www.MG42.us

Another nice pic. ---bil

interesting design and use of the ammo cans

I wish I had that to keep the crows out of my apple orchard

Bill,

Great pic -

Do you know if this was intended as a fortress type defense set-up, or is photographed being tested for use in an aircraft?
I know those cans are often sold as "fortress" type although, the twin feed is an interesting modification.

Fascinating,

Pit.

I don't think any of these quads were standard issue weapons. They were built up by waffenmeisters to use up guns that were otherwise fairly useless. They were replaced by MG131's or MG151's in the aircraft so MG17's and MG15's were available for ground troops. The MG15 was useable by groundpounders simply by adding a bipod adapter and buttstock. The MG17 on the other hand wasn't user friendly for troops as it had some unique operating characteristics. The gun loads from an open bolt but the sear is tripped electrically or by some other means. In an aircraft with a synchronized setting these things were taken care of by the onboard systems. For the average joe it was a bit tougher. There are pictures of a variety of these one-off vierlings and they all use different mounts, cans and belt control setups. Mostly they would have been used to defend airfields since the guns were surplussed by the luftwaffe. They wouldn't have been very portable either. I don't think there were many out there.

Frank

Could you even begin to think about the cost of firing one of these for a few minutes. $1.25 per round times 4 times fire rate say 700 rounds per minute... That's like $4,200 for a one minute trigger pull. Not that any of us would hold the trigger down that long, but. What a pile of cases..

Where's Bil??
With one "l"


Later 42rocker

Unsynchronized the MG17 runs about 1000-1200rpm. Synchronized they run about 800-900rpm. Since they shoot standard 7.92 mauser the cost per round should be about $.80/rd in quantity or less for surplus. Still a major cost however. Belts could be a tough deal since they won't run well with MG34/42 belts and 17/81 belts can be tough to come by. French AAT52 links would work but they've gotten scarce too.....


Frank

i want them