let me put it this way: you still have to be an idiot and fuck up your MG42's positioning so it can "be killed headon by a conscript squad". for example, lolrallying the first MG42 into the house outside the soviet base is a lot harder to pull off now. i know from experience that for many german players this comes as a shock.
this isnt true. on minsk i put an mg in the sandbags at the munitions on the right side. it was pointed directly at the opening in the wall. conscripts walk straight at me (no oorah) and throw a molotov before i suppressed them, not even close to a pin.
i know my mg wasnt supported and you can all jump on for not adapting or l2p. the fact is, 1 conscript walking straight at an mg, doesnt seem right. i know its a support unit, but having a gren squad there wouldnt have stopped that molotov. i didnt lose the mg but i was forced to retreat. im not expecting the mg to hold large areas of the map, but this is what soviets complained about the maxim for. "grens can walk straight at me and rifle nade". well the cons can now do that and they have to walk even further. attacking an mg should take tactics for both sides. flank, send 2 squads on opposite sides of the arc, etc. walking straight at an mg reminds me of what the maxim used to do in the beta and that was extremely broken