xvss escreveu:parece que existe uma versão atualizade da MG42 no pós-guerra, será essa?
bom como meu conhecimento sobre armas é pequeno, alguem no db saberia que arma seria essa?
É uma MG42 ocidentalizada. É a MG3, 7.62x51mm, contra o 8mm da MG42.
Moderadores: J.Ricardo, Conselho de Moderação
xvss escreveu:parece que existe uma versão atualizade da MG42 no pós-guerra, será essa?
bom como meu conhecimento sobre armas é pequeno, alguem no db saberia que arma seria essa?
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, an event which witnessed not only the fall of the Reich, but also the collapse of the German armaments industry. In the months and years following May 8, 1945, numerous production facilities were shut down, confiscated and largely dismantled. The victorious Allies wanted to make sure that post-Hitler Germany would never make another weapon or round of ammunition. Nor did they even wish to see German armaments companies continue to exist.
And yet – and this is the remarkable thing about the story – many of these companies did manage to survive. These included Rheinmetall-Borsig AG, which was half-owned by the Reich until 1949, when the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany stepped into its shoes. Wartime damage and post-war dismemberment meant that most of Rheinmetall-Borsig’s fixed assets were gone forever. Due to the total ban on arms production imposed by the Allies, the company was excluded from the economic recovery that began in western Germany in 1948.
It was not until 1950 that Rheinmetall attempted a commercial comeback. Although its plant in Düsseldorf-Derendorf had been largely reduced to rubble during the war and would remain so well into the 1950s, it was there that the company tried its hand in several different civilian sectors. They were as diverse as office equipment, shock absorbers, rotating cranes and tannery machines. But it was all to little or no avail. The company lacked experience in these areas, and skilled workers were hard to come by. Moreover, the competition already had a five-year head start, and it proved impossible to close the gap.
But why this intense effort? Why was the German government, too – whether in the guise of the Reich or the Federal Republic – so determined to ensure the continuation of Rheinmetall-Borsig AG, a company whose "raison d’être" had apparently ceased to exist? The answer lies in global politics.
The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 dramatically changed the post-war world order. One-time allies had since become global opponents, with the United States and the United Kingdom on one side and the Soviet Union on the other. The emerging East-West conflict, which had already seen the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic in 1949, first exploded into a shooting war on the Korean peninsula. Berlin formed a focal point of this global conflict, and it was along the inner-German border that the Western allies defended the Free World. It soon became clear that to do this effectively would require the help of their former enemies – in the form of a new, democratically minded German army: the Bundeswehr. Questions quickly arose as to how this force would be equipped – and how Germany's prostrated defence industry could become part of the equation.
Because the Federal Republic of Germany was not permitted to operate its own defence plants, the first steps were taken to re-privatize Rheinmetall. The new owners, the Röchling family, were expected to meet a single but very important condition: they must engage in defence production on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, thus ensuring that the new Bundeswehr would be properly armed and equipped.
This was all very well in theory, but at the outset Rheinmetall lacked even the most basic things necessary for designing and producing arms and ammunition again in Düsseldorf. The company's skilled workers and engineers had long since moved on, and – after a decade of reconstruction and in the midst of Germany's post-war economic miracle – other Düsseldorf companies had swept the labour market clean. But once word got around that the Derendorf plant would soon be producing on a large scale, many former employees of Rheinmetall were happy to come back. Gradually, the company succeeded in putting together a core team of specialists with the necessary engineering and technical skills. Rheinmetall was back in business.
The weapon with which Rheinmetall would re-enter the defence technology arena was the MG 42. This had been the standard machinegun of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, and was widely considered to be the best-engineered weapon of its kind anywhere. In mid October 1955, the new Federal Agency for Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) opted to reintroduce the MG 42. The Bundeswehr identified an initial basic need for 10,324 machineguns, with an additional 6,100 in reserve; subsequent orders were expected to be in the area of 510 units per year. BWB specified that "the plant would have to have sufficient capacity to turn out 24,400 units per year, working in one shift".
Until the first MG 42s left the assembly line, the Bundeswehr intended to make do with weapons of American make. Somehow, they never quite satisfied German drill sergeants and recruits. So on August 21, 1956, the Federal Republic of Germany awarded Rheinmetall a contract to supply 16,400 MG 42 machineguns, this time rechambered to fire the standard Nato 7.62 mm round. This order, including spare parts, formed the foundation stone of a new German defence industry.
