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- #141
Germans can start increasing the production in Belgium, include the production line(s) in France, and make the guns in Germany proper. Or, don't make a single HMG in Germany proper, make more of the 20mm weapons there instead.
The German need for the HMGs was far lower than their need for the 20mm cannons, that were favored weapons in all 3 Wehrmacht arms.
By the same token, the Belgian Browning could've been trickling on the German bombers from 1941 on.
The MG 131 shows in the 1942 drawings for the Fw 187. It shows in the very early drawings for the Fw 190, as an wing-mounted synchronised weapon, but that place was quickly taken by a more substantial weapon, as one can expect.
German position on HMGs is very much removed from the US position on HMGs. They can opt not to make a single HMG and their combat effectiveness is not changed by a single iota.
Nobody said that the Belgian Browning was available in large number in the summer of 1940. Seems like it was more ready to go than the MG 131, though, and it was certainly more powerful of the two.
BAR probably didn't offer anything over the MG 34, 42, ZB 26 and ZB 39, nor it was filling a niche that was present. Perhaps supplying the raw materials for these MGs was seen as the more prudent move than supplying the raw materials for the BAR?
OTOH, Germans sometimes (many times) didn't seem interested in the foreign designs as-is (bar what they found in the warehouses) until the proverbial hit the fan? Even their usage of the Czech factories was meh, IMO, until 1942, eg. the capable sFH 37(t) went nowhere.
Again, see this from the German perspective. They also have months to test and, need be, debug the Belgian Browning, and it is not a weapon that will make or break their warfare anyway.