Few people know Grunov's full name, and Liu Lang is one of them.
Grunov Victor, the designer of the MG42 machine gun, the most commonly used machine gun by the German army during World War II.
If someone were to ask which weapon was the most powerful killing weapon in World War II, Liu Lang would definitely blurt out "MG42." Although various types of firearms emerged in the world during World War II, none of them could compare with the MG42.
This is the world's first firearm made using metal stamping technology. It is almost crude in appearance. In the exact words of spies lurking in Germany from various European countries: this is really a crude weapon, made of several iron sheets and an iron pipe.
Patchwork. The only conclusion that all the spies came to was that Germany was in ruins. They were extremely short of raw materials. Even the machine guns that were the core of their tactics used such crude and crude manufacturing technology.
Only the American and British ordnance experts know that it is not that Germany is failing, but that Germany is already ahead of them in metal stamping technology.
Liu Lang even knew that the successful research on MG42 was not only a breakthrough in metal stamping technology, but also an important breakthrough in firearms production technology. Grunov himself was not a firearms designer, he was an expert in metal stamping technology.
At that time, due to the large demand for machine guns by the German front-line troops, he believed from a professional perspective that it would be difficult to meet such needs according to the traditional firearms manufacturing process (it uses mechanical processing to process a piece of solid metal using lathes, milling machines, etc., and then cut it out)
For unnecessary parts, the metal utilization rate is only about 25%, which wastes materials and takes a lot of man-hours). He believes that it is an inevitable trend to use metal stamping technology to manufacture machine guns. In fact, the MG42 produced using metal stamping technology is not only
It saves materials and man-hours and is more compact. This is very practical for Germany, which lacks metal resources.
American and British ordnance experts guessed the beginning, but not the ending. They all underestimated the terror of the MG42 machine gun. Even until the end of the war, they still failed to build a machine gun that could compete with the MG42 machine gun. The MG42 proved its design in actual combat.
Grunov's genius design.
Whether it is in the ice and snow of minus 40 degrees below zero in the Soviet Union, in the low shrubbery of Normandy, in the hot desert of North Africa, or in the piles of gravel and rubble in Berlin, the MG42 is the absolute backbone of the German army's firepower and a vicious weapon for the Allied soldiers.
Dream!
The most profound impression that Allied soldiers had on the MG42 was its gunfire.
The firing rate of the MG42 machine gun is as low as 1,000 rounds per minute and as high as 1,300 rounds. After the machine gun fire rate exceeds 1,000 rounds per minute, it is said that people cannot distinguish individual gunshots.
The firing sound of the MG42 is not like the "click-click-click" sound of a Czech or Browning machine gun, but the "chi-chi-chi" sound of a high-speed rotating chainsaw. There are also sounds that Allied soldiers described as tearing large pieces of linen.
The new recruits didn't know anything about it, but the last thing the Allied veterans wanted to hear was this demonic voice. For them, this voice was the call of death.
This is inevitable, because of the high rate of fire of the MG42, the shooter can fire five or six bullets in a short burst every time he pulls the trigger.
If an unfortunate soldier is shot by an MG42, he will be shot several times in an instant, and his chances of survival are slim.
In actual combat, due to its high rate of fire, the MG42 is not only able to deal with small groups of targets, but is also very effective against group targets.
In the movie "Saving Private Ryan", Captain Miller's company and three other companies served as the vanguard to seize the beach. The guarding German army only had a reinforced coastal defense platoon, including a machine gun squad and two MG42 machine guns.
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But it was these two MG42s hidden in coastal bunkers that caused heavy damage to the landing US troops. The two German machine gunners sometimes strafed and sometimes fired accurately, accurately killing the American soldiers one by one on the beach. In the end, meters
More than 30 people in Captain Le's company were killed, more than 70 were injured, and almost all of them were wiped out. If Captain Miller hadn't relied on his experience and bravery to cleverly bypass the MG42's firing zone and kill them from behind,
It is estimated that all the US military beachhead troops will die under the gunfire of MG42.
The injured soldiers in the movie were all shot in multiple places, with bullet holes all over their bodies bleeding, and their internal organs were shot out. It was horrible to watch.
