MG 42 was buffed very slightly today, and while I didn't have experience using it, my friend said it more consistently suppresses in the first burst now.
Yeah, I seriously don´t get this game any longer. What were they thinking? The roles are totally flipped.
The side with the historical better MGs (MG34/42) get´s the weaker ones.
The side with inferior numbers gets a doctrine which allows to spam cheap infantry (Osttruppen).
The side which excelled at tank combat from far, gets outranged by the standard Russian T4 vehicle and has to rush in the tanks in close range to actually do something. Close combat - a thing German tankers actually tried to avoid like the plague.
The side that almost didn´t have an airforce present in 1944, gets an air-doctrine.
Or how Shtrafniki are armed with SVT-40 and are all around stronger, more expensive, and more durable than Conscripts. They get Satchels explosives and flamethrowers too, definately want to keep them alive. In real life though? They were cannon fodder and nothing more. They weren't infantry, they were blobs you charged into machine guns. They were the guys who wore dark coats and carried sticks, so the Germans would fire at them instead of the white-jacketed Red Army troops hiding beside them. Not to mention everyone in the Soviet Army is either an Engineer, Conscripts, Convict, Guard, or Shock Troop. What happened to the Strelki? Am I to assume they were all killed or captured in the initial invasion and that nobody volunteered to take their place?
I doubt all this was done on purpose, most of it is probably initial design vs final execution, but regardless the current design is perplexing at best.