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Interesting video on the FG-42 LMG
Right here. The late Curtis Earl, NFA dealer and expert, told me he thought the design was ripped off from the Johnson Light Machinegun. Externally, they're quite similar, they have similar features (down to the first model FG-42 and the Johnson could have their magazines reloaded from five round clips pushed in the other side of the gun), both are short recoil operated, and both fire from an open bolt in full auto and a closed bolt in semiauto. That's truly a rare combination of features -- it'd be quite a coincidence that two groups working independently designed guns with all of them!
Hat tip to reader David McCleary.l..
· shooting
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I never realized the butt stock of the FG42 wasnt fixed and also moves to absorb recoil. Looks exactly like the slidefire stock!
The first opportunity for the Germans to get a hold of a Johnson would have been when 1SSF was operating in Italy, well after the Fallschirmgewehr was first produced.
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One is gas operated, the other long-recoil.
One uses a two lug bolt the other 8.
Practically identical!
I'd say it's parallel evolution especially since the people working on the FG really didn't have a means to look at the Johnson in the time frames available. The Johnson was not widely issued to or captured by anyone whom would have supplied the Germans with a sample.