mg34 lafette elevation control

[biochembri]

I have been reading a small text on using the lafette mount for the mg34 and it states the knob on the left hand side of the lafette mount is for adjusting the elevation. However, I cannot get mine to turn to adjust the elevation. Does anyone have any ideas or instructions on how to use the elevation adjustment knob? Perhaps mine is faulty and needs repair.

Brian

[Bil]

Bio-hopefully no repair is needed-two simple steps are needed. The knob on the left,with the two limiters and gears,is pulled out! I have been fooling with mine and the teeth on the limiters wouldnt clear.Then I fugured out that the knob pulls out.So pull out on the knob,set your limiters,and snap the knob back in.All that was step one.Step two is easier.Buy Jbaums book on the lafette! It's the best deal in town,and saves broken parts and un-nessary repair.Good kuck. ---bil Disclaimer-this does not mean that the use of the manual will actually cause broken parts to heal,only than we will break less parts if we read the book.Use of these books is recomended by the American Psychiatric Association.]

[tomcatshaas]

Ah Bil, you are the man!

I was having the same problem.

Step one complete. Step two is on the way!

Thanks Bil!

TC

[Bil]

Addendum to step one-Make sure the large wing nut at the rear center is loose,that is a form of lock.And as I have found out,if you have ANY dirt,crap,or schmutz on the gears or geared slide area,IT WILL BIND.Keep it clean and lightly oiled,no grease. Have fun,this is a real neat device. ---bil

[JBaum]

Most of the knobs are stuck in because of the preservative grease they were packed in. The small levers that stick out of the knob are the elevation limiters. As the gun recoils, it operates the ratchet lever on top the searching fire device which varies the elevation of the gun to pre set limits. All the details are explained in the manual. The big wing nut is a brake.

[biochembri]

Yes, you were correct. I lubricated the elevation dial well and it works perfectly. No need to pull on it, simply turning it without the 60 year old grease works. I was surprised at how little the lafette mount actualy elevates. It appears it is only for fine adjustments. A large change in elevation would require change the angle of the front and rear legs.

Brian

[JBaum]

That's what the deckungswinkelmesser is for, so you know the elevation setup required to get on target.

[Bil]

Brian-The knob on the left has to be pulled out to clear the 2 stops,they are the levers with teeth.When this is done,the lafette will adjust up to 4"" differance!This is quite a bit.The large knob on the back,towards the front of the lafette,will give you the fine adjustments.If you can turn the knob on the left without pulling it out ,and you dont get 4" of adjustment,something is wrong! I will post pics tonight that show it in both positions. ---bil

[Bil]

Here are the pics. ---bil

[BELTLEAD]

Thankyou Bil,you're a Tripod Saver!One of my Lafette's elevation controls locked up and I couldn't figure out why.I apparently bumped the knob when I brought the tripod down from the attic.I pulled the knob out and it now works.

[biochembri]

Bil;

Thanks for taking the time to post the pictures, they help! I found out how to pull out the elevation control knob (it doesnt move far) and then moved the entire lafette mount up and down as you described. I thought it was kind of strange that it had such a limited elevation. Once I managed to move it up I was able to clean the gears of the 60 yeard old grease. Each time I have a problem with this it is because of old grease and a lack of my understanding of the lafette. There seems to be no acutal problems with the lafette. If any of those gears were to freeze up due to rust it would be a real ugly problem to solve it.

I have been using as my reference manual "German Machine Gun" by Desert Publications. It has some information but is just to brief for an in depth understanding. I will be getting a copy of Myrvang soon.

Brian

[Bil]

There is even more info in Jbaums manual on the lafette.Not a lot of pictures[I like to color},but more info on the care and feeding of these to keep you busy.A real bargain when you consider the cost of repair not really needed.Myrvangs book is excellant on the guns,less info on the lafette as he feels that the lafette is a complex machine[it is],and if he describes how it comes apart,someone will do it,and get mad when it doesn't go back together right.He has a good point.Don't fix it so much that it's broken. ---bil PS DA has taken one of these all apart and put it back correctly.A lot of work,requiring 3 hands.

[Reichpapers]

Just to add a few words of wisdom. If you ever plan to repaint your Lafette (s), remember not to overdo it where the T&E is concerned. It will bind up. Just don't ask me how I know this....the information may be incriminating.

[Bil]

Your 'motto' says it all! ---bil

[bergflak]

That's what the deckungswinkelmesser is for, so you know the elevation setup required to get on target.

No, not really!
The Deckungswinkelmesser is a instrument designed to avoid hitting close obstacles! The instrument is held in one hand, suspended from the ring. With one eye close to the small window the operator will be able to read how any mills a obstacle is at (the closer the obstacle- the higher number of mills) (there is 6400 mills to a full circle, all German WW2 instruments are built like this). If it is safe to fire (without hitting the obstacle) can be found in a diagram. The same basic system was used for artillery as well (no need for it with mortars!)

Shooting the MG34 on a tripod for indirect fire is quite simple, but you will need a diagram to calculate the settings, if the distance to the target is known.

[Bil]

Thanks for the info,Berg.Is the book something John has translated yet,or do I hear him drooling.[Do you recognize the unit in the pics? Thank you.] ---bil

[JBaum]

My statement about the deckungswinkelmesser was way too vague.

