machine guns

[Narwan]

Another thing to keep in mind is that these machinegun units int he game are crewserved units. What that means is that several men have to be huddled close together to use the weapon system effectively. That means the men in a mg unit will be grouped together in one or more bunches in the hex they are in. A regular infantry unit of the same size and same number of men can have them spread out all across the hex. What this means in the game is that when crewserved weapons take a hit, they tend to get more casualties than non crewserved units. So it's best to keep them out of small arms range of the opponents units.

One very effective use I have for mg units is to use them to hose down the area through which I'll have AFV's moving and where there may be enemy infantry units. Thanks to the splash effect those infantry untis tend go get pinned (but be careful, units with good experience may take quite a bit of 'hosing' before they become pinned!). Any infantry unit whose status is 'ready' has a (theoretical) change of destroying an AFV by close assaulting; most of us have probably witnessed the single sniper who's out of grenades destroying a tank by close assaulting at one point in our gaming careers. By getting these unit pinned you prevent them from close assaulting, and thereby destroying your AFV's that way. If they have infantry AT weapons they can still hurt you, but if they don't or the ones they have aren't good enough to get through the armor you may well have saved yourself a couple of AFV's by spraying some mg area fire.