The MG-42 was good but I think sometimes it's just way too overhyped. Extremely high RoF meant that the barrel had to be replaced fairly often (after like 250 rounds), like waaaay more often than other machineguns like Bren, DP, BAR and so on. Sure, none of them matched the 42's ridiculous RoF but that 1200RPM wasn't very practical at all, and having to carry spare barrels around was not really fun for the user.
It's still good enough, the MG-42 appeared when Germany was pretty much on the defensive and it was good for that role, also the infantry squad benefitted a lot from it (and from the previous MG-34 model), but I think it sacrifices a lot for that insane rate of fire. The MG-3 introduces two types of bolts, one for 1000/1200 RPM and another heavier bolt for a slower rate of fire, about 800/900 RPM, which is something the og MG could have used to ease it's arguably main drawback.
The MG-42 was good but I think sometimes it's just way too overhyped. Extremely high RoF meant that the barrel had to be replaced fairly often (after like 250 rounds), like waaaay more often than other machineguns like Bren, DP, BAR and so on. Sure, none of them matched the 42's ridiculous RoF but that 1200RPM wasn't very practical at all, and having to carry spare barrels around was not really fun for the user.
It's still good enough, the MG-42 appeared when Germany was pretty much on the defensive and it was good for that role, also the infantry squad benefitted a lot from it (and from the previous MG-34 model), but I think it sacrifices a lot for that insane rate of fire. The MG-3 introduces two types of bolts, one for 1000/1200 RPM and another heavier bolt for a slower rate of fire, about 800/900 RPM, which is something the og MG could have used to ease it's arguably main drawback.
Yeah the insane ROF was impressive but also a handicap like all the "wunderwaffen"