The 50. cal gets wiped so fast its not a very good counter to the blob
Wrong, they are an excellent counter to blobs. Machine guns are
support units designed to suppress blobs and limit the movment of units on the field - not kill them.
Support units should be on the backline, as they require line of sight to fully maimize their range potential. They should not taking the brunt of enemy fire, that`s what frontline units are for! Using a 50 cal without proper sight is improper usage from my perspective.
During an infantry fight the 50cal should be just behind your infantry doing one of the following: firing suppression volley into the brawl to turn the tide in your favor, watching a chokepoint to prevent a flank, limiting movement as to funnel your opponent into your rifleman`s killzone or lastly - providing a fallback for your mainline infantry. Basically, i`m advocating that you a-move it behind your main infantry force and use it as a force multiplier.
You can`t really compare the 50 cal to the MG42 - as it is an exception. The entire whermacht early game is typically designed around the MG42.So the MG42 needs to be able to suppress quickly on its own, otherwise the entire ostheer army would fall apart to allied pressure. In contrast the entire US army is designed around the rifle man, thus anything that isn`t a rifle man, is designed to force multiply the rifleman.