The current state of the “Willys M2HB” does not reflect historical accuracy nor game balance, instead it has been implemented in such a way that has seemed to baffle the community. If the “Willys M2HB” was simply implemented with several historical abilities of the M2 .50 Caliber machine gun it would actually be more balanced, these being the damage of the .50 caliber rounds and elevation and depression of the gun.
The Damage of the Rounds
The Current state of the damage from the .50 Caliber round fired from the M2 mounted on the Willys M2HB is terribly under-tuned. Though it is hard to measure exact damage numbers with vehicle weapons as they are not given to the community we can guess that since the impacts from the .50 caliber rounds seem to take multiple hits to down an enemy without the vitality perk that the guns damage must be around 10 points. The problem is that 10 points of damage seems to be around the same number as most .30 caliber machine guns, and it doesn’t make any sense that the .50 and .30 caliber machine guns should do similar damage. The game also has set a precedent that “high caliber machine guns” (machine guns that fire a round larger than 10mm in diameter) are much stronger than their “small caliber” (machine guns that fire a round smaller than 10mm) as the engineer build large caliber machine guns seem to do double the damage as the engineer built small caliber machine guns. There is also a smaller matter of realism where there is no way a single soldier could survive multiple rounds or a single round of .50 caliber ammunition striking them, it is simply unrealistic.
Solution?
The solution is simple; make it so that all vehicle mounted high caliber machine guns (including the one mounted on the “Willys M2HB”) match the performance of their engineer built stationary counter-parts. This not only would add consistency to the game, but also historical accuracy, realism, and of coarse make the vehicle more balanced.
The Gun Handling and Maneuverability
The current performance of the M2 .50 Caliber Machine gun mounted on the Willys M2HB does not reflect the guns historical real-life performance nor does it reflect ideal game performance of the vehicle. In real life the .50 caliber M2 machine gun was used primarily to fight aircraft, though it was also often employed against infantry. The reason a .50 caliber M2 machine gun would be attached to a Willys “Jeep” would be to give mobile anti-aircraft defense to ground forces. For this reason “jeep” gunners could be able to elevate their .50 Caliber M2 Machine guns in excess of 60 degrees. In the current game you cannot come anywhere close to that kind of elevation, and why? It is clearly not about game-play balance as the “AS 42” the counter part to the “Willys M2HB” at the same BR has the ability to elevate its 20mm cannon to attack aircraft, so why cant the Willys?
Solution
The solution is rather simple it is not entirely necessary to give the “Willys M2HB” its full historical gun handling ability. But rather to reflect its historical roll and current game balance the elevation should be increased to at least 60 degrees.
Conclusion
If both solutions listed here are accepted and implemented the “Willys M2HB” will become a viable vehicle, and this will surly make the community very happy unlike they are with the current state of the vehicle.
- The “Willys M2HB” needs to be fixed
- The “Willys M2HB” is fine as it is