At the moment, the DShK has a huge elevation angle due to being mounted on a tripod whereas the M2 and the MG131 are mounted very low, meaning they can not hit aircraft unless they are flying very low. German and American HMGs were mounted on tripods and I will post some images of them.
18 Likes
Light MG and Heavy MG need greater upward/downward angling, that’s for sure 
And we are also still waiting for bi-pod mounting, and regular weapon mounting to work properly.
9 Likes
They could be mounted on tripods, for use against aircraft, but by far and large, especially the German MG 42/43 were on lafette tripod’s and the American 50 call on the tripods we see them on in game.
The current German HMG the MG 131 is a bit of a joke imo, as it was really not used to any extant in that role, required a battire to work, and was a very late war lash up, and should imo be replaced with a lafette mounted MG 42 or 34.
One issue I personally have with the MG’s is there actually more effective per hit than the freaking 2 cm AA guns, and should be, imo toned down in there effectiveness against aircraft.
With the Optic 
4 Likes
They would have to have AP ammo to somewhat match the performance of DSHk and .50 (though personally I’d preffer to give them 2cm autocanon).
But somebody who has penetration tables would have to speak.
The AP effectiveness of the .50 call/ 12.7 cm , 13mm rounds in game atm are pretty over molded, they don’t seam to really take angle of impact into account, if the system did, strafing tanks would be basically pointless as it was in real life .
I think the real question is, do they want these guns the ground HMG’s to be able to kill lightly armored vehicles and aircraft with ease, and do they want planes to be able to strafe tanks.
Because, the game is very far from realistic in many of it’s weapons AP and HE values atm and how those weapons interact with other vehicles in game is often very overmeddled, just look at the rifle caliber MG’s in aircraft, their often still far more effective than 20 mm rounds and bring down enemy planes faster.
I guess in a nut shell, reality has little bearing on what happens in game, it’s just about what the dev’s want.
If they add a MG 34 on a lafette mount, they can make it as lethal as the feal it’s needs to be.
I would of course rather things be more realistic myself, as that has it’s own kind of balance, but that is not the game we have hear.
5 Likes
It’s never gonna happen the devs didn’t wanna hurt the plane mains and if they somehow give that to the machine guns before they fix aa guns then everything is messed up
as Grey said, giving MGs elevation would make them more effective AA guns than the AA guns, and we can’t go hurting CAS players feelings, its not like they can snipe tanks from 3km out and kill them on the other side of a wall with splash damage, we cant go making them vulnerable.
AA guns are a joke as is, and even with the poor elevation, mounted MGs still do more per-hit damage than the AA guns, which makes them more effective if you have the forethought to set up lanes of fire.