Fucked up that the MG3 looks just like the Nazi era MG42. Didn’t bother changing a thing about its looks.
the Germans actually even converted MG42s to the MG3 standard, there’s guns with the original 42 markings literally crossed out:
but tbf, if you have the guns and the manufacturing lines set up, you might as well use them - the Yugoslavs also used MG-42s, both captured and their own manufactured ones:
plus StG-44s:
the Czechoslovaks inherited half-track tooling (since the Nazis had converted tank factories in Czechia to making their own models), so they kept making them for a while:
the Soviets seized the V-2 manufacturing facilities and kept making them under a new name:
and various other examples
A much greater sin than keeping the aesthetics of some guns is keeping the actual guys who ran the war
oh so thats why they have a hardon for bullpups they stuff 8+ dudes in what, the legth of a pickup truk?
The Austrians did have actual proper APCs too… but those are also pretty cramped:
The proliferation of bullpups was indeed largely informed by the needs of mechanized infantry - having long rifles was fine back when everyone marched with the rifle slung over, but widespread mechanization changes the game (and a lot of Western vehicles of the period aren’t anywhere near as spacious as people imagine when they whine about how Soviet stuff sucks - this is a BMP-2 compared to a German Marder for example, the Marder is bigger but not by that much:
and here’s a Swedish APC:
)Modern APCs/IFVs solve this problem by just… being ridiculously big and heavy (the one on the left here weights as much as a T-55 tank!)
