Profile of LemonJuice

Here you see a vet 3 MG42 and its performance. It´s hilarious how long it needs to pin a unit, even if it´s yellow cover. It´s 28 seconds of constant bursts. At 52:26 it finally has them pinned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1-70N4bT3w#t=51m58s

time to pin has always been towards the longer side in coh2, but notice that suppressed guards are completely combat ineffective as they cannot even land a single shot on the 42 crew.

This, they are utility infantry. Personally I prefer them to Fallsch for causing havoc behind the lines because they are cheaper, plus it's fun to cap a point and then booby trap it.

falls arent cheaper

See how much effort it takes to destroy this building? Not to mention, the map has a huge influence on how Allied players can handle this situation. Add this to compounding problem of committing 25% of your troops for this task while Axis player is free to roam the map and do all kinds of damage (map control, ambulance hunt & flanks). Lastly, the areal denial on this truck makes it difficult to pull off mid game (he/she can sit on a fuel point until then). The whole point of this truck is to keep opponents from cutting off OKW (slap in the face for COH2 tactical play).

the effort is pretty much justified IMO cause youre basically hamstringing OKWs mid game by destroying it. you are not committing 25% of your troops. i would commit 80 to even a 100% to destroying this one structure. why? because the axis player will send everything to defend it once they realize their flak hq is in very real danger. the flak hq is the cornerstone of OKW midgame play, destroying it cripples them especially if they havent produced that many obers or a panther.

Placing it behind a shotblocker, invalidates all US counters to it until multiple tanks can be fielded. That's just wrong.

friendly reminder that anti tank guns can shoot through hedges using attack ground.

just my 2 cents, BUT flak HQ is definitely NOT the reason why OKW is strong right now. killing the flak hq isnt actually that difficult. basically what you do is set up indirect fire + 1 at gun + suppression platforms in addition to all your infantry just outside of the flak hq range, and you just barrage it/at gun it to death. obviously the OKW player(s) will try to counter attack your position, and thats where suppression platforms come into play. you just suppress okw squads, force the retreat and continue killing the hq.
with sight its really easy to actually kill the hq with at guns, but usually the only way to get sight is pathfinders or some sort of off map recon.

with soviets basically you want 1 or 2 120mm or 82mm either one works fine, atleast one at gun, and one or two maxims + all your cons just sitting bheind green cover. this is like a really hard position for the axis to push on.
with USF you want to have at gun/jackson + 50cal or fighting positions + ur rifles just sitting in green. usf have to kind of rely more on direct fire so i find pathfinders are the best to providing sight.

now the REAL problem is obers. obers kind of throw a wrench in all your attempts at infantry based pushes because theyre just so good at killing infantry at range. they can decrew at guns very quickly and are just a pain in the ass to deal with. even still, if youre MGs are positioned correctly you can force them to retreat.

other less conventional ways to kill flak hqs that ive done include:
2x recon pathfinder arty. itll instantly kill it
smoke + 2x demo + follow up. 2 demos will bring the hq down extremely low, youll need like one or two shots from a tank or AT gun to finish it off
3x satchel charge. ive never actually done this because i dont go t1 but theoretically 3x satchels does enough damage. to get close youll probably have to smoke it.

that being said, taking out flak HQs requires quite a bit of preparation and situational awareness, and depending on the location of the flak hq, can be very difficult. however, destroying it significantly (i mean fucking significantly) increases your chances of winning because it 1. opens up a portion of the map, 2. prevents panther and ober production for another 3 minutes at minimum AND forces the OKW player to spend 70 fuel to gain access to those units again, further delaying and fuel purchase. plus its a huge morale hit for the players and can make them surrender.

as vipuks has said before, take advantage of the high range of machine guns and spot for them so they can suppress enemy blobs before they even come into rifle range.

people dont realize that not spotting for machine guns is actually a huge issue since youre losing like 1/4 or a 1/3 of the total range of the hmg if you dont spot for it.