The Metagame: HMG Spam

To Cruzz:
MG42 in mid-late game is not insta suppressing at all. Theres a lot of light cover made by arty/mortars, squads are vetted and so on.

It only takes 2 bursts to suppress conscripts in GREEN cover, yellow means nothing. Against a HMG42 heavy start your conscripts will certainly will not be vetted past maybe vet1 from all the fire they've taken, because they will not have killed a damn thing.

MG42 can by countered by sniper and clown car (even with cons in it) and from T2 by mortar and ZIS barrage (60 muni and comes late, I know).

The soviet mortar is in every way worse than the axis one, comes out very slow and is extremely easy to dodge anyway. The ZIS barrage is fairly inaccurate for any given shot, so as long as the opponent unpacks after the first shot lands he'll most likely not lose a single member in the MG squad (mind you, the ZIS actually makes a firing noise without firing a shot before the barrage starts so you actually know in advance that the barrage is coming even if you can't see the gun). Going T2 also means no clown cars, which screws you up against everything else.

Conscripts do next to no damage from clown cars, their DPS per man is freaking awful and only 2 or so guys tend to be firing out of a clown car at any given time.

Sniper is kind of a counter except against buildings (they only hit with like one in every third shot against buildings), but I sure can't handle microing snipers in multiple parts of the map at once so it's effectively impossible for me to gain back map control with them. They also come out extremely slow, are expensive and force you to move your units in one group to counter attempts at killing them so. Plus if the game drags on they kinda become a liability with their habit of dying to any number of artillery abilities (especially the mortar halftrack incendiary, and opel strafe) in one hit.

Investing heavy in MG42 means you lack grens (and also fausts) or your tech is delayd so fast T70 will help you a lot.

1. Why on earth would your tech be delayed? There literally is no reason for this
2. You'll float a lot of munitions early on when not bothering to upgrade grenadiers with lmg42 and not going for a flameht so you can afford several mines or 2 shrek squads, both of which tend to deal with T70s nicely. Though let's be honest here, most games you tend to gain complete map control before the opponent even has enough fuel for their first T70.

Axis on the other hand can punish Maxim spammer only with Flame HT cuz sniper and mortar is useless against 6 men (+ merge ability to keep it on the field).

Nevermind the fact that on most maps you can lock down someone going for maxims in their base before they get a single one out thanks to the huge build time on the structure. Nevermind that even grenadiers can just walk up to a maxim while it's shooting at them and grenade it to hell. Nevermind you can actually reliably flank it because it has a cone less than half the size of the MG42 and will take a very long time to suppress anything. Also mortars really aren't that much less effective against 6 men squads compared to 4.

@Cruzz: If you build 3xHMGs, they become a burden when vehicles hit the field.

You'll never see a T70 before you've already won the game with your MG42 map control, so the only vehicle you'll ever actually face is Clown Cars. If you can force your opponent to invest heavily in clown cars then this is a very good thing for you, because they scale like shit past T1 (much like conscripts without the smg commander).


It's fairly obvious to me that I simply don't have the microing ability to manage to win with soviets against anyone who isn't playing stupid. Playing as axis makes me feel no such inability to compete, and most of the time when I lose as axis it feels like I was the one who did a huge screwup rather than my opponent actually managing to do anything (the other option being just huge amounts of bad luck like a flamer destroying a squad in a single burst and so on)

Many players have great success with as many as 3xM3s.
Its not a fuel problem, because they screw the MG reciprocally and return map control.
HMG spam is a failure for both factions.

None of what you have said counters my analysis.

Using 3x HMGs doesn't shit on your tech anymore than a 4 Gren build order. You should be able to control the field with 3 MGs, a Gren, and a Pio and match tech with your opponent.

An MG42 is a unit that never loses its usefulness. Never. It's just too good for that.

Neither do Maxims, in their intended function.

And both HMGs become a burden in 3x builds when vehicles hit.

To Cruz:
I have faced both MG42 and Maxim spam (both in 2v2 since I dont play 1v1 at all) and I can tell you that in both cases those guys lost. The difference was that axis lost in first few minutes since we both went for M3s with flamers/snipers/penals. Against Soviets it was much harder to defeat cuz even fast tech to Flame HT did not help us that much cuz roast 6 men with AT nade/ZIS/guards support is not that easy and by the time I had fast (no T2 for me) Ostwind, there already was SU85 on the field.

What I think is a problem for both MG42 and Maxim is the fact that flanking is not rewarding at all. However Relic is aware of that so they will adress this in future patch.

What I think is a problem for both MG42 and Maxim is the fact that flanking is not rewarding at all. However Relic is aware of that so they will adress this in future patch.

That's pretty much spot on.

HMG spam is fail on both factions.

Its a strong start, but can be immediately countered by light vehicles, and they become a burden in mid-late game.

With one caveat though, HMGs in buildings are still, imo, too hard to shift.
For both factions it basically forces a flame vehicle as the only real counter, rendering both infantry and vanilla light vehicles incapable of forcing them out.

Mortars are largely too innaccurate and not powerful enough to worry a HMG in a building.
I havent seen ZiS Barrage vs a building yet, but even that comes a bit too late. Ost are even more fked vs garrisonned Maxims in this regard.

On an other note, Friedchicken deserves a ban for his insulting posts, trolling and other shit since appeared here. panzerjager2 deserves a warning for being stupid enough to respond to that flaming /trolling in the same way.

My posts are not insulting, you can kiss his backside if you want to, but a mod can look at my posts vs his, and i guarantee there are 100% personal attacks as well as profanity in every one of panzers post. doesn't matter to me anyways honestly as this forums is clearly bias twords Germany, not only that but the threads are way off from a discussion but yet more of a whine about how you're unable to counter this or that because you don't understand the mechanics of the game.

Please stop shitting up every thread you enter.

Please stop shitting up every thread you enter.

please stop adding wood to the fire

give green cover protection its role: avoid beeing surpressed

HMG should need longer time to aim new target and should not insa-supress, with a slightly shorter range

In the other hand, I think soviet sniper should be nerf to compensate this