Ian McCollum and Nicholas Moran Team Up To Talk About The German .50BMG (Or Lack Thereof)
Like a Marvel crossover comic that features two characters you’re interested in, having both Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons and tank expert Nicholas Moran talk about the .50cal machine gun (and why the Germans never adopted it) did indeed peak my interest.
A few takeaways:
“That the M2 I think is so well known today, it’s so recognized and … is ubiquitous. During World War Two, the U.S. kind of did a like a massive industrial flex on the rest of the world with the M2. It’s a bit memey, but you could think of this as like the classic Uncle Sam painting with like glowing red eyes of fire. Because the US manufactured about 2 million Browning .50 caliber machine guns.”
“We’re going to put them on trucks, we’re going to put them on tanks, we’ll put them on some Jeeps, we’ll put them on half-tracks. We’ll put four of them together in a big mount and put that on a half-track or on a trailer. It’s like Oprah just handing out .50 cal machine guns.”
Because McCollum didn’t know, he asked Moran, leading to the special Gun Jesus/Chieftain Crossover Issue.
Moran’s first cut: “Dunno! Let me ask around.”
For starters, the Germans used small canons instead of big machine guns.
It was a hell of a lot safer to be buttoned up in the tank with aircraft shooting at you than outside it trying to score an unlikely machine gun kill.
“The reality was that aircraft generally were horrible at killing tanks.” (Caveat: I hear the Stuka version with the 37mm cannon was actually pretty good at it, but German tankers obviously didn’t have to worry about that.)
Also, since they thought taking out aircraft with machine guns was unlikely, one light machine gun with tracers was just as good as four heavy machine guns at “giving pilots something to think about” on their strafing runs.
The Germans did have “the MG 131, a 13mm weapon, and thus as close to a caliber .50 as possible. Though primarily an electrically primed aircraft gun, it could be converted to a ground mount and percussion fired. It could thus be mounted on a tank much like an American caliber .50, yet it never was.”
Germans had a doctrinal preference for saving ammo wherever possible if the possibility for effective fire was too low. Americans had a doctrinal preference for turning out giant piles of ammo.
“If you want something which provides a lot of coverage, and has a good chance of actually shooting down a target, especially an armoured one like an IL-2, you’re better off with a heavier gun on a dedicated platform with a trained, dedicated anti-aircraft crew.”
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7 Responses to “Ian McCollum and Nicholas Moran Team Up To Talk About The German .50BMG (Or Lack Thereof)”
Left unsaid in the video by both presenters are German anti-aircraft guns (all caliber) in WWII are in the domain of Luftwaffe, and not the Wehrmacht. After some wrangling, Wehrmacht managed to get some 44mm AAA and found them to be excellent artillery against tanks.
The Brits were basically like the Germans – fooled around with Vickers 12.7mm and BESA 15mm HMGs early, then pretty quickly went up to 20mm because it could fire explosive shells.
In watching your video I happen to notice the interesting globe to your right. It caught my attention because I have the exact same globe. Your looks shiny and new, but mine is about 50 years old. It was given to me as a thank you gift from my long deceased father-in-law for some legal work I did for him. Just thought I would share this with you.
The gist of the difference was Germans believed that cannon were effective against aircraft than machine guns and armed their ground assets and aircraft with cannons. The Americans went with machine guns but a good question would be which decision came first- make lots of .50 machine guns then find a use for them or the US could use .50 machine guns so make lots of them?
Left unsaid in the video by both presenters are German anti-aircraft guns (all caliber) in WWII are in the domain of Luftwaffe, and not the Wehrmacht. After some wrangling, Wehrmacht managed to get some 44mm AAA and found them to be excellent artillery against tanks.
The Brits were basically like the Germans – fooled around with Vickers 12.7mm and BESA 15mm HMGs early, then pretty quickly went up to 20mm because it could fire explosive shells.
Actually, at 11:23 in, Moran talks about the differing levels of antiaircraft responsibilities between the Luftwaffe and the Heer.
In watching your video I happen to notice the interesting globe to your right. It caught my attention because I have the exact same globe. Your looks shiny and new, but mine is about 50 years old. It was given to me as a thank you gift from my long deceased father-in-law for some legal work I did for him. Just thought I would share this with you.
Tom
New Orleans
You’re probably best sharing this comment in the YouTube comments section for this video.
German doctrine about saving ammo? The rate of fire for the MG42 compared to the Browning 30/50 was slow?
If Germans doctrine was restrained by anything it was their industrial base.
The gist of the difference was Germans believed that cannon were effective against aircraft than machine guns and armed their ground assets and aircraft with cannons. The Americans went with machine guns but a good question would be which decision came first- make lots of .50 machine guns then find a use for them or the US could use .50 machine guns so make lots of them?
They also said “Dakka” … squee