WW2 training film. German vs. US automatic weapons.

Too bad they didn't include the BAR.

[video=youtube;Oyj-ZHXFKQI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyj-ZHXFKQI[/video]

 

Thanks for posting it! It is a good example of how the psychology factor is used. It shows the soldiers that the German MG can only hit them with 13 rounds(of longer bursts) instead of 20( of shorter bursts). Thats much healthier! During my time in the Army i fired short bursts of 5 to 8 rounds at a target at 1200meters from the bipod and hit it good. But i know the boys will running much better against enemies position with the guess that the enemies weapons are bader than the own.

 

A great vid Syscom...this is the sort of thng Rogues argue about regularly...nice to actually see some trials.

 

Excellent. Had always searched for a similar comparison video...Very surprised the grease gun did so well. And wonder about some of the other results... Never knew the mg42 on mount was not fired directly by the gunner. Seems odd to have it set up like that, trigger off gun. Prolly harder to swivel gun with 1 hand.

 

I've seen this old production before. I find it interesting that the U.S. Army had to put out a training film to disparage German firearms. I'm sure that the veterans weren't scared at all of the German MGs. Riiiight! I suspect that the results of this test had been "cooked". To my mind it was a propaganda film. However, it did illustrate how the German tripod with the recoil system kept the barrelsteady as it came back. I don't suppose that it matters if you hit an enemy soldier with two rounds or eight-he's going to out of the fight no matter what. So if you fired 30 rounds and got 10 hits on two enemy, that's plenty, the other 20 bullets had the chance to hit still others. (perhaps this is what Ulrich was trying to say)

 

Thanks Jeff!

The MG 42 has a RoF of 1500Rpm, our MG3(which is based on the MG42) has a RoF of 1200 Rpm and the M1919 has somewhat around 400 to 500 Rpm.

So to me the MG42 has a bit to much use of ammo and it will give only sense while using it with the tripod, where you can use it for firing a barrage. The advantage is getting lost by using it with the bipod. The newer days MG3 is to me the one with the highest rate of fire which you can handle. The Browning had a bit to less power in my opinion but having 5 of them instead of four of the MG 42 for the same costs of ammo is more effectively but the US Army haven´t used 5 MG´s in a platoon.
It is more a question of "where and for what purpose "i will have MG´s with a high RoF and can i feed it. The Dillons minigun is of great use and you won´t forget her noise but you have to pay it with the ammo. So there will be no advantage without a disadvantage.

 

Here is a short bit with the BAR included.

Goto:

WWII Infantry Weapons and Their Effects, 2 of 3 - Real Military Videos

 

Thanks Syscom, I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Lacking the gung-ho of some training films. Do we know what date it was? (Grease Gun brought into service in '45?)

I see the Youtube comments are the usual morass of dullards...

~A

 

The logic behind the high RoF was as follows:

In combat no one exposes himself for more than a (very few) seconds, so you have only very little time to shoot at the enemy, so you need a machine gun with a very high RoF.


From what I read elsewhere the GIs really didn't like the MG42 and even less that they didn't have a machine gun like it. Thus the Army worked on a cal. 30-06 copy but just when they were starting to make progress in the spring of 1944, the program was stopped because 'the war would be over by X-mas'.

Well, it wasn't but they could not have known that but they should have known that there is always a next war and that military budgets get cut in peacetime.