Artist's commentary
MG34 Machine Gun
This one was done entirely in colored pencil with prismacolor's excellent smudge pencil tool. It was not drawn 1:1 scale unlke my Colt M-1911 and Luger Pistol. In fact the full view posted here is much larger than the actual drawing. The Machinengewehr 34 was adapted by Germany in 1934 and was a refinement of the Steyr-Solothurn Model 30 as designed in Switzerland. The MG-34 is a recoil-operated belt- or drum fed machine gun which could be mounted on either a bipod, tripod, anti-aircraft tripod, or even fired from the hip in an emergency. It fired the standard 7.92x57mm (8mm) mauser rifle round at a cyclic rate of around 800-900 rounds per minute but could also be fired single shot if required. It was the pride anf joy of Hitler's Wehrmahct in the early war years but was complicated, expensive to produce and was unreliable under harsh combat conditions. The MG-42 corrected these faults but the MG-34 continued to see service until the end of the war. MG-34s continued to see limited service in various conflicts around the world following 1945.