Bolt action: Historically Normandy 1944 project
German Heer squad organization part 2
So a german MG (machine gun) team consisted of one-two schützens (privates) and one gefreiter (lance corporal, specialist?). So you had a team of two less experienced privates and a older experienced corporal leading the team.
Two men handled the MG, with one man working as the gunner and the others as a loader. The third man was a rifleman, he helped carry extra ammo, spotted enemies and I suspect that his role was to secure the flanks of the MG team, so nobody assaulted them from behind, when the team was setup in a firing position.
the MG42 was a very good suppressing fire weapon which fired over 1200 rounds pr. minut. It was quit a mobil weapon that gave fire superiority quick. It is not a precision weapon, but you would keep your head down if fired upon!
I myself do actually have some experience with this kin of weapon. The danish army have since the end 60s been using the MG3 model (a further development of the famous german MG42) with great succes until very recent, when it was replaced with the M60E6. We used to call it the Nazis saw, because you actually could saw a small tree or a man over in half with it. It could actually be fired from the hip from a good gunner. We used it in Afghanistan on combat patrols. But it was quit heavy for the gunner to carry. A study showed that a gunner carrying this weapon over a period of 6 month actually scrinks the persons back by 1-3 cm.
I will talk about the last part of the squad next time.
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