Bring back the MG81!

2918 Views 14 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Adler, Sep 12, 2007

Discussion Starter · Sep 6, 2007

This monster of a machine gun should be brought back no matter how old it is, It is light in weight around 6ish kilos, Smaller than most GPMGs and has an ROF around 1,500RPM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

If it was to be brought back, It should be rebarreled to either 7.62/5.56 NATO.

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brucelee

· #3 · Sep 6, 2007

After every belt!? That can't be right! Unless the belt is like 2,000 rounds or something! That'd be a terribly innefficient design of that's true.

I almost bought a dummy MG81 a long ass time ago just to sort of have around the house for decoration.

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brucelee

· #6 · Sep 7, 2007

ServoCrow said:
I meant because of heat, not wear.

The biggest drawback to the high rate of fire was that the barrels would heat up very quickly, but the engineers thought of that. The MG81 (and the MG42 shown next to it) had incredibly simple and fast methods for changing barrels; the standard kit included a second barrel as well as an asbestos lined mitt.

There's a scene in Saving Private Ryan where they're attacking an MG42 emplacement and Tom Hanks' character instructs his men to not make the final rush against the position until the MG crew has to change their barrel. This leads me to guess that standard practice was to rotate barrels after maybe 150 rds of continous fire (since I'm guessing that's about 3 belts of 50 each).

Granted, my knowledge comes from reading books and watching documentaries.

I know its because of heat and not wear... But it amazes me that a barrel can heat up so fast that it requires changing after only 150 rounds!? Hell, even 1000 rounds!

I guess modern technology has really stepped that up. can you imagine if out gunners in Iraq had to change barrels every 150 rounds on the 50 cal machine guns? Or hell, and machine gun?! That would suck so badly.

The MG users def had a disadvantage like you stated... I understand that even current rifles require a barrel change, but not to the extent of the MG! :huh:

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