Personally I would love to see GPMGs represented in the game. This is why I wrote this post, to show you how it worked and maybe together we will find good way to implement this.
Reality
General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) are meant to serve tactical roles of other specialised MGs.
To ilustrate what does it mean I will use MG34 as an example, as it was one of the first mass produced GPMGs.
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LMG role;
MG34 could be caried with 50 round ammo belt in the Gurttrommel magazine. Thanks to that it was always ready to fire and could provide fire support in case of emergency unlike the heavier MGs that would require to set them up before firing.
Squad caried 5x 50 round belts and 3x 300 round belts. Changing belt to the larger one allowed to provide firepower witouth need to reload frequently, although made this weapon more stacionary as 300 round belt in box weighted ~13kg.
There was also a 75 round magazine but as far as I know it wasn’t meant to be used by soldiers on foot.
Because MG34 used fully powered cartridges and had quite high rate of fire, it’s barrel was prone to overheat. After every 200-300 rounds fired it’s barrel had to be replaced with cool one. Thanks to a quick-change barrel feature, good MG crew could do this in about 3s including reload. Rotation of 3 barrels (1 in the gun while 2 are cooling) allowed for continuous fire under combat conditions. It was possible to fire with overheated barrel but it resulted in low accuracy and higher chance of malfunction, it may be dangerous for the user.
It was meant to be fired from bipod but could be fired in hand or held by another soldier. Bipod could be placed on uneven terrain thanks to tilt, it’s height could be adjusted, could be folded one way and could be turned 180* if placement required this. Thanks to that it was relatively easy to place and made handling the weapon easier.
(It’s MG42 but it doesn’t change much. I have no idea why fallschirmjager has this gun.) -
HMG role;
Quick explanation: I will use german WW2 terminology here, it’s different than most so be aware.
When mounted on tripod MG34 was considered HMG, it was meant to provide fire support on long distances (in theory even to 4km).
One of the used tripods was Lafette (Lafette 34 in this case) which was quite a piece of engineering itself, although it was costly. Thanks to it’s construction it was able to disperce some part of gun’s recoil (most tripods only transfered this force into the ground), allowed to regulate hight and had trigger mechanism that is too compleks to bother. I’ve heard that tripod was always near MG, it’s probably a simplification but I have no way to check this.
As previously it had to have barrels changed to avoid overheat and used longer ammo belts.
One of the additions were sights, including magnifying and periscopic sights. Also there were spare locks for the gun stored on the mount.
Crew consisted of 4 man (I guess in ideal conditions but I’m not sure). Commander who spotted targets; gunner who aimed the gun, reloaded etc; assistant gunner who helped gunner in reload, barrel change etc; “the dude that carried ammo from the storage”.
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AA role;
With usage of tripod the gun could act as light AA defence, mostly to scare off enemy rather than destroy. AA sights could be mounted. Rate of fire was modified to be higher by change of spring.
Those three roles are enough for the next part but there were also:
- aircraft gun role;
- vehicle gun roe;
The most important part is that MG could be transformed into any of those roles very quickly. In comparason the Allies had to have several guns nearby to use when needed. For example when HMG was needed the Allies had to transport it on the position and set it up while germans already had gun on the position and may also have tripod already with them.
In game
I would like to see overhaul of current MG nest (I assume MG nest in meant to be HMG). I suggest to give germans Lafette mount and let them place MG on it, but it creates a lot of problems:
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In terms of crew we have no crew. One man can’t use MG as effectively as 2+ man crew. Even if he could, the weight of all necesarry items would be too big for one man. I would suggest at least 2 man crew.
My idea is to allow every squad member to be AG, I guess it’s the simplest way (or maybe only rifleman can be AG). I you want AG then you give order, otherwise you fire solo. Soldier with proper equipment (more about it below) would have priority in taking role of AG. With his help, MG can be reloaded faster, change barrel faster and have shorter time of clearing malfunction.
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Of course the ballance. The Allies had no counterpart of GPMGs so I don’t think they can be implemented into the game withouth a (very) asimetrical ballance of the game. Otherweise it will cause a lot of problems.
My best idea is to give germans Lafette in secondary slot, while it’s placed on the ground MG gunner can mount his MG on it. Allies would have parts of HMG in secondary slots. This way they can build it without loss of normal firepower. But then it would be disadvantageous for germans because if they are flanked they can’t pick MG from the mount quickly enough so they have less guns, Allies in the same situation have their full firepower. Also germans have to have MG gunner in squad with proper weapon.
(Example of Allied HMG.)
2.5 There is question about what happens when MG gets destroyed but in current state of this idea it’s too early to think about in my opinion.
Some other ideas:
- Ammo box as an item to equip. This would allow MG gunner to switch between 50 round belt and 200-300 round belt when the gun is bipoded. When soldier would like to walk with long belt loaded he will be unable to run because of hanging belt, maybe also have lower walk speed. Also there would be higher chanse of mallfucntion because of dirt on the belt. I don’t think it would cause any problems if implemented. I would prevent MG gunners from owning it because they already carry heavy gun.
- Additional barrels. Item to equip that will allow to change the barrel. Withouth it gunner has to be careful to not overheat the weapon because he can’t change the barrel. Maybe barrel has to be outside of the gun for certain time to cool but it may require too much effort to implement. Idea of additional barrel as item is questionable because I don’t see any reason not to take it.
Also I suggest to give MG nest sth similar to ratation speed in tanks (of course much faster but not instant). It would prevent shooting left and right witouth thinking and would simulate operating mount.
Ps.
I may be mistaken in many informations I wrote but it’s the best I can do.
Well done if you’ve managed to read it all 
