Few people know Grunov's full name, and Liu Lang is one of them. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Grunov. Victor, designer of the MG42 machine gun, the most heavily armed machine gun in the German army during World War II.

If someone wants to ask, which weapon in World War II is the strongest killing weapon, "MG42" Liu Lang will definitely blurt out. Although there were many types of firearms around the world during World War II, none of them could match the MG42.

It was the world's first firearm made of metal stamping, and it was almost rudimentary in appearance, in the words of European spies lurking in Germany: it was a crude weapon, a patchwork of pieces of iron and a pipe. The only conclusion reached by all the spies was that the Germans were no longer good, they were desperately short of raw materials, and even the machine guns at the heart of their tactics were made with such rudimentary and crude manufacturing techniques.

Only the ordnance experts of the United States and Britain know that it is not that Germany is no longer good, but that Germany is already ahead of them in metal stamping technology.

Liu Lang also knows that the successful research of MG42 is not only a breakthrough in metal stamping technology, but also an important breakthrough in firearms production technology. Grunov himself was not a gunsmith, he was an expert in metal stamping technology. At that time, due to the great demand for machine guns in the German front-line troops, he believed from a professional point of view that it would be difficult to meet such needs according to the traditional firearms manufacturing process (it uses mechanical processing, a solid metal is processed by lathes, milling machines, etc., and the unnecessary parts are cut off, and the metal utilization rate is only about 25%, which is a waste of materials and a lot of man-hours). He believed that it was an inevitable trend for machine guns to be manufactured using a metal stamping process. In practice, the MG42 produced by the metal stamping process not only saves material and man-hours, but is also more compact. This is very practical for Germany, which lacks metal resources.

American and British ordnance experts guessed the beginning, but not the end, they all underestimated the horror of the MG42 machine gun, and even until the end of the war, they still did not create a machine gun comparable to the MG42 machine gun. MG42 proved the genius design of the designer Grunov with actual combat.

Whether it is in the freezing and snowy weather of minus 40 degrees Celsius in the Soviet Union, or in the low bush jungles of Normandy, in the hot desert of North Africa, or in the rubble and rubble piles of Berlin, the MG42 is the absolute firepower of the German army and the nightmare of the Allied soldiers!

The most striking impression of the MG42 by the Allied soldiers was its gunfire.

The MG42 machine gun had a minimum rate of fire of 1000 rounds per minute and a maximum of 1300 rounds per minute. When the rate of fire of machine guns exceeds 1,000 rounds per minute, it is said that people cannot distinguish individual shots.

The sound of the MG42's firing was not like the "click" of a Czech or Browning machine gun, but similar to the "snort" of a high-speed chainsaw, which was described by Allied soldiers as tearing through a large sheet of linen. The recruits didn't have much to do with it, and the last thing the Allied veterans wanted to hear was this demonic voice, for them, it was the call of death.

This is inevitable, because of the high rate of fire of the MG42, the shooter can also shoot five or six rounds at a short burst with each pull of the trigger.

If an unfortunate soldier is shot by MG42, then he will be shot several times in an instant, and the chances of survival are very small.

In actual combat, the MG42 is not only very effective against small group targets because of its high rate of fire, but also against group targets.

In the movie "Saving Private Ryan", one of Captain Miller's companies and three other companies take the lead on the beach. And the Germans guarding had only a reinforced coastal defense platoon, one of which was a machine-gun squad, two MG42 machine guns.

But it was these two MG42s hidden in the coastal bunkers that caused heavy damage to the landed American troops. The two German machine gunners sometimes strafed, sometimes fired accurately, and accurately killed the American GIs on the beach one by one. In the end, more than 30 people were killed and more than 70 wounded in Captain Miller's company, and almost all of them were wiped out. If it weren't for Captain Miller's experience and bravery, he skillfully bypassed the MG42's firing zone and killed them from behind, and the American beachhead troops would have all died under the MG42's guns.

