"A cavalry charge can only succeed...

[Ricky B]

As a tester on the game, I participated both in testing the variations of the MGs and field guns, including the ability they had early on