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MG42

Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:16 Written by Administrator Thursday, 02 July 2009 03:24

The Maschinengewehr 42 or just MG42 is a machine gun designed in Nazi Germany that entered military service in the year 1942. It replaced the MG34 general purpose machine gun though both of them saw almost equal service till the end of the Second World War.

The MG42 has its origins in the earlier MG34. The MG34 was the first general purpose machine gun and was very effective in terms of firepower. However, it was susceptible to dirt and was costly to manufacture. This led the Germans to develop an alternative to the MG34. The MG39 was designed by Ernst Grunow. Strangely, Grunow had no prior knowledge of designing guns. However, he attended a machine gunner’s course and interacted with soldiers to learn key concepts which he incorporated into the design of the MG39. The newer design was not only simpler to manufacture, it was also less expensive.

The MG39 was thoroughly tested and some changes were made to it. The new design was designated as MG42 and production began in the year 1942. Contracts to manufacture the MG42 were awarded to several companies and by 1945, more than 400,000 units were manufactured.

The MG42 was both reliable and durable. At the same time, its operation was also very simple. However the most effective feature of the MG42 was its immense rate of fire. With the rate of firing ranging between 1200 and 1500-rounds per minute, the gun was one of fastest single-barrelled machine guns to be ever designed. There were other contemporary designs with similar firepower, but they couldn’t equate the MG42 because of its belt-feed mechanism and quick-change barrel system.

The MG42 used a roller-locked, short recoil gas assist mechanism to operate. It also fired from an open-bolt and had high recoil. For this reason, it had to be properly seated on its bipod before firing. The gun was designed to use the 7.92x57mm Mauser round and was effective to a range of around 1000 meters.

The MG42 weighed around 11.6 Kg and was comparatively light and mobile than other contemporary machine guns. The barrel of the gun was also thinner and this caused it to get heated much faster. However, it could be replaced very easily within seconds by an expert machine gunner.

Several variants of the MG42 were developed in the later years. One such variant was the MG45. This variant was developed by taking material shortages of the war into consideration. This variant featured several design variations and has a rate of fire of around 1,350 rounds per minute. However, only ten units of the MG45 were ever built.

The Americans also tried to make clones of the MG42. The T24 machine gun was based on the MG42 and was chambered for the .30-26 cartridge. However, faulty design led to the failure of the project and it had to be abandoned midway.

After the war, several countries manufactured variants of the MG42. Examples include the MG74 (manufactured by Austria) and the M53 (manufactured by Yugoslavia under license). Yugoslavian M53s were exported to Iraq in fair numbers in the 1980s. In the recent years, M53s saw action in the Gulf wars.

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