Did I see a Scope on a German Machine Gun?

J

Jamie Young

New member
I could have sworn I saw a German Machine Gunner with a Scope on his gun. I was watching the History Channel last week and I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating. Did they put scopes on them or just tubular Iron sights?
 
So many people complain about putting "GLASS" on battle rifles. I guess the Machine guns are so heavy the recoil isn't so bad.
 
SodaPop, no your eyes are fine and it wasn't the mushrooms on the pizza. Not just the zipper, many Europeans had and have telescopic sights for their MGs. Others, such as the Japanese, also do this now.

The telescope on European emmagees was for observation not really targeting. Think of it as a long range shotgun. Since the emmagee did all the killing, the theory was to have the squad leader direct the fire of the most effective weapon.
 
We seem to be heading back to that ourselves. Many of the M240s and M249s now have a Picatiny rail on them. I have seen a few lately that have either the Aimpoint or the ACOG but not many. I say that we seem to be going back to that because many of the old M2HB .50 cal had a scope mounting rail and were originally shipped with a 2.75x scope.
 
M2 HB .50 cal.

Sand bag the tripod in, put a scope on it, set it for single shot (semi-auto),............and you could knock over someone at 2,000 meters with a little luck and some skill.

Clem
USMC Retired
 
many medium machine guns had optical fire control instruments - not so much to magnify as to be able to do indirect fire like an artillery piece by laying off the aim against an auxiliary aiming mark. The prismatic sight from the MG08 seems to have been a popular souvenir for returning soldiers, perhaps because it was fairly portable in an age when souvenirs had to be carried on your back.
 
Carlos Hatchcock mounted scopes on M2s in Vietnam, and sniped with them (in the days before the Barrett). Longest recorded kill, 2500 yards.
 
Before Hathcock played with his scoped fifty, Col. William Brophy did the same thing during the Korean War era. I'm not sure but Col. Frank Conway (a mustang who won some top shooting trophies while he was a non-com) may have also been a tinkerer.
 
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