My Damascene moment came some years ago when I was being given a tour of the Small Arms Unit at the British Staff College at Shrivenham. I was glancing at a German MG42 , known as a “Spandau” by the Allies. “Of course, that was the best machine gun of the war,’ I commented, relaying what I’d read in many books.
“Says who? Says who?” retorted my guide and head of the unit, John Starling. In the next few minutes, he proceeded to deconstruct everything I thought I knew about this infamous weapon: that its phenomenal rate of fire caused massive problems of over-heating, that it was widely inaccurate (for which having since fired one, I can now vouch), that is was incredibly expensive to manufacture, massively over-engineered and lacked certain simple additions that would have made its handling so much easier. The men supporting this weapon not only had to carry vast amounts of ammunition to feed this thirsty beast, they also had to lumber around six spare barrels because of its readiness to over-heat. And each barrel bore multiple inspection stamps. “Which were,” John told me, “an utter waste of time in the middle of total war.”
I understand that the Nazis over engineered a lot of stuff and Hitler did a great disservice by directing research to what he personally thought was important, but the MG42? Is this just clickbait trying to sell buddy's book?
I had a good discussion with the author of that piece (James Holland) a few years ago over a pint. I had commented to him how people completely mis-understand what is good and what is bad about a tank, and he replied along the lines of "I fully agree, and here is my experience of something similar on the receiving end", and he then related the above story.I have not personally been to the Small Arms Unit at Shrivenham, but I fully believe that the above exchange happened.
The problem is that one is trying to have an apples to oranges comparison with the various machineguns put out by the various countries, and all of a sudden the Germans showed up with a pineapple.
The MG42 was, indeed, a fantastic machinegun. It was, in effect, the first of a new breed, the GPMG, or General Purpose Machinegun, commonly found today as the M240/FN MAG, MG-3, PKM, and so on. As a GPMG, it had a few flaws, such as the ridiculous rate of fire, but as the first of its breed, it was, inherently, the best. However, it was not as good a medium (or heavy) machinegun as a Vickers or Browning .50, neither was it as good a light machinegun as the Bren. The MG42 made a better section machinegun than the Vickers, and a better defensive machinegun than the Bren....
Think about it. If you're in a ten-man section, you want a machinegun which is light enough to be transported relative easily, run with if necessary, and also all the accompanying ammunition you need for the forthcoming firefight. The MG-42 and the Bren may very well be the same practical weight, but the ammunition for a fifteen-minute battle certainly are not. Most everyone in the German infantry section is lugging around belts of MG ammo on top of their own stuff. The Bren gunners tend to carry all they need. Then again, for its sins, the Bren is stupidly accurate. Possibly more so than one wants in a machinegun (The British had a similar problem with the L86 fifteen or twenty years ago). But the German tactics revolved around the machinegun, the British tactics revolved around the rifleman with the machinegun supporting them. You can see immediately why there is a lack of direct comparison.
Similarly, the Vickers will shoot all day, if you have the ammo. They tried it. The thing weighs a ton and a half, but it's water cooled. If you want to hold a position, and don't care much about moving from A to B, the Vickers will do you wonderfully. Not a chance you can keep sustained fire from an MG-42 for long.
Basically the MG-42 was a jack of all trades, master of almost none. But.... because of this, the Germans could rationalise production. Almost every type of unit, with the exception of tanks (because of the barrel change system, so they stayed with the MG 34) could use the MG 42. You didn't need to have a separate MG production line for section weapons to a different MG production line for the battalion support group. You could change the weapon's role by swapping out the bipod for a tripod, the sights from simple blade to AA, and stockpiling additional ammunition and barrels. Great design, fantastic flexibility, and the Germans, with their stretched production facilities, needed the rationalisation. But if you've got the production capacity available to specialise, then you can build weapons suited for task better.
So, what's important to you in your criterion of what's a good machinegun? It may not be what is important to someone else. The Germans had a lovely, fresh pineapple for folks to eat. The first pineapples in Europe, maybe, so definitely the best in that case. Personally, I prefer apples.