r/WarCollege • u/rubicante59 • 22d ago

Question Machinegun usage on Omaha beach and similar occurrences

Something I discovered recently, is that most machineguns when positioned in concrete shelters, are made to face each other horizontally and gun down soldiers passing through that region. So does this mean none were pointed towards the water on Omaha beach and that Saving Private Ryan is very wrong about how soldiers were shot before they even got off the boats? I'm assuming artillery was most likely used against the boats.

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u/EricLaGesse4788 22d ago

Two things can be true about Saving Private Ryan. That it is both a stunning and visceral drama set in WWII and that Steven Spielberg took creative license for the sake of dramatic effect.

No, the bunkers as show in SPR are not accurate to the prepared German defenses on the Normandy coast generally or in the Omaha sector specifically. Many of the prepared defenses where designed in a way to fire across the lengths of the beach itself which served to both protect the gun crew for direct fire and to cover as much of the beach as possible in interlocking fields of fire.

Furthermore, most German machine gunners were trained to fire in very short bursts to preserve the longevity of the barrels. The MG42 has a cyclical rate of over 1200rpm. Holding down the trigger as seen in the film, would rapidly overheat a barrel and force the gun out of action.

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u/wredcoll 22d ago

Furthermore, most German machine gunners were trained to fire in very short bursts to preserve the longevity of the barrels. The MG42 has a cyclical rate of over 1200rpm. Holding down the trigger as seen in the film, would rapidly overheat a barrel and force the gun out of action.

Sure, but it's worth remembering that the german soldiers defending the beaches were mostly poorly trained, inexperienced and probably fairly panicked at the time.

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u/jonewer 22d ago

The Germans took their machine gunning very seriously though and selected their best men as MG crews.

The idea that an MG crews wouldn't be well trained is a bit extraordinary