In fact, this plot is really not nonsense, it is adapted from a real combat example.
During the Battle of Normandy in 1944, Hayne Severo, a 20-year-old young soldier stationed in a bunker, later known as the "Beast of Ohama", relied on an MG42 machine gun and, in 9 hours,
He used up all the 12,000 rounds of ammunition in the stock of the post. After running out of machine gun bullets, he continued to shoot 400 rounds with his Mauser rifle.
?World War II historian Helmut Conrad believed that Severo may have caused about 3,000-4,200 American casualties that day, but he only admitted that the approximate number should be more than 2,000. This made all the soldiers feel sick
The chilling numbers are the results of the MG42.
The MG42 has a very excellent suppression capability. Since its range is basically the same as that of machine guns from various countries, and its much higher rate of fire, ordinary machine guns simply cannot gain the upper hand over the MG42 in machine gun shooting. The most disadvantageous one is probably
Even the Soviet troops equipped with the Deggarev light machine gun could not suppress them because the Deggarev's rate of fire was only one-eighty-nine times that of the MG42. The Soviet Union's Goryunov heavy machine gun was extremely bulky and could not suppress it.
Effective handling is certainly no match for the MG42. The huge weakness of the machine gun was also an important reason for the heavy casualties suffered by the Soviet and German troops in combat.
Moreover, the performance of the MG42 is extremely reliable. During World War II, many weapons of the German army showed that they could not adapt to the harsh environment of the Soviet Union. Various malfunctions occurred frequently in the severe cold, including the inability to pull the bolt.
The MG42 is a weapon that the German army can absolutely trust. It is very reliable in actual combat. Even in the severe cold of minus 40 degrees, the MG42 can still maintain a stable shooting speed. Because the MG42 is an air-cooled machine gun, in cold conditions
, on the contrary, it can effectively reduce the time of changing the barrel. Generally, the barrel must be replaced after the MG42 fires 300 rounds of bullets continuously. In the Soviet Union, this number can be increased to 500 to 600 rounds. The replacement device of the MG42 is very simple, just pull a
Use the lever and tilt the gun body, and the barrel will automatically jump out without touching the hot gun with your hands. It only takes a few seconds to replace a barrel.
However, the MG42 was Germany's best machine gun during World War II. The biggest advantage of the MG42 is not only its strong firepower and reliability. This machine gun is actually very simple to manufacture. Because of the stamping technology, it uses very little material and can be easily manufactured.
Manufactured on an assembly line, the cost is only 70% of the MG34, Germany's main machine gun before World War II, and the man-hours and materials consumed are only 50% of that of the MG34.
According to post-war statistics, about 1 million MG42s were produced throughout World War II. This number is very astonishing. You must know that the production volume of German submachine guns in World War II was only 1.2 million. Such a high production capacity is jaw-dropping. The performance is so excellent.
The weapon is so easy to make, and the word perfect is not an overstatement when applied to it.
The biggest disadvantage of MG42 is its high ammunition consumption and high shooting technology requirements. Because of its high rate of fire, its ammunition consumption is much greater than that of other machine guns. In actual combat, MG42 uses 75-round drum magazines or 250-round ammunition chains.
.If you use a 75-round drum magazine, it will be completely discharged in three or four volleys.
Therefore, when the troops are moving, German riflemen often have to assist in carrying ammunition. On average, each rifleman needs to carry two 300-round ammunition boxes. This makes the combat carrying capacity of each infantry squad's machine gun ammunition increase from the standard configuration of 1,150 rounds per squad.
, increased to about 3,000 rounds, which objectively increased the load of ordinary soldiers.
At the same time, because the MG42 has a fast rate of fire and a large consumption of bullets, and the gun body vibrates significantly when fired continuously, it requires the shooter to have good shooting skills and experience in using machine guns. Generally, recruits are not competent. Therefore, in the German army, the machine gun squad has to
The shooter is generally the warrior with the best shooting skills in the class.
And all of this is the result of the German guy with a greasy face and a pair of strange blue eyes. If his name and title are not fake.