Basically so.
It is good at t0 timings and gets worser to worst as a match goes on. Slow on everything except suppression. But allies have more than familiarised avoiding that as you said
Besides allies have better units to kill mg than wehr to theirs. Better moving dps, more units firing, smoke, flames, hurrah, earlier arty, LV, moving accuracy
If anything, mg42 needs a traverse vet bonus to scale late games.
Actually no. It gets better with vet, only marginally, the main problem is that its got super vulernable crews with a slow ass set up time compounded with the turn time adding in more time.
Basaically in the clearest way i could describe it.
>Squad charging 50 cal
>50 cal sets up
>Squads gets on edge of arc
>Gets shot and suppressed
>Squad charging mg42
>It sets up
>Squad gets on edge of arc
>Takes an additional second to aim and now its getting flank and loses several crew models if not the entire squad.