Work began in July 1956 at a rented factory in Neuenburg in Baden, the first task being to convert wartime stocks of old MG 42s to the Nato standard; only later would production of a new and improved version commence. Once reconstruction of Building 27 was complete, the company transferred production of the machinegun to Düsseldorf-Derendorf. (Building 27 has since been converted into a futuristic office building, the "Living Office".)
The first machineguns to come off the assembly line in Düsseldorf were dispatched to the troops in December 1957. They were followed two years later by the MG 42/59, a new, more effective version also known as the MG 1, which offered increased accuracy and easier clearing of jams. The new weapon was the outcome of protracted negotiations with BWB, which extended to manufacturing sequences, material inputs, the quality of R&D and the subcontractors, the requirements of the quality control and acceptance units, test firing, and even packaging standards, to say nothing of endless haggling over prices.
The years that followed saw a succession of small technical improvements in the design of the MG 42/59, including barrel hardness, the breechblock, the tripod, the traversing and elevating mechanism for vehicle-mounted applications, and hardening of the belt-links in the bandoleer. The often-mediocre quality of vendor parts and the failure of subcontractors to meet deadlines made matters more difficult. After all, in its capacity as general contractor, it would be Rheinmetall that was called on to the carpet.
Likewise problematic were the negotiations for follow-on contracts. The first procurement contract ran out in 1959, meaning that staff would have to be laid off. Long delays or the outright absence of new orders also brought the risks that subcontractors would stray away, that production capacity would lie idle, and that equipment would have to be scrapped or sold – only to be expensively replaced later.
Finally, though, an order for a further 5,300 MG 42s came before the end of 1959, followed by another order for 7,300 units in 1963. To say nothing of a series of export orders: in close coordination with the German Ministry of Defence, Rheinmetall supplied the MG 42/59 to Denmark, Norway and Indonesia (in 1960), Pakistan and Italy (in 1963), Sudan and Iran (in 1966), and the UK, Burma and Chile (in 1967).
Technical improvements gradually transformed the MG 42/59 (or MG 1) into the MG 1 A6 and ultimately into the MG 3, which Rheinmetall began supplying to the Bundeswehr in July 1963. Thereafter the production of machineguns gradually became less significant for Rheinmetall. Having made a total 139,000 machineguns for customers both at home and abroad, the company ceased producing them in 1979. Since then, Germany's sole supplier of the MG 3 machinegun has been Heckler & Koch of Oberndorf am Neckar.
Caliber: 7.92x57 mm Mauser (also known as 7.9mm or 8mm Mauser)
Weigth: 11.5 kg on bipod; 18 kg on light AA tripod; 32 kg on infantry tripod
Length: 1220 mm
Length of barrel: 530 mm
Feeding: belt, 50 or 250 round
Rate of fire: 1200 - 1300 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity: 710 m/s
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg42a.jpg
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg42b.jpg
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg42c.jpg
Hitlers' Germany entered the World War 2 with the MG-34 as a major multipurpose machine gun, but it soon was discovered that MG-34 was less than suitable for high volume wartime production, being too time- and resource-consuming in manufacture and also somewhat sensitive to fouling and mud. The search for newer, better universal machine gun begain circa 1939, and in 1942 the final design, developed by the German company Metall und Lackierwarenfabrik Johannes Grossfuss AG, was adopted as a MG-42. It was manufactured in large numbers by companies like the Grossfuss itself, Mauser-Werke, Gustloff-Werke, Steyr-Daimler-Puch and some others. Being undoubtfully one of the best machine guns of the World War 2, MG-42 still shines and is still in production in more or less modified forms in many countries. In most countries, like the Germany ,Italy and Pakistan, it is used rechambered for 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition, under the names of MG-42/59 and MG-3. In some countries, like Yugoslavia, it is used in its original chambering, 7.92mm Mauser. In any case, some 60 years since its first adoption, MG-42 and its direct descendants are among the best in the world in its class. Total numbers of the MG-42s built during WW2 are estimated as not less than 400 000, and keeping in mind that it is still manufactured in some countries, total numbers of the MG-42 and ist direct descendants produced in the world up to date, can be near the million.
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg33-e.htm