One of the most important units in the entire game is the Machine gun. It works as a force multiplier, as it ties down and kills multiple enemy squads, allowing smaller numbers of troops to defeat larger attacking forces, (though in real life it would kill a hell of a lot more soldiers than it does in the game). Knowing how to use and defeat these weapons is critical for any Company of Heroes player, and many new players have a great deal of trouble with them. Here's a little guide to both MGs, and what they can do.
First-information on how the two MGs in the game, the Axis MG-42 and the Allied .30 cal differ:
MG-42 Heavy Machine Gun team-260 manpower
Unit Motto: We save the Fatherland's ass in tier 1!
The MG-42's main purpose is as an infantry support weapon, it suppresses enemy troops within the first second of shooting at them, allowing nearby volksgrenadiers or pioneers to slaughter the allied troops. The MG-42 also has a longer range than it's allied counterpart, allowing it to cover more ground. The 42's main weakness is that it doesn't actually kill infantry all that quickly, which means that you need some support to finish off enemy soldiers before they can retreat.
One thing to keep in mind with the MG-42 is that its crew contains some of Germany's brawniest young lads, who wield their MP40s to cause significantly more damage than the Allied .30 cal's carbines. This can be used to your advantage when the enemy tries to flank your MG, because the two extra crew members use their MP40's to great effect against enemy troops. If an enemy puts his jeep right next to your MG-the two 40s will shred it down pretty quickly. However, if you would prefer to avoid such situations, one of the biggest advantages of the 42 is located in a pioneer squad's build menu: The bunker. For only 150 MP you can put your MG in any friendly sector and give it free range over any important sector of the map.
Allied .30 caliber Heavy Machine Gun-240 manpower
Unit Motto: Sorry... couldn't come up with something witty
The .30 cal has a much shorter range than the MG-42, and it is the one unit in the game that reliably loses to flanking pioneers in close quarters combat. It also takes a lot longer to suppress enemy squads than the MG-42, because the sound of a water-cooled MG is less scary. Why on Earth would you build it then? The .30 cal's big advantage over the MG-42 is that it reaps a harvest of +3 and +5 numbers whenever it encounters Axis infantry, it does an AMAZING amount of damage. The .30 cal also has to reload a lot less often than the 42, allowing it to spend more time shooting. The .30 cal can also destroy Axis halftracks, Pumas, and motorcycles by spending 35 munitions on its armor piercing rounds ability, which makes it shred through vehicle armor, (it also can slightly dent Stugs, reducing their health by 1-3% per use of the ability).
The allied MG, due to its incredibly low health and short range, is much more reliant on garrisoned buildings than the MG-42. Unfortunately, engineers cannot build bunkers for the .30 cal to take shelter in, (well they can, but the bunker costs 15 fuel and comes with a machine gun anyway, making it a useless gesture). Thus, the .30 cal is not very useful on the left side of Angoville, and almost not at all on Beaux. Semois and Sturzdorf are the only 1v1 maps I would recommend going WSC first on for this reason, they have enough buildings for the .30 cal to take cover in. However, if you're having troubles with Axis Stormtroopers or Grenadiers, getting a few .30 cal MGs can give you the edge you need, because they will shred them in no time. They also are great for supporting AT guns, suppressing and slaughtering any MP40 volks or Knights Cross Holders that try and attack them.
Now a brief guide on how each side can counter the enemy MGs:
Allies: A frontal assault will always be fruitless against a prepared MG, because the 42 will suppress your soldiers long before they get in range. The only way to beat a 42 with pure riflemen is with flanking, by going around its field of fire to hit it from the side or rear. You can use this same strategy to beat both garrisoned MGs, and MGs in the field, and getting the Grenade upgrade allows it to work to great effect. The BAR upgrade also will allow riflemen to kill the MG squad if they are in close range, because the big damage of the BAR still occurs when rifles are suppressed, but it's not a hard counter. Since MGs are normally placed in cover, or in garrisoned buildings, using flamethrower engineers usually works to great effect as well.
If you have a WSC, you can also defeat a Axis MG-42 in three additional ways, by using your .30 cal, a sniper, or a mortar. How can a .30 cal beat a garrisoned MG-42? If you put the .30 cal in a nearby building, (without going through the MG's field of fire, of course), the .30 cal's superior damage will let it beat the MG-42. A sniper will take down a 42 in three shots, just look out for enemy bikes! Lastly, a mortar can bombard a garrisoned MG from a distance, destroying the building its trying to take cover in.