The most frequent use is when the deckungswinkelmesser is used to NOT hit something that you don't want to shoot. When the lafette is set up, and you need to shoot over an obstruction (trees, hill, or your own troops), the deckungswinkelmesser (cover angle measurer) tells the elevation (relative to your position) of the obstacle to be shot over. The lafette is then set accordingly, and with the limiters, you could set the searching fire device to spray the desired area with bullets, while missing the obstruction or friendly forces. The distance to the obstruction is not measured for this use, it is the elevation setting that is required to shoot over the obstruction or whatever you don't want to shoot.

The directions on the side of the deckungswinkelmesser say to hold it in front of one eye while kneeling, and record the elevation (plus or minus) of the object to be overshot. Then the Lafette is adjusted accordingly.

For measuring distance with an object of a known width, the deckungswinkelmesser could be held sideways and used to determine distance by seeing how many mils wide it was, much the same as using a target scope which shows mil marks on the reticle. If's it X wide, and takes up Y mils, then it has to be Z distance. Considering that there is no magnification, it's use for this purpose would only give a very rough guess at longer ranges.

They're not all in mils either, just most of them. All but one of the deckungswinkelmessers I've owned (maybe 10?) have been in mills. One was in degrees, and it was identical to the others in construction and manufacturer marks, but differed only in the fact that it showed degrees and not mills. I should have kept that one since it was unique, but below is a copy of the directions for it, showing that it used degrees instead of mils.

They also had a white piece of plastic attached to one side with screws, which was used to write on. You could write the observed numbers on it, and once you were finished with the numbers, you just wiped them off (with a little spit). The plastic shrinks with age, so they're most often found with cracks around the screw holes from shrinkage. They're made of brass, which had a black finish that wore off from being carried.


Really nice ones go for $250 or more, and I've seen a few without the loop that went for $60 - $80. Modern manufactured deckungswinkelmessers (German military surplus) are available in the $20-25 range, and usually come with a nice leather case. They don't look quite the same, but they're very close, and function exactly the same.

I don't specifically remember looking over the D 126/1, but I've seen the overshooting table manuals before - just lots of tables with numbers....not much that's interesting there.

Bergflak, is the D 126/1 an instruction manual, or just tables with numbers? if you think it would be of interest, I'd be happy to know. A scan at 300 dpi in grayscale is all I need to reproduce a manual.

I have the AA tripod manual on the way from Germany. I can't imagine how something so obviously simple would need a manual, but I bought it to find out. If it has good information, I'll translate it. If its just a few cartoon pictures, I'll skip it.

As usual, I may have rattled on more information than most people want to know...

[Bil]

John-Thanks for the info.I remember using similar methods to find the height using kniwn measuremente,and also th measure distances with one known measurement,like how far offshore an island is.Triangulation and math to find an unknown.I thought it was fairly useless untill I needed it for rafters,stairs and octagonal houses. I never use it for plunging fire,but it is good to know in case I ever do.Thanks ---bil

[bergflak]

Lot's of good info here!
A Deckungswinkelmesser in degrees is a strange instrument, as it would serve no military purpose without re-calculating the degrees into mills! Degrees just makes no sense to a gunner! Might it have been constructed for some civilian purpose within the military....?

The most frequent use of the small "whiteboard" is to write up the instruments own "fault". For example "+5 mills". All optical devices, especially compass, are a little off. Some are adjustable, and some need the operator to +/- the result manually before proceeding.

So why do you need a Deckungswinkelmesser? The important thing to understand is that this is not a gunners tool, it is the tool for the reconnaissance team! The small unit that go up front (or to the rear) and find suitable firing positions that has the maximum of cover and best possibilities for fire.
The gunner can set his weapon and check for close obstacles just by looking through his sights (or through the actual barrel in the case of artillery) (with the added fact that the trajectory is not flat, and that the bullet actualy climbs in the first part of the trajectory before it sinks towards the target. This is the reason why we use a diagram with the range to the obstacle and the number of mills to the top of the obstacle as inputs to calculate if it is a go or no-go position.........).

The actual set-up and zeroing of the gun is quite another subject I will be more than willing to discuss in a thread of it's own.....

[bergflak]

Thanks for the info,Berg.Is the book something John has translated yet,or do I hear him drooling.[Do you recognize the unit in the pics? Thank you.] ---bil

Bil and Jbaum:

The book is very interesting in several aspects. It is a manual, but with lots of diagrams. Most interestingly of all it has a convertion table for the use of the ZF12 sight to be used on the MG34 tripod. A lot of pictures has been found of early tripods which is using the MG.08 scope. This was common practice in the early years, as there wasn't made enough MGz34s. No one knows what the adapter looked like though.
The book is really a true accessory for the MG34, and not a instructional, rear echelon manual! It's pages are individually impregnated (not just the cover!), so the gunner or calculator could use it in all weather conditions. To be able to fire indirectly with the MG34 on a tripod the gunner would need a set of data, mainly the compass bearing and the elevation, both in mills. A number of MG's on tripods could be located at the same position and use the same data to increase the effect in the target area. One fire-director would be able to calculate the data they all needed from this manual.

The book has a quick-search index at the right side, so the desired table or instructions could be found quickly.