FG42 and MG42

Learn about the FG42, a deadly automatic weapon, and the historical MG42 machine gun in Call of Duty: World at War.

FG42 Information:

The FG42 is a great multi-purpose weapon in Call of Duty: World at War. It is one of the deadliest fully automatic weapons available, and its single-fire mode is effective at all ranges. A 4x zoom scope is standard issue. Its stats are: Range: Very Long, Rate of Fire: Fast, Damage: High, Mobility: Medium.

MG42 Historical Information:

The MG 34's complicated construction restricted its mass production, leading to the need for a simpler model. The MG 42 was designed by Grunow, a skilled laborer specialized in punching and pressing steel. It was manufactured from pressed and punched steel parts. The MG 34 has a round barrel housing with many round cooling holes, while the MG 42 has a square housing with oval cooling openings on the left and top sides and a large cooling slit on the right.

The first prototype, designated MG 39, was accepted for troop trials in February 1939. It was refined into the MG39/41 prototype and sent into a large combat evaluation involving 1,500 units. After small detail improvements, mass production began, and the weapon was introduced as the MG 42. A total of 414,964 MG 42s were produced for the German Wehrmacht during WW II by companies including Mauser Werke AG, Gustloff-Werke, Grossfuss, Magnet, and Steyr-Daimler-Puch.

The MG 42 is air-cooled and recoil-operated with a slightly recoiling barrel, featuring a breech with rollers. Ammunition was fed from the left. Its simplicity and effectiveness resulted in ruggedness and immunity to front-line conditions. It required fewer resources and less raw material, weighing 27.5 kg. It took only 75 work hours to complete an MG 42, compared to 150 for the MG 34, and cost only 250.-- RM. It is regarded by many experts as the best machine gun construction ever.

The MG 42 had an overall length of 122.0 cm, a barrel of 53.0 cm, and weighed 11.6 kg as a light machine gun with a bipod. The bipod could be mounted to the front or center of the gun. As a heavy machine gun, it utilized the Lafette 42 mount, weighing 20.5 kg. The nominal rate of fire was 1500 rounds per minute, reportedly varying slightly with individual weapons and increasing in prolonged bursts. The higher rate of fire led to a decreased barrel expectancy, with barrels lasting between 3,500 to 4,000 rounds. Later, chrome-plated barrels slightly lengthened life expectancy, but the barrel still became hot fast and had to be changed often, a process simplified by the MG42's mechanism.

Due to its ruggedness, the MG 42 was preferred for infantry issue, while the MG 34 was used more in vehicle mounts, where it was less exposed to dirt and damage.

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