The MG-42 didn't. Ammo conservation is a thing. Our modern day 3-5 or 4-6rd burst is derived from this gun. Because it's effective. You don't shoot a machine gun at the rapid or cyclic rate unless shit has gone to hell, at which point ammo conservation almost doesn't matter. The https://twitter.com/HawkingDead2/status/1342974619087560704

concept of short bursts wasn't new and ideal machine gunnery didn't fire long bursts but the MG-42 (and 34) cemented these principles of mainstays of machinegunnery, even after modern MGs with lower rates of fire were adopted. As @BuddNicholas has mentioned repeatedly, ammo

shortages later in the war further increased the need for short and effective bursts of fire (the same way we teach machine gunners today) that a) conserved ammo b) prioritized effective *aimed* fire and c) slowed down the barrel heating up (eat your heart out Bren fans).

A) & B) remain principle concept of machine gunnery, particularly for LMG and GPMGs, today with C) being important for frankly less of a worry in modern machine guns (with a good gunner/crew).

There were modifications (a heavier bolt I believe) to reduce the ROF for MG-42s, but

with a well drilled gunner/a-gunner even the super high ROF of the MG-42 was manageable with deliberate, short-burst, aimed machine gun fire. We like to think of a machine gun as a hose or laser like whip of bullets. With each successive round the gun becomes less accurate & the

point of aim shifts from it's original target. Short bursts are a machine gunners friend, especially in nice fat area targets where you want to land multiple (aimed) bursts that all land in the same target area. A machine gun that fires lots of rounds but only a few land near the

target is not an effective suppressing weapon. A machine gun that delivers an accurate burst every time a target presents, whether it hits or only nearly hits, is suppressing. This idea that volume of fire alone = suppression is ridiculous and the Germans understood this. This is

gonna sound crazy but: suppressive fire must *suppress*. And that means hitting near your target. The idea is the same today as it was then. When my patrol came under enemy fire our first response was to a) seek cover b) seek the source of fire c) return for & establish firepower

dominance. If the source of fire wasn't hitting near us, then accomplishing c) was super easy. And if it was difficult to return accurate fire, if their rounds weren't accurate, we weren't suppressed and could maneuver on the enemy to a position where we could either return

accurate fire or overrun and kill them.

All that to say: the ROF of an MG-42 was ridiculously high. Most post war guns adopted a much lower ROF. But that high ROF didn't cripple the MG-42 or it's gunners & this idea that it's fast ROF somehow was a weakness the allies exploited

ignores mountains of data suggesting otherwise.

The BAR, the Bren, the DP-28, and similar guns were fine weapons for the role they were envisioned. They just weren't competitors for the MG-42.