Monday, July 4, 2011

The MG42 in war

US soldiers who encountered the MG42 in the wooded cover of the bocage of Normandy in June and July 1944 said that the ripping sound of the fast-firing MG42 resembled the sound of a sheet of calico being torn apart.

Sydney Jary, a young British infantry platoon commander in Normandy, recalled "I remember my first reaction to actual infantry warfare in July 1944 was one of amazement at the crushing fire-power of these rapid-firing guns . . . firing long sustained bursts, the object of which seemed to me to keep us pinned to the ground regardless of the ammunition expenditure. Typically German -protracted and discordant."

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