Machtstaat authority as Supreme Commander, Allied Powers (SCAP) He enjoyed the effective power of a Roman proconsul, acting as an “American Caesar,” as one biographer later called him He moderated demands for retribution against the Japanese, most controversially by refusing to allow the Shoˉwa Emperor, Hirohito, to be tried as a war criminal With firm benevolence, and much advice from Japanese democrats eager to reform their own country, MacArthur imposed a democratic and antimilitarist “Peace Constitution” on Japan Yoshida Shigeru was the true inspiration and force behind that major achievement, but MacArthur played a significant role as well He then oversaw the “reverse course” in U.S policy in the formative years of the Cold War MacArthur’s military reputation has been seriously challenged since his death, retrospectively concerning World War II and about his role in the Korean War In a storied and deeply controversial career, the years spent governing postwar Japan were his greatest achievement See also Asia First Suggested Reading: Michael Schaller, Douglas MacArthur (1989); Stanley Weintraub, MacArthur’s War (2000) MACHINE GUNS Belt-fed automatic weapons were used by all armies in World War II, with usage in general increasing as the war deepened Machine guns enhanced the firepower and lethality of infantry formations At the start of the Great Fatherland War in 1941, the Red Army still deployed towed 1910 Maxim machine guns that fired just 580 rpm The Soviet machine gun with the greatest range was a 1931 model that fired 600 rpm to a maximum range of 2,700 meters A 1943 Goruniov weighed 89 pounds It fired 700 rpm to a maximum range of 2,000 meters The DShK was a massive gun weighing nearly 400 pounds It had a 12.7 mm caliber and an effective range of 2,000 meters Its cyclic rate was 575 rpm The Germans also used older guns at the start of the war, including the Maxim 1908 (450 rpm), and some captured Czech guns The standard Wehrmacht machine guns of the war were the MG34 and the MG42 light models, at 26.5 and 24 pounds respectively The MG34 fired 900 rpm while the MG42 got off 1,400 rpm to an effective range of 800 meters, making it the best infantry machine gun of the war When mounted on a tripod with a telescope and firing tables, both guns configured as heavy machine guns with an effective range of 2,500 meters and maximum range of 3,500 By 1945 muzzle velocity and magazine capacity increased for all standard 50 caliber machine guns, while the average firing rate was doubled from 10 years earlier, from 600 rpm to 1,200 rpm or higher In military aircraft the old World War I standard 30 caliber machine gun was replaced by a 50 caliber gun, which was later supplemented by cannon and rockets See also burp guns MACHTSTAAT “Power state.” In Nazism, and more generally in German history, an exaltation of the state as a reified organic whole, imbued with a moral force and worth unto itself that far exceeded that of any individual citizen This view of the “power state” underlay the Nazis’ appeal to extreme nationalism, and 693