MG-42

The MG-34 prooved to be to complicated  and expencive to be but into mass production, so the need for a simpler machine gun soon became obvious. -It was to ba made from pressed and punched steel parts. The mg-42īs constructor was a skilled steel labourer, and was actually sendt to regular training with machine guns, to find out what a machine gunīs caricteristics needed to be, and went on to design the MG-42.

The first prototype was sendt to testing in feburary 1939, and was in the end evolved into a fifth prototype that was sendt on massive combat evaluation. The testing involved over 1500 units. after more detailed improvements, the mass production started, and in total 414 964  units were produced.

The simplicity, effectiveness, and functionality of the design proved to give it an immunity to front line contitions, and is still by many experts thought of as one the best machine gun constructions ever.

The weapon had an attached bipod, but could also be mounted on a tripod, shown in the pictures below.  

The MG-42 only drawbacs was that the air cooled barrel got hot rather fast and had to be changed often. as you see from the picture above, the weapon eventually was chrome plated to increase barrel life ecspectancy a bit.