Good points, but my issue here was that on crossing the wasp made it extremely difficult to cap any fuelpoints at all and as such I was hopelessly behind. So when I finally could scrape together enough for a 222 it had an extremely short window before the AEC came out.
As soon as you see the UC (especially the wasp), go full turtle mode until your first 222 arrives.
Wasp requires British T2, which probably gives you enough time to get your early-game units out. Glue a Grenadier to your HMG42, and use it to cover your fuel. The threat of a faust should be enough to stop the Wasp from charging in to flame the HMG. Your Grens can just dance around, but they should be close enough to the HMG so that the HMG can deal damage to the wasp as it flames the Grenadiers.
If you fancy HMG42 spam, put the HMGs to cover each other so that in order to flame one HMG it gets attacked by another. Use Pioneers to scout for the HMGs as well.