My friend the Nerdy Guy sent me a US Army training video from WWII. It's really interesting and shows a shoot off between several automatic weapons.
I have seen this before and there are several issues.
1. Are they giving us the real results?
2. Are the results the same time after time or did they do the test 9 times and pick the worst example?
3. Are the people shooting competent with their weapons? Is this the best Thompson gunner in the Army and some guy from the mess hall firing the German machine gun?
4. Are the weapons in perfect working order? Is the German gun worn out with an old barrel?
5. 250 yards away is pretty close for a machine gun, how about 500 yards, 1000 yards or even 2000 yards?
6. The MG 34 / MG 42 in the bipod mode was not competing against the .30 caliber on a bipod, it was competing against the BAR. The MG42 was issued at a rate of one or two PER SQUAD, just like the BAR.
7. I would like to see that BAR used to fire at 250 yards and compare it to the MG 34, particularly with a 20 round box magazine vs a belt of ammo.
8. The MG 34 / MG 42 was issued in the tripod version in similar numbers than the US .30 caliber with water cooled barrel. And the Germans did need more ammo carriers. But their concept of the machine gun was different. The US concept was to deliver sustained fire at a long distance as the troops advanced. The German concept was to fire short bursts as known targets and a high rate of fire means more rounds down range in the same period of time. The Germans must have felt it worked because they went from a machine gun similar to ours the '09 to the MG 34 to the MG 42 to the MG 45 and increased the rate of fire each time. We must have liked the idea too because the M60 machine gun replaced the US gun post war and was very similar to the MG 42.
9. Also if you fire 30 rounds and get hit 15 times or 7 times you are still dead.
10. The machine gun is an area weapon and not intended to hit individuals but rather groups of troops at 250 yards are farther.
I have fired the Thompson, Grease Gun and MP 40 submachine guns and they are all fine weapons. Too bad we can't get together and re-enact this event in Texas!
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