Profile of skemshead

I guess this is sarcasm but do you really think it should require 4 squads, each costing more than the mg itself, plus the additional ammo cost for grenades to counter this one cheap starter unit for ostheer? If he had a 2nd mg backing up the first one on that map your flank would probably have just been shut down immediately. Anything can work vs bad players but balance is not determined by the theoretical possibility that countering a unit is possible. Balance is achieved when the effort in countering a unit is comparable to the effort required to use a unit.

Its easy to try making this a L2P, try flanking issue but the fact is that good players anticipate a flank and focus on choke points, plant mines, and have secondary units available to break up a flank, or rely on off-map abilities like strafe. If flank execution is much more difficult and requires much more micro than preventing a flank does then balance is off.

You are correct to some extent but abilities like smoke and oraah level the playing field. The trick is to spread out your units and to activate smoke/oraah on second squad to advance behind the mg. Once you are behind it it has to retreat on most occasions. Where it becomes complicated is when mgs are spammed which is why most people in this thread are advocating changes that limit a player ability to build multiple mgs. The downside to multiple mgs is they are vunerable to vehicles and lack mid to lategame punch, there will also be less grens or less vetted grens.

In regard to your point about increasing the packup time,that will simply result in grenades being the primary counter and we will be back to no skill gameplay. Molotovs are a soft counter to the mg forcing it move where it is then extremely vulnerable to flanking squads.

Choke points and deep snow are map issues and should be addressed separately. Maps like Semosky can be hard if you are passive and allow mgs to get a foothold but coh1 was no different. If Ost takes the centre and places 3mgs there, usf should have no problem securing both fuels and without that early fuel Ost is screwed.

Just played a 1v1 as USF. Guy had MG in church on Semois. I flanked it with 4 riflemen and killed it with nades, then stole it. If that MG was any more broken though I probably would have lost the game right there.

How did you achieve such a miraculous feat. You must have the micro skills of a south Korean gaming god.

You people are still zeroing in on a unit's stats when you need to look at the bigger picture.

Suppression on MGs is fine.

Support weapons capping at the same speed as all other units is not fine.

Reduce capping speed for support weapons, watch your MG problems melt away with greater map control.

+1, been saying this for ages.

In reality though, USF should still be able to hold 2/3 of the map early game. Its just that many still just charge in and attack without thinking because in the past it was so easy to win first couple of engagements.

Been watching hans and paradox play usf tonight and actually found it interesting, unlike the previous meta.

I don't think the mg42 is too cheap. There's other problem but the mg42 is not it. the USF just lack a decent artillery (pack howitzer is not decent, it's crap)

Pack howitzer is ok without being great but is probably too expensive.

That's every HMG crew. None are automatically wiped with support/retreating the moment someone goes into them.

Automatically wiped, no. But soviet weapon crews all have increased survivability due to larger squad sizes. Sov and USF have more counters, more CQ units and more AI vehicles than Ost and to a lesser extent OKW. Axis Hmg have a higher performance but there are more counters and they are more at risk of being wiped.

I have no issue if the suppression rate within the cone is increased or if the damage is increased but increasing the cone size would not only make it OP but all but usher in a new era of maxim spam which i don't think would help the game.

In regard to it being needed, well that really depends on the game mode and the opponent. In 1v1 I would say no as soviets already have numerous antiblob and anti inf units.