Can MG42 barrels be reused?
The faster-firing MG42 heated up quicker, and needed its barrel changing every 250 rounds. Because these barrels weren’t being allowed to get dangerously hot, they could be reused once they’d cooled down.
What happens when a machine gun overheats?
Many heavy machine guns may have cooling fins, water jackets or changeable barrels to combat overheating. Overheating causes excessive metal fatigue, corrosion snd oxidisation.
Do machine guns still overheat?
Some machine guns have in practice sustained fire almost continuously for hours; other automatic weapons overheat after less than a minute of use. Because they become very hot, the great majority of designs fire from an open bolt, to permit air cooling from the breech between bursts.
How often did an MG42 change barrels?
Firing at around 1,200rpm consumed ammunition at a prodigious rate and forced very rapid barrel changes (a Bren Gun needed a barrel change every 400–500 rounds of rapid fire, a MG42 needed to change barrels every 250 rounds) which again hindered mobility.
What happens when a barrel gets too hot?
Overheating is bad for a gun barrel, and can potentially ruin it. If allowed to get hot enough, a gun barrel can fail catastrophically, destroying the weapon and potentially injuring or killing the user and bystanders.
Can a minigun overheat?
The basic minigun is a six-barrel, air-cooled, and electrically driven rotary machine gun. The electric drive rotates the weapon within its housing, with a rotating firing pin assembly and rotary chamber. The minigun’s multi-barrel design helps prevent overheating, but also serves other functions.
What battle was the machine gun first used?
the Somme
Hiram Maxim, an American inventor, delivered the first automatic, portable machine gun in 1884, providing the template for the weapon that devastated the British at the Somme.
Was the MG42 a good gun?
The reality was that the German MG42, firing up to 1,800 rounds per minute, bit hard. It was widely considered to be the deadliest, and most effective gun in European theatre at the time. As a measure of its enduring success, today, Germany and 30 other countries still use ‘Hitlers Buzz-saw’.
How many spare barrels did an MG-42 have?
Machine-gun teams would have as many as six spare barrels on hand. One example of an MG-42 in The National World War II Museum’s collection was recovered from the battlefield by an army truck driver named Private First Class Leonard Liniewski.
How was the MG-42 recovered from the battlefield?
One example of an MG-42 in The National World War II Museum’s collection was recovered from the battlefield by an army truck driver named Private First Class Leonard Liniewski. Driving through a recently secured area in Belgium, the sharp-eyed Liniewski spotted the abandoned weapon in a field.
What was the crew size of the MG42?
The MG42’s optimum crew consisted of six men, enabling them to carry spare barrels and swiftly change them in action. A German Waffen SS soldier involved in heavy fighting in and around the French town of Caen in mid-1944. He is carrying an MG 42 configured as a light support weapon with a folding bipod and detachable drum belt container.
Does the German Bundeswehr still use the MG-42?
This is a slightly tricky question to answer, because no, the modern Bundeswehr does not use the MG-42. They restarted the numbering system after the war, and the MG-42 was replaced with the MG-1 and MG-3, with old ’42s being converted into MG-2s. These models got West Germany through the Cold War.