“Hitler’s Buzzsaw” or the MG 42

You read historical accounts of American troops that faced the German army in World War II and you realize just how fearsome and intimidating was Germany’s MG 42 machine gun. Obviously, this fast-firing machine gun known as "Hitler's buzzsaw" could be used during assaults against Allied defensive positions or in a defensive role against assaulting Allied troops. Clearly a number of Allied troops were killed, maimed, and wounded by this weapon during the war.

Turns out that the Germans also created arguably the first widely adopted assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr 44 or StG 44. This weapon was different from the semiautomatic M1 Garand carried by American troops during World War II. The StG 44 fired a less powerful intermediate cartridge, but was a selective fire weapon that allowed its user to fire single shots or multiple shots with the pull of the trigger.

A lot of people ignorantly or duplicitously conflate civilian semiautomatic carbines, rifles, and pistols with automatic weapons like machine guns and selective fire assault rifles capable of automatic fire or bursts of fire. This is ironic because Americans have owned semiautomatic firearms for over a century. One pull of the trigger is required to fire a single bullet from a semiautomatic firearm, unlike automatic weapons which will continue to fire when the trigger is held back until the weapon runs out of ammunition or the weapon suffers a malfunction.

Anyway, I came across a video of MG 42s being unleashed on some defenseless ballistic gel dummies and I decided to share the link to the video along with links to a couple Wikipedia articles regarding these two fearsome weapons of the Third Reich that are heavily regulated in the United States and not easily acquired by civilians.

Enjoy and remember the brave troops that faced these weapons on the battlefields of World War II.

"7 MG-42s vs Ballistic Dummies!!! Mg42 700 rounds in less than 5 seconds!!!"

"MG 42" (Wikipedia article)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_42

"StG 44" ( Wikipedia article)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44