World War II Database

Country of Origin	Germany
Type	Machine Gun
Caliber	7.900 mm
Capacity	75 rounds
Length	1.078 m
Barrel Length	690.000 mm
Weight	12.400 kg
Rate of Fire	1000 rounds/min
Muzzle Velocity	755 m/s

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe MG 15 machine guns were developed from the German firm Rheinmetall's MG 30 design. A WW1-era machine gun design by Bergmann also had the designation of MG 15nA and that earlier weapon was often called MG 15 for short; these two designs were unrelated. The Rheinmetall MG 15 machine guns were very commonly used on German military aircraft at the start of WW2. They were typically mounted on flexible mounts as defensive armament, and were fed from double drums each holding 75 rounds of 7.92x57mm Mauser ammunition. In late 1940, the MG 15 machine guns began to be replaced by other machine guns or autocannons, and some of the MG 15 machine guns were reassigned to infantry units. Ground-conversion MG 15 machine guns were usually equipped with bipods. According to official records, by 1 Jan 1944, 17,648 MG 15 machine guns were converted for ground use; more units might had been converted by the end of the war.

The MG 15 design was sold to Japan, where weapons were license built under the designation Type 98 in the Japanese Army and Type 1 in the Japanese Navy.

Source: Wikipedia ww2dbase

Last Major Revision: Oct 2017

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