I recall that the MG crews who went on the battlefield usually carried MG-34’s more commonly rather than MG-42s which were more common in the bunkers, etc. what do you think?
So if I understand correctly, you want the tech tree MG42s replaced with MG34s.
However it makes no sense to restrict one of most common machine gun of the war, especially since one of a kind prototype weapons are available as tech tree weapons.
If you want to, you can just use MG34, but for everyone else there is absolutely no reason to change the MG42.
i believe op is talking about stationary machineguns in normandy.
as it goes for the thread personally, no.
i prefer mg42s in normandy and berlin, while moscow, rzhev and stalingrad can still use the 34s.
but, it doesn’t matter either way.
this game is not historical accurate anyway.
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I’ve also wondered if the MG-42 has been deliberately made to shoot at the slowest rate of fire possible. I understand it varies between 900RPM and 1500RPM but shouldn’t there be a much higher RPM diffrence between that and MG-34?
yes, it was made to fire slow on purpose.
currently, the mg 42 has a fire rate of
gun__shotFreq:r=15.0
which means, 900 ( the way fire rate is calculated in this game, is a value divided by 60.
in this case, to find the exact number, i did the opposite, aka take the number of gun frequency, and multiply it by 60 ).
as for why, maybe to make the premium early machinegun 42 more similar to the real life counter part.
but… even then, it’s only 960 ( fr of 16 ).
so… developers works in mysterious ways 
The mg 42 was cheaper and easier to produce so the later you got into the war the less mg 34 you would see beeing employed. The mg 34 in the end was only produced in a smal quantities for tanks to use, as the mg 42 could not replace their barrel when inside a mount used on tanks, but that was about it.
Completely false. MG42 was supposed to fully replace MG34 in all aspects and it happened most cases. The only place where 34 survived (or at least that was the plan) was vehicles as changing mounts to fit 42 was simply too costly. (But newer vehicles, like puma, were designed to use 42.)
Also unlike some other nations, Germany used general purpose machine guns.
For example soviets had LMG D27 and HMG Maxim M1910. Meanwhile Germans used MG34 and MG42 as both LMG and HMG, the difference being the tripod mount. (Current nomenclature is a bit different so it may be confusing.) Btw this tripod is a small work of art itself.
Tldr
There was no distinction MG34 - infantry, MG42 - stationary positions. MG42 was an evolution/upgrade of MG34 and they both served the same purpose (with some exceptions).
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Game balance not withstanding (both for others and for the shooter, running out of ammo after one trigger pull would not be fun), the higher rates of fire were meant for Anti-Air duty and emplaced positions, if you’re on the move or want to be mobile you would not want to lug around even more ammunition to feed the ammo hungry beast. For infantry duty, the MG 42 was often set to its lowest rate of fire, which if I remember correctly could be done by a armourer (in other words, not a modification you do in combat).
Do you have any sources on this? I’ve heard this a lot but never saw any confirmation.
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I’m not sitting on a source, just going by memmory, but it was done by switching out the bolt for a heavier or lighter version, and by switching springs from stronger or weaker, thus altering the rate of fire. The later Cold War MG 3, derivative of the MG 42, works on the same principle.
Yeah, I know it can be done but I’ve never seen any confirmation it was actually done. Those are two different things.
Also about the ammo consumption, apparently even with ~1200rpm the practical rate of fire was only 154rpm (MG34 had 150rpm). So I don’t suspect it being a big deal.
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That 154rpm figure is actually the sustained effective rate over time, not necessarily how quickly the MG 42 used up ammo in practice. In combat, gunners often fired short bursts — say, 3–5 seconds — which could still use up 60–100 rounds very quickly. So while the long-term average might be similar to something like the Bren, the peak ammo consumption was much higher.
Also, German doctrine leaned heavily on the MG team as the centerpiece of the squad, with the rest of the unit there to support it. That meant the gun was used more aggressively and more often than in Allied squads, where Brens and BARs played more of a supporting role. Between that, the belt-fed system, and the high burst rate, it ended up needing a lot more ammunition — even if the sustained rate sounds comparable on paper.
Plus, we also know that the Germans alocated way more ammunition and men to supply that ammunition for their MGs than Allied Medium-MGs (Vickers, 1919s) per gun, which I doubt they would do unless it was nessesary.
As for the bolt modifications during the war, I just spent some time on reading. It would appear that whilst the principle is proven to be correct, and that there are so many varying accounts on its rate of fire (estimates going all the way from 800-1500rpm), there is little concrete evidence that proves a doctrinal/intentional modifications being done during WW2 (I know of no manuals at the time that mention them). At best, due to various factors from factory productions (low quality metals, production sabotage, changes to production methods over the course of the war and much more), bolts of irregular weights did existed, and soldiers could tell which guns fired lower or higher than average, and could alocate guns/bolts to tasks best suited for them, but there is little evidence that this was a intentionaly designed practice at the time.
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MG34 was heavier than MG42 was it not?
Also MG42 was supposed to completely replace MG34 because of lower cost - however the special way to replace a barrel of a MG34 made it a much better MG for tank crews, because you needed much less space to do so compared to a MG42, which is why MG34 was used to the end of the war.
So when talking about Normandy - most infantry units had MG42 by then.
1940 - 1942 most MGs were MG34
1942 - 1945 new MGs got replaced by MG42
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I mean, I’d say the peak ammo consumption doesn’t really matter and the average is actually the useful figure here. Because you need to know the average consumption to know for how long you can engage the enemy. Peak consumption doesn’t really give any useful information.
Ah, that’s what I thought.
It all depends on how long a engagement is, if you’re spending half a day firing such as on D-day the effective rpm will matter, but if you’re in a quick engagement then suddenly dumping a few hundred rounds down range in quick succession it does matter. You’re only carrying a limmited amount of ammo when on the move after all, so it’s enteirly fiesable that you’ll be running out (unless you have your friendly anunition carriers helping you of course). Again, if they weren’t spending more ammo on average, why did they need more dedicated ammunition carriers in a suqad?
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sophisticated guess would be because germans build the squads / platoons or generally entire infantry combat around the MG.
MG was the so called centerpiece of all actions for germuts.
Which I mentioned is another factor for increased ammo consumbtion, literally above the quoted line.