This, rifle and flame grenades was biggest enemy of maxim.
Well, in fact HMG and core infantry of Wehrmacht and Soviets were balanced with each other IMO.
Grens has long range riflenade.
Cons has short range molotov, but also Oorah and MG42 had slow traverse speed.
Riflenade has burst damage, but faces 6 man squads and Maxim has quick pack-up time.
Molotov has damage over time effect, but MG42 has slow pack-up time and only 4 man.
Same thing with their HP pools and long-range DPS of opposing basic infantry rifles.
But then WFA came out with their fucked up sets of tools: no early garrison answers, no early indirect, no smoke for OKW, too much smoke for USF but behind fuel tech.
And all of sudden if you face OKW as Soviets you had to go T2 Maxim spam or GTFO. But OKW had no chances against flawless maxim spam, especially if Soviets managed to take garrison key buildings.
Then they've started to plug holes in faction design: volks flame nade, OKW stock HMG, usf mortar etc.
But now with grenade range nerf and maxim direct nerf things looks balanced to me.