MG34 machine gun

The Maschinengewehr 34, or MG 34, was a German machine gun that was first produced and accepted for service in 1934,
and first issued to units in 1935. It was an air-cooled machine gun firing 7.92 mm Mauser rounds and had similar performance to other medium machine guns.

However, it was also designed to perform both as a light squad machine gun and also in heavier roles, in an early example of a general-purpose machine gun.
In the light role, it was intended to be equipped with a bipod and 50-round belt contained in a drum-shaped ammo basket, which attached to the receiver.
In the heavier role it was mounted on a larger tripod and was belt-fed.
In practice the infantry usually just belt-fed the bipod version, resulting in it functioning as a classic medium support weapon.

The MG 34 was used as the primary infantry machine gun during the 1930s, and remained as the primary tank and aircraft defensive weapon.
It was intended that it would be replaced in infantry service by the related MG42, but there were never enough of the new design to go around,
and MG 34s soldiered on in all roles until the end of World War II. It was intended that it would replace the MG-13 and other older machine guns,
but these ended up still being used in WWII as demand was never met.

It was designed primarily by Heinrich Vollmer from the Mauser Werke, based on the recently introduced Rheinmetall-designed Solothurn 1930 (MG30) that was starting to enter service in Switzerland.
The principal changes were to move the feed mechanism to a more convenient location on the left of the breech, and the addition of a shroud around the barrel.
Changes to the operating mechanism improved the rate of fire to between 800 and 900 rpm.

The new gun was accepted for service almost immediately and was generally liked by the troops. It was used to great effect by German soldiers assisting the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.
At the time it was introduced it had a number of advanced features and the general purpose machine gun concept that it aspired to was an influential one.
However the MG 34 was also expensive, both in terms of construction and the raw materials needed (49 kg of steel) and it was unable to be built in the sorts of numbers
required for the ever expanding German army. It also proved to be rather temperamental, jamming easily when dirty.

The MG 34 used belt-fed 7.92 mm ammunition. Belts were supplied in 50-round single strips or 250-round boxes.
The assault drums held a 50 rounds belt, or a 75-round "double drum" magazine could be fitted to the top of the receiver.
A gun configured to use the 75-round magazine could not be returned to belt-feed mode without modification.

Like most machine guns, the barrel is designed to be easily replaced to avoid overheating during sustained fire.

In the light machine gun role it was used with a bipod and weighed only 12.1 kg. In the medium machine gun role it could be mounted on one of two tripods, a smaller one weighing 6.75 kg, the larger 23.6 kg. The larger tripod, the MG-34 Laffette, included a number of features such as a scope and special sighting equipment for indirect fire. The legs could be extended to allow it to be used
in the anti-aircraft role (and many were), and when lowered it could be placed to allow the gun to be fired "remotely" while it swept an arc in front of the mounting with fire, or aimed through a periscope attached to the tripod.

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