The injured soldiers in the movie were all shot in multiple places, bleeding from bullet holes all over their bodies, and some were shot out of their internal organs, which was terrible.

Actually, this plot is really not nonsense, it is based on a real battle example.

During the Battle of Normandy in 1944, Hain Severo was stationed in a pillbox. A 20-year-old soldier of the Beast of Ohama relied on an MG42 machine gun and in nine hours he used up all the 12,000 rounds of ammunition in the outpost. When he ran out of machine gun ammunition, he continued to fire 400 rounds with his Mauser rifle.

World War II historian Helmut Conrad believes that Severo may have caused about 3,000 to 4,200 U.S. casualties that day, but he only admits that the approximate number should be more than 2,000. This number, which makes all the soldiers shiver, is the result of MG42.

The MG42 has a very good suppression ability, because its range is basically the same as that of machine guns in other countries, and its much higher rate of fire, the general machine gun is simply unable to have the upper hand in machine gun fire. One of the most disadvantageous may be the Soviet troops equipped with the Deggalev light machine gun, because the Zeggalev's rate of fire is only 8/9 of that of the MG42, it is impossible to suppress him. And the Soviet Delgorunov heavy machine gun was extremely bulky and could not be effectively handled, and of course it was no match for the MG42. The huge weakness of the machine guns was also an important reason for the heavy combat casualties of the Soviet and German armies.

Moreover, the performance of the MG42 is so reliable that during World War II, many of the weapons of the German army showed that they could not adapt to the needs of the harsh environment of the Soviet Union, and various failures frequently occurred in the bitter cold, including the inability to pull the bolt.

However, the MG42 is a weapon that the German army can absolutely trust, it is very reliable in actual combat, even in the freezing cold of minus 40 degrees, the MG42 can still maintain a stable firing rate. Because the MG42 is an air-cooled machine gun, in cold conditions, it can effectively reduce the time required to change the barrel. Generally, the barrel of the MG42 had to be replaced after 300 rounds of continuous fire, and in the USSR this figure could be increased to 500 to 600 rounds. The MG42 is designed to be very simple to change the device, as long as you pull a lever and tilt the barrel, the barrel will automatically disengage and jump out, without touching the hot gun with your hands. It only takes a few seconds to replace a barrel.

However, MG42 as the best machine gun in Germany during World War II, MG42's biggest advantage is not only strong firepower and good reliability, this machine gun is even very simple to manufacture, because of the stamping technology it uses very few materials, can be manufactured through a simple assembly line, the cost is only 70% of the main German machine gun MG34 before World War II, and the man-hours and materials spent are only 50% of MG34.

According to post-war statistics, about 1 million MG42s were produced throughout World War II, which is a staggering number. You must know that the production volume of German submachine guns in World War II was only 1.2 million, and such a high production capacity is jaw-dropping. With such a high-performance weapon and so easy to make, the word perfect is not overstated in its case.

The biggest disadvantage of the MG42 is that it consumes more ammunition and requires high shooting technology. Because due to its high rate of fire, its ammunition consumption is much greater than that of other machine guns. In practice, the MG42 uses a 75-round drum or a 250-round chain. If 75 rounds of drums are used, three or four salvos will be fired.

As a result, German riflemen often had to assist in carrying ammunition during troop movements, with each rifleman carrying two 300-round boxes on average. This has increased the combat carrying capacity of machine gun ammunition for each infantry squad from 1,150 rounds per squad in the standard configuration to about 3,000 rounds, which objectively increases the weight of ordinary soldiers.

At the same time, because the MG42 has a fast rate of fire, large bullet consumption, and obvious vibration of the gun body for continuous shooting, the shooter needs to have good shooting skills and experience in using machine guns. The average recruit is not competent. Therefore, in the German army, the shooter of the machine gun squad is generally the best shooter in the squad.

And all this is the result of this oily-faced, blue-eyed German in front of him. If his name and title are not faked.