Equipped with a quick-change barrel and fed with belts or large magazines , the MG 34 could fire for much longer periods of time than weapons such as the American Browning Automatic Rifle , Japanese Type 11 , British Bren and French Châtellerault LMG , while being much lighter than crew-served weapons like the Vickers machine gun and M1917 Browning machine gun .
This meant that the MG 34 could fire for much longer than weapons like the Browning Automatic Rifle , Japanese Type 11 , British Bren and French Châtellerault LMG .