Very Rare 1939 Rheinmetal MG15 Aviation in its Case

The MG 15, along with the MG 17, was the German Air Force's first on-board machine gun after 1933, based on the operating principle of the MG 30.

The MG15 has become a symbol of ease of use and operates smoothly, firing from an open breech that remains open (cocked) when the weapon is ready to fire, making reloading after a magazine change unnecessary.

By pulling the trigger, the bolt is released and a cartridge is extracted from the magazine. The cartridge is then pushed into the chamber and locks into place when the locking ring is turned, blocking the breech and barrel extension.

A release lever then releases the firing pin and the weapon fires. The recoil from the discharge then pushes the barrel, bolt and recoil-amplifying, roller-controlled rotary breech backwards until the base of the fired case hits the ejector and throws it out of the receiver.

This cycle continues as long as the trigger is held down.

Saddle drum magazines held 75 cartridges, evenly distributed on either side of the drum.

One magazine could only fire a burst of about 4.5 seconds.

Each gun usually carried 10 spare magazines.

With the introduction of machine guns (such as the MG81, MG 131 and MG 151/20), which offered a much higher rate of fire and belt feed, over 17,000 MG15s were modified for so-called land combat.