Profile of achpawel

Agreed 100% - maybe grenadiers should be a bit more effective close range OR they should be more effective on the move?

Give rifes for it. But seriously speaking there are more problems with mg. They are related to the fact that now so many units have smoke or sprint abilities which again make mgs obsolete. (back in coh1 it was only mortars and then commandos; now the whole battlefield resembles foggy autumn morning in London - so much smog)

True - what I wanted to emphasise is that there are a lot of little things that tip the balance too much. It's just far too many possibilities for one side, and unfortunately very few (and they need to be earned through a meticulous collection of resources) for the other. Lots of people compare armor vs armour etc. But this is not really what wins you the game. Very often such bazooka will make it imposibble for a damaged wehicle to flee.

Hi. My comment would be that using an mg forces you into a lot of micro and you are much more likely to lose engagements because of babysitting it. The problem is it doesn't trade off too well. Even having prepared everything for a nice mg surpise for the attackers you have a high chance of losing the engagment because of smoke, granade or artillery, or others.

Because of mgs you lose a lot of your capping power. It forces so much more static play.

The worst thing is that even if you pin an infantry unit, very often you lose more models/health than the pinned squad. After they retreat you must retreat as well. (It's kind of funny - you feel you're winning because a squad got into your firing arc and is pinned. But after you count the bodies it's your mg that lost more squad members or health than the pinned squad).

And my fovourite bit - people keep telling you that you should pin with an mg and use grendiers to shoot at the pinned squad. The problem is it takes ages to babysit the situation and kill any models. One grenade of the opposing team and half of your army gone. Also they forget that there will be another squad runnig somewhere near - probably coming from behind. Such tactical advice would probably be ok if mg+grenadier squad cost not much more than one rifle squad.

Anyway, my suggestion is that if any infantry comes into the mg arc, it shoud get punished severly after being there for more than 2-3 seconds. They should have 2-3 seconds to retreat, pop smoke or they would take serious damage. It could be something like a model every burst in the open even at max distance. Basically they should be forced to babysit their squads more than just get into the arc and wait until the flank happens without almost any risk.

OK - I understand there is of course a possibility of winning. The reality is, however, that you have to mess up a lot to lose as USF. Basically an USF player must be significantly worse than ostheer to loose. The biggest problem is their vehicles. They seem to be much stronger than they should.
1. They are too good at killing infantry compared to wehr vehicles (I feel that some shermans kill more models on average per shot than even a tiger - panzer 4 seems a funny vehicle in comparison).
2. The self repair is crazy - they get a few shots from AT and back up only to repair in seconds (they don't need extra 200 manpower worth unit that needs to be withdrawn to repair their vehicle, which makes it possible for them to repair and use the rear echelon troops they don't need to repair their vehicle to attack your AT, for example, or just cap).
3. You can use vehicles to cap, especially while repairing - they just get to some point, leave the vehicle and cap with its crew. If they are attacked they hop inside in no time and use the vehicle - simple and easy - and not fair (bear in mind that Soviet tanks, for example, need some time to change from capping mode to fighting mode.
To sum up, its too much - it shouldn't be like that - either option 1 (relatively strong armor) OR 2 (self repair) OR 3 (capping possibilty). NOT EVERYTHING IN ONE PACKAGE.

And a footnote to top it all - there's the bazooka. So when you spot them repairing with their crew they'll bazooka your scout car with a completely free bazooka (compare this to the effort an ostheer player needs to produce panzergrenadiers and give them 120 munitions shercks - which are not too effective and almost completely destroy their anty infantry capabilities).