Sometime matchmaking is a bitch, that being said just play your best, the better you are the harder you can carry and your random rank will reflect that.
It's hard to carry as Ostheer (and brits) as the other factions can do an aggressive flanking push on the teammate's side way easier. I think your best bet is either trying to steamroll the opponent on your side or leave few units like pio or MG on your side and send the rest to a flanking push once you have the feeling that your side stabilized enough
Completely abandoning one side of the map is something I wouldn't recommend with random teammates
How come you say that? We got a handbrake mode for AA halftracks and it's apparently possible to implement a manual reload command since I think blitzkrieg/spearhead has it and certain abilities like AP rounds force reloads on mgs.
MrSmith implemented such a key in a balance mod... the one which got canceled if you remember. I have no idea however why this mechanic got dismissed after that
I think it would be an amazing QoL improvement if all HMGs in CoH2 and later in CoH3 would have a "handbrake" mode like the vehicles and a manual reload button.
In a lot engagements you are forced to aim at specific units with the HMG, but in the heat of the battle it can happen easily that you missclick the enemy squad by 1 nanometer, giving the HMG a move order instead so it dismantles the MG, forcing you to retreat and lose an important engagement which opens a flank for the enemy... I guess we all know this situation. Handbrake mode would prevent that from happening.
Same for manual reload. The enemy enters the arc of fire of the HMG, the MG fires 1 bullet then immediately reloads cuz it had only one bullet left in the canister, costing you the engagement.
I am 100% sure we even had this mechanic already implemented into the game by MrSmith in a previous balance mod, but it was entirely dismissed for whatever reason.