21 comments

  1. Wasn’t there a Marine general who, upon being shown a new model flamethrower, asked where the bayonet mount was? Besides, you can mount a bayonet on ANY weapon if you have duct tape.

    1. I would not carry a flamethrower. One hit on the tank and you’re toast. A very nasty way to go.

  2. I’m not the man I used to be, Nevi… I’ve even reduced my morning pint of gin by half.

  3. That Marine general was Lewis Burwell (Chesty) Puller, holder of five (count’em) Navy Crosses.

  4. Speaking of machine guns, my dad was the best in his unit on the BAR once upon a time. Sufficiently good that they overlooked his left-handedness & didn’t bust him for his helmet getting dinged up from the odd shell casing that would routinely bounce off his dome.

  5. If you have an M-16 lower, they used to make an XMG upper for it, which is a belt-fed MG-34-based upper (shooting .308) that could mated to the M-16 lower.

  6. I was at a late-summer blog-shoot in NH some years ago … when one of the attendees brought out his fully transferrable MG-34. Among the demonstrations was the owner ripping off a 100-round belt of 7.92 fodder … while not the raw speed of the ’42, the ’34 was none the less most impressive.
    Those readers who remember JayG will know of what I speak.

  7. When I was stationed in West Germany, my company had a sister unit in the Bundeswehr and we were invited to go to the range with them. We got to shoot the Walther P-38 and the MG-3. I earned myself a Class 3 (Gold ) Schützenschnur. After my first burst, being intimately familiar with our own M-60, my first thought was “We won the war. Why didn’t we just bring all of these home?”.

    Things have progressed somewhat since then–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc2UWHEDlG8

  8. I would love to have an MG-42, just not for home defense. I think that the Germans went the wrong way with the high cyclical rate. Missing faster isn’t an improvement. I would rather have a nice M-60 or a well treated Vickers doing around 600 rpm than the 1200 rpm bier farter.

    1. Remember, the mission of an MG with the Infantry is not always to maximize hits. It’s to make the other side keep their heads down while the rest of your fire team maneuvers to get the drop on the OPFOR. Something that the MG-42’s high cyclical rate excelled at.

    2. It’s more about cone of fire/beaten zone. Proper machine gun work is more “to who it may concern in this area”.

      I put a few rnds downrange with the SAW, and it’s an art to be really good.

  9. If you’re manning an MG42, and your opponent has advanced to within bayonet range, you’ve got more problems than a bayonet can solve.

  10. With the cyclic rate of the 42, you might be really effective with a 3 or 4 round burst trigger group.

  11. I dunno about home defense unless your home is being overrun by Antifa assholes.
    If your neighbor across the street has one, too, you can set up one Hell of a field of fire.

  12. I prefer belt fed. With belt fed I like a slow cyclic rate of 325 to 375 rounds per minute. I really like the MK-19.

    1. The first time I ran a MK19, I nearly passed out from the instant freedom boner. And then a bald Eagle flew past, and there may have been patriotic fireworks, the 1812 overature and a single manly tear.

      It is my very favorite gun.

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