shows rated the top 10 machine guns and I believe the German Sturmgewehr was #1.
 
If I remember correctly, one of those TV shows rated the top 10 machine guns and I believe the German Sturmgewehr was #1.
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If I am not mistaken, that was top 10 battle/ assault rifles.


Either way, both the mg-42 and 1919 have aspects which make them great machine guns.
 
The Germans had better airplanes (ask the old pilots who flew against them). The Germans had better tanks. The Germans had better rockets ( oops, the US didn't have any rockets). And, the Germans had damn good small arms.
Click to expand...

The Americans had much better planes. The P-47 and P-51 could hold their own against the Bf-019 and the FW-190 plus the American planes had a much longer range to bring the fight to Germany. Bombers; the Germans never had a bomber that could equal the B-17 and B-24. The V-1's and V-2's were much less effective than bombers.

The German leadership and oil supply sucked, that is why they lost the war.

Ranb
 
+1 Ranb

.... early in the war, while the US wasnt in it, german planes, armor ... everything was better.

Later on US planes and russian armor caught up. The end was sheer
overwhelming man and material power.

And as a german i can say i´m glad.

Only a madman would declare war on the world.
Idiots prefer oil-rich midlle eastern countries :D
 
azgun said:
If I am not mistaken, that was top 10 battle/ assault rifles.


Either way, both the mg-42 and 1919 have aspects which make them great machine guns.
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Nobody would argue that both aren't good machine guns that have stood the test of time (both are still in use), but the MG42 does have some better features (ease of barrel change), and is lighter.
 
But still, we are still using Browning .50 MG's, and not using MG-42's, or the MG-42 derivative M60s, much.

rc
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Actually, we are still making quite a lot of use of the M240, which was the replacement for the M60, and which fills exactly the same niche the MG42 did for the Germans, and the MG3 (a 7.62mm NATO version of the MG42) does for them to this day.

The US tried copying it for our use during the war but the .30-06 ammo was apparently too powerful for it.
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Ian already covered this in his reply. It wasn't that the .30-06 was too powerful, it was that they didn't allow for the fact that the .30-06 is longer. The result was that the bolt in .30-06 copy recoiled the same distance as in the German version -- far enough to eject an 8mm Mauser case, but not enough to eject the longer .30-06 case. As a result, if memory serves, the gun would fire the first round and then jam.

One wonders, if they hadn't screwed it up, might we have actually issued an MG42 copy in Korea and Vietnam?
 
Nobody would argue that both aren't good machine guns that have stood the test of time (both are still in use), but the MG42 does have some better features (ease of barrel change), and is lighter.
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They were really different classes of weapons. The MG42, and its immediate predecessor, the MG34, were the first general purpose machine guns. They were meant to fill the roles that the Bren gun and the Vickers gun did for the British. We never really had a good light machine gun -- the BAR was designed as an automatic rifle, and was never meant to deliver sustained fire (no quick change barrel, limited magazine capacity), we just pressed it into that role for lack of anything better. And the M1919 was still meant to be a medium machine gun, just a bit more portable than the M1917 water cooled version. When the army tried to make into something a little closer to a true LMG, with the M1919A6, the result was not entirely successful -- sort of like the the WWII equivalent of the WWI German MG08/15: it was lighter than what we had before, but still a lot heavier, and not as good in the LMG role as the true LMG the enemy had, and which our soldiers envied.
 
Just wanted to pop in here and thank everyone for the very interesting, and educational, comments and observations. This is the reason why gun fora such as this one are so helpful!

Thanks everyone. God bless.

Here's the video we are all discussing, in case anyone stumbles in here and wonders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35R2WENXMl8
 
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