baabbabababababababababababababa

bababababa

babababababababababbababababababa

holy shit

it must be machinegun time

today were gonna look at the gun that invented the modern machinegun

this is the mg34

it is the first universal machinegun

also called a general purpose machinegun

everybody and his brother uses these now

but it was not always that way

let us travel back

so the machinegun basically first showed up around 1900

it was one of the big technological leaps that completely changed warfare along with trucks and airplanes

at the start of wwi the generals had to figure all this new stuff out

the machinegun fired rifle rounds like regular infantry

except instead of cocking and firing every round for five shots

then stopping and reloading

it just keeps going automatically until you let go of the trigger

and it holds a bunch of rounds

and fires so fast it would basically saturate an area with so many bullets its suicidal to run through it

this makes it possible for a couple guys to set up a position and deny a big area to a whole squad of guys

so naturally everybody got in on this

and they tried a lot of different things

we got light machineguns to carry around

heavy machineguns on bigass tripods

plus stuff to put in tanks or shoot at airplanes or put in airplanes

it was pretty cool but also pretty complicated

so after wwi people were like dang

can we simplify that

can we make like

one gun for everything

for like general purpose

a universal machinegun

the german government was interested in this too

they werent supposed to be inventing machineguns because of the versailles treaty

but the government started secretly designing them anyway

oops lol

so one reason heavy machineguns were so heavy was they had a big tank of water around the barrel

the whole front half of the gun is just a tank you literally fill with water like your car radiator

add a tripod and the thing weighs like 80 or 90lbs

but you gotta to keep that barrel cool

if you dont keep the barrel cool it overheats in just a couple hundred rounds and is ruined forever

well the germans came up with a cool trick to ditch the water

a quick change barrel

this is huge because you can put a cold barrel in and your problem is instantly solved

and if its quick enough the enemy wont even have a chance to realize the gun is disabled before youre already shooting again

the mg34 has a system where the receiver rotates off to the side

push a tab

rotate the receiver off to the right

and the barrel drops out the back

a trained crew can swap a barrel in 6 sec

like daaaaaang

with this system you can totally ditch the water cooling jacket and save like 10lbs

now the mg34 is belt fed

machineguns often did this because you get an uninterrupted stream of fire for as long as you make the belt

the germans made 50rd belts and you could hook them together

so you could have 500rds in a row if you wanted

lol good thing we got a quick change barrel

but then they even did better than that

belts have a downside of being all floppy and making it hard to run to a new position

so the mg34 has a magazine

nice and compact so you can run with it

except psyche its still just a belt in a box

this is awesome because while its nice and compact

you dont have to worry about designing an intricate magazine

you just roll up a belt and plop her in

magazines are usually the hardest part of a gun to make work right so this lets you have the best of both belt and magazine

so now we have a gun that is light and mobile

whats next

well if we want to take down aircraft we need a lot of lead very quickly

because planes are friggin fast

or so i hear

so they gave it a firing rate of like 900rpm

thats like twice other machineguns

its so fast they called it hitlers buzzsaw

hardcore

they also gave it an awesome tripod

ok i know

really fuckin complicated

but look

you can dial this shit exactly for elevation and windage

it has a dang shock absorber to prevent the gun from jumping around

its so accurate it can be a sniper rifle

you can shoot at aircraft or ground targets

it even has a mechanism that moves the barrel around in a pattern to cover a wide area for you automatically

its pretty legit is what im saying

so now we have light and heavy machinegun and antiaircraft

but wait theres more

take the buttstock off and mount it inside your tank

and if your tank gets disabled you can very quickly detach it and turn it back into an infantry light machinegun because the other parts are in a box at the ready

heck yeah

and the swinging quick change made this super easy for tank crews in cramped vehicles

that advantage kept the mg34 in service for years even after newer designs came around

so dang guys we got a gun that does it all

we have a general purpose machinegun

this is excellent

the first prototypes came out in 1929 and it was adopted in 1934

there were so many parts from so many different companies the government had to do a ton of arbitration splitting up royalties lol

pretty unprecedented

the germans kept this super secret before the war because this was cutting edge

of course everybody got a chance to see it eventually ehhhhh lol

it was so well executed the concept got adopted by everybody afterwards

another modern weapons system invented by the nazis

interesting stuff

ok now lets see how this thing works

so first off its short recoil operated

the barrel kachunks back and locks the bolt back

then the barrel goes forward and the bolt stays open and ready to fire

the barrel has a booster to use some of the gas to help push the barrel back even more

it also has an interesting trigger

pull the top part with the e and its one shot semi auto

bottom with the d is automatic

no switch to mess with or anything

as for field stripping it

charge the charging handle back

friggin safety hazard if you dont

then lift the top cover and remove it

if you lift the top cover without locking the bolt back its gonna slam forward and explode a round in your face

pull out the feed tray

press in a latch at the rear to remove the buttstock and rear receiver tube cover

note there is a separate latch that will remove the buttstock by itself for use in a tank

pretty nifty

then pull the bolt out the back

overall this gun has a bunch of awesome features

but obviously awesomeness has its price

the metals needed had special exotic elements and it was a bit complicated to fabricate

and this only became worse when everybody got mad at germany for no reason

so instead of making more of them the germans took the concept and designed a new gun using lots of stampings

they called it the mg42

it operates pretty differently and is simplified

so not really a derivative

but it further evolved the concept

in fact the german military basically uses a recalibered mg42 to this day

other people made gpmgs too

the us adopted the m60 and the m240

the soviets the pk

this concept friggin works

if you want to buy one today

well theyre machineguns so theyre friggin expensive

like car money

but you can do it if you really want

and who wouldnt want to blow through hundreds of dollars worth of ammo in 30 seconds

lol

pew pew

#click here for previous articles