The other way to beat a MG-42 is by going with a fast motorpool. The 42 does little damage against quads and M-8's, so just drive up and shoot the poor guys.
Axis: If your enemy is using a WSC start, the .30 cal will usually be placed in important buildings, such as covering the high munitions on Semois, or the building near the high fuel on Sturz. Knowing this, you can either beat them to the punch by garrisoning your own troops in those buildings, or by avoiding those areas and capping the rest of the map. I would almost NEVER recommend trying to flank a garrisoned .30 cal, because its insanely high damage will cause it to kill at least 240 manpower worth of troops, making the effort useless. However, if the .30 cal is in the open, all you have to do is flank some pioneers or volks behind it, and laugh as they kill the crew.
Removing the .30 cal from a building is very tricky, due to its high damage, so only three units and one doctrine ability really come to mind as working well to kill them. You can get your own sniper to shoot the .30 cal down in three shots, but keep in mind that the allies likely have a sniper as well, so only do this if you were able to eliminate HIS sniper.
The Mortar, produced from tier 2, can blow up buildings to punch your way through his .30 cal line, but is very vulnerable to snipers, dying in two shots. You're going to need a bike or a counter-sniper to do this effectively!
The puma is a solid way to do it, just drive up and murder!
The doctrine ability that solidly counters the .30 cal is the Blitzkrieg assault grenades. Using assault removes the suppression effect, and the troops start chucking nades at the building, blowing the crap out of them!
Anyway, there's my guide. Now go out there and suppress some riflemen!
This post has been edited by General Grant: May 14 2007, 23:26 PM
Nice guide, unfortunately marred by some incorrect information.
Allied and Axis MG-teams have exactly the same amount of health (3 crew-members with 55 health each). Veterancy does not increase the range of axis MGs. The difference in range between allied and axis MGs aren't very large (40/20/10 for allied, 45/22/11 for axis), although for both sides the range is longer than the MG's sight-range (35 yards sight-range for both sides).
It may also be worth mentioning that the burst-length of allied MG's are twice as long as that of the axis MG, and that the allied MG can fire twice as many bursts before having to reload as the axis (which means 4 times as much time spent firing between reloads for the allied MG).
I've always heard that level one weapons support veterancy has increased the range of Axis MGs. As for the health thing, I've only thought that was true because pioneers will kill Allied MG crews, but I've rarely had engineers be able to kill my Axis MG crews. That may just be because the Allied MG crews carbines suck a lot more than the Axis crews MP40s.
If this is wrong, I'll change me guide, thanks for pointing it out.
This post has been edited by General Grant: May 13 2007, 23:54 PM
First-information on how the two MGs in the game, the Axis MG-42 and the Allied .30 cal differ:
MG-42 Heavy Machine Gun team-260 manpower
Unit Motto: We save the Fatherland's ass in tier 1!
The MG-42's main purpose is as an infantry support weapon, it suppresses enemy troops within the first second of shooting at them, allowing nearby volksgrenadiers or pioneers to slaughter the allied troops. The MG-42 also has a longer range than it's allied counterpart, allowing it to cover more ground. The 42's main weakness is that it doesn't actually kill infantry all that quickly, which means that you need some support to finish off enemy soldiers before they can retreat.
One thing to keep in mind with the MG-42 is that its crew contains some of Germany's brawniest young lads, who wield their MP40s to cause significantly more damage than the Allied .30 cal's carbines. This can be used to your advantage when the enemy tries to flank your MG, because the two extra crew members use their MP40's to great effect against enemy troops. If an enemy puts his jeep right next to your MG-the two 40s will shred it down pretty quickly. However, if you would prefer to avoid such situations, one of the biggest advantages of the 42 is located in a pioneer squad's build menu: The bunker. For only 150 MP you can put your MG in any friendly sector and give it free range over any important sector of the map.
