Care to play me so I can show you some high level 1v1? Everything I said was 100 percent accurate
Well, most of what you said was correct:
The maxim has terrible suppression
The maxim has a terrible cone of fire
The mg42 has instant suppression
The mg42 has a huge cone of fire
Thats all true, but you fail to mention certain advantages of the maxim. They were mentioned before:
Survivability (no quick clown car counter, mortar and sniper inefficient as counter) Speed (hard to flank and damage with vanilla grenadiers)
Damage (wins duel vs. mg42)
Cheap reinforcement cost
These advantages may or may not apply in any other than a 1v1 scenario(If you ask me, you cant balance this game for all game types equally.), and depend on map type (narrow, chokepoint maps generally prefer mgs).
Your conclusion, the maxim is "a poor mans mg42" is maybe accurate regarding teamgames (even more after the patch), but questionable in a 1v1. Besides that, comparing two units side by side from two asymmetric factions is not ideal. The intendet role of the maxim is more offensive, different from the mg42.
In my opinion, the main disadvantage of maxim spam lies in the mid to late game, where panzergrenadiers and proper vehicles hit the field.
You dont need to show me high level 1v1, i saw plenty in the recent TFN tournament. What i dont saw, was "mg bunker resource lockdown/spam early game" from the germans.
Maybe Aimstrong finds the thought of winning with "2 minute mg bunker lockdown" as amusing as i do.