An American MG-42?

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#1

I once read, but can’t recall the source, that the US Army was toying with the ideal of retooling the Wehrmacht’s MG-42 and producing an American version in .30-06. Like the Germans who were so impressed by their enemies T-34 tank, some US officers wanted their own versions of the revolutionary GPMG. I believe the idea was basically dropped since the War was essentially already won, and the US was already ear-marking funds to go to other places besides its conventional forces (i.e. atomic bombs).

Does anyone have any information on this project?

#2

Try this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_machine_gun#History

#3

Found some info in one of my books, saying that a Lieutenant Colonel Chinn asserted in his book “The machine gun” that two captured MG 42 were sent from North Africa to the US. The “Saginaw Steering Gear Division” was ordered to produce two MG42’s designated as “T 24”.
They were fired for the first time in February 1944 at “Aberdeen Proving Ground”. 10000 rounds should have been fired without a break, however after 1483 shots fired about 50 malfunctions had occured. The test was cancelled and the weapons were given the MG section of the Small Arms Division. Several technical deficiencies were discovered, e.g. the casing of the guns was 0.7mm too short.
As Nickdfresh mentioned there was no further use to re-construct the guns for the war was pretty much decided by that time.
Both prototypes were given to the Springfield Armoury and are supposed to be exposed there in the local museum as “Machine Gun Cal. .30 T 24”.
According to the book “International Armament” the whole experiment cost about 25400 US Dollar (which was quite an amount back in 1944/45 I assume).

#4

Well, as Sergej posted, the M-60 machine gun was developed from the foundations the MG-42 laid, so you could probably call that the “American MG-42”, if you want to.

Does anybody remember the movie “A Bridge Too Far”, though? Aside the fact that Leopard Is are being used as WW2 German tanks, there was something else that confused me:
In a couple of scenes, the US troops actually use a machine gun that needs a winder while firing?! What MG was that?!

(I think it was “A Bridge Too Far”, might have been “The Longest Day”, though… sorry, it’s been a while since I watched them)

#5

Schuultz, the M60 is a modified <b>FG42</b>, itself essentially a Lewis mech, with the belt feed from the MG42.

The probs with the .30 test versions was the difference in COL which were not taken into account. Simple as that (about 6mm or so made all the difference!).