So here’s my idea how to deal with this issue without cosplaying a badly supplied army:
USA - The M2 Carbine is an assault rifle, so make it an assaulter weapon, just like the MP 43/I (and lower its and M1 Carbine’s damn recoil by half, it doesn’t fire rifle rounds to have rifle recoil)
Germany - FG 42 was made exclusively for paratroopers, so make special paratrooper squads and lock the weapon to those squads. I have described it in more details here: Some suggestions to balance the Invasion of Normandy
USSR - Here is a bit of a problem, as the AVS-36 was indeed intended to be a general issue rifle (the AVT-40 was, as far as I know, made to suplement the machine gun shortage of the Red Army). So, with a bit of mental gymnastics, I think that the best solution here is just limiting the amount of those weapons to one per squad, with maybe two for the infantry squad to encourage people to play them more.
AVS still has gobs more recoil than the FG 42, 78/27 to 47/20, and less ammo, 2 15 round mags to 2 20 round mags, so, on a direct comparison of the two, FG 42 still seems pretty damn far ahead. Soviets have other advantages, so not saying “OMG PLZ NERF” or what have you, but I feel like its easy to forget just how nutty FG42s paper stats are.
Yet another…
I don’t mind auto rifles as they are (yep, I DARED say it). Because they are somewhat rare in matchs already. Might see 1 players, rarely 2, often none at all with fg/avs/m2 .
Being this way, they’re not that gamebreaking, and most people using them do it poorly to boot. Always fun teaching them a lesson when they are too cocky.
What the fuck?
I made the topic while being a dedicated Axis player, if you want, I can show you screens from my other campaigns, my highest level with Allies is 12 in Normandy.
And if you would like to read more than just the text above the screenshots, you’ll see that I more less have a solution for the full auto spam. And guess what, if those weapons would be limited the way I said, it would be fine for the FG 42, the AVS-36 and AVT-40 to have even three spare magazines like the MP 43/I or M2 Carbine do right now.
And this solution would also bring one important thing to the game - more realism. It’s just not historical for every german soldier to have the FG 42, or fot every Soviet one to have the AVT-40, nor is it historical to bring just one spare magazine into the battle with you. Limiting those weapons while making them more powerful by increasing their ammo would solve both of those issues.
It’s full auto and shoots intermediate ammunition, so it’s an assault rifle. The M1 Carbine is conceptually a PDW, but doesn’t really qualify technically because it’s semi auto only. The M2 however is an assault rifle.
.