Allied .30 caliber Heavy Machine Gun-240 manpower
Unit Motto: Sorry... couldn't come up with something witty
The .30 cal has a much shorter range than the MG-42, and it is the one unit in the game that reliably loses to flanking pioneers in close quarters combat. It also takes a lot longer to suppress enemy squads than the MG-42, because the sound of a water-cooled MG is less scary. Why on Earth would you build it then? The .30 cal's big advantage over the MG-42 is that it reaps a harvest of +3 and +5 numbers whenever it encounters Axis infantry, it does an AMAZING amount of damage. The .30 cal also has to reload a lot less often than the 42, allowing it to spend more time shooting. The .30 cal can also destroy Axis halftracks, Pumas, and motorcycles by spending 35 munitions on its armor piercing rounds ability, which makes it shred through vehicle armor, (it also can slightly dent Stugs, reducing their health by 1-3% per use of the ability).
The allied MG, due to its incredibly low health and short range, is much more reliant on garrisoned buildings than the MG-42. Unfortunately, engineers cannot build bunkers for the .30 cal to take shelter in, (well they can, but the bunker costs 15 fuel and comes with a machine gun anyway, making it a useless gesture). Thus, the .30 cal is not very useful on the left side of Angoville, and almost not at all on Beaux. Semois and Sturzdorf are the only 1v1 maps I would recommend going WSC first on for this reason, they have enough buildings for the .30 cal to take cover in. However, if you're having troubles with Axis Stormtroopers or Grenadiers, getting a few .30 cal MGs can give you the edge you need, because they will shred them in no time. They also are great for supporting AT guns, suppressing and slaughtering any MP40 volks or Knights Cross Holders that try and attack them.
Now a brief guide on how each side can counter the enemy MGs:
Allies: A frontal assault will always be fruitless against a prepared MG, because the 42 will suppress your soldiers long before they get in range. The only way to beat a 42 with pure riflemen is with flanking, by going around its field of fire to hit it from the side or rear. You can use this same strategy to beat both garrisoned MGs, and MGs in the field, and getting the Grenade upgrade allows it to work to great effect. The BAR upgrade also will allow riflemen to kill the MG squad if they are in close range, because the big damage of the BAR still occurs when rifles are suppressed, but it's not a hard counter. Since MGs are normally placed in cover, or in garrisoned buildings, using flamethrower engineers usually works to great effect as well.
If you have a WSC, you can also defeat a Axis MG-42 in three additional ways, by using your .30 cal, a sniper, or a mortar. How can a .30 cal beat a garrisoned MG-42? If you put the .30 cal in a nearby building, (without going through the MG's field of fire, of course), the .30 cal's superior damage will let it beat the MG-42. A sniper will take down a 42 in three shots, just look out for enemy bikes! Lastly, a mortar can bombard a garrisoned MG from a distance, destroying the building its trying to take cover in.
The other way to beat a MG-42 is by going with a fast motorpool. The 42 does little damage against quads and M-8's, so just drive up and shoot the poor guys.
Axis: If your enemy is using a WSC start, the .30 cal will usually be placed in important buildings, such as covering the high munitions on Semois, or the building near the high fuel on Sturz. Knowing this, you can either beat them to the punch by garrisoning your own troops in those buildings, or by avoiding those areas and capping the rest of the map. I would almost NEVER recommend trying to flank a garrisoned .30 cal, because its insanely high damage will cause it to kill at least 240 manpower worth of troops, making the effort useless. However, if the .30 cal is in the open, all you have to do is flank some pioneers or volks behind it, and laugh as they kill the crew.
Removing the .30 cal from a building is very tricky, due to its high damage, so only three units and one doctrine ability really come to mind as working well to kill them. You can get your own sniper to shoot the .30 cal down in three shots, but keep in mind that the allies likely have a sniper as well, so only do this if you were able to eliminate HIS sniper.
The Mortar, produced from tier 2, can blow up buildings to punch your way through his .30 cal line, but is very vulnerable to snipers, dying in two shots. You're going to need a bike or a counter-sniper to do this effectively!
The puma is a solid way to do it, just drive up and murder!
The doctrine ability that solidly counters the .30 cal is the Blitzkrieg assault grenades. Using assault removes the suppression effect, and the troops start chucking nades at the building, blowing the crap out of them!
Anyway, there's my guide. Now go out there and suppress some riflemen!
This post has been edited by General Grant: May 14 2007, 23:26 PM
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