A German Bren Gun Team
Serving the MG 26(t)
In the early years of the Second World War, the German Army proved unable to provide every rifle squad that rated a light machine gun with the standard weapon of that class, the celebrated MG 34. As a result, many machine gun teams made do with substitutes.
Of these Ersatz light machine guns, the best, by far, may well have been the MG 26(t). Built in the Czech town of Brno, the MG 26(t) had, under its original designation of ZB 26, found homes in many armies, to include those of Czechoslovakia and China. Moreover, when modified to accommodate rimmed ammunition, it became the Bren gun, which had already begun to serve as the default squad automatic of the ground forces of the British Commonwealth.
The authors of establishments took pains to minimize the organizational disruption caused by the use of Ersatz light machine guns. However, as the care and feeding of such ordnance often differed from that of the MG 34, some changes could not be avoided. Thus, when the troika of machine gunners in a squad toted an MG 34, it also carried 1,050 to 1,150 rounds of belted ammunition. When, however, a comparable trio wielded an MG 26 (t), it humped but 800 rounds, every one of which traveled in a twenty-round magazine.
In addition to its 40 magazines, the crew of a ‘German Bren gun’ received a device (with the delightful designation of Magazinefüllergehäufe) for loading five-round clips into those bullet boxes and, marvelous to say, a second pair of sunglasses. (In a rifle squad equipped with an MG 34, only one member of the light machine gun team - Gunner Number 2 - was issued with glare-reducing spectacles. However, in a squad that used the aforementioned substitute, both Gunner Number 1 and Gunner Number 2 rated Sonnenbrillen.)
Sources
This post draws all of its facts and figures from two official documents, both of which I found on the website of the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv).
Merkblatt für die Ausbildung am M.G. 26 (t) (Tschechischen MG) [Pamphlet on Training with the MG 26 (t) (Czech Machine Gun)] (Berlin: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, 1939) (Folder RH 14/161)
Ergänzung zur H.Dv. 130/2a vom 16 März 1941 Seite 25-49, für die mit dem LMG. 26(t) ausgerüsteten Landesschützenbataillone. (Supplement to pages 25-49 of Army Service Manual 130/2a for Home Defense Battalions Equipped with the Light Machine Gun 26(t).) (Folder RH 1/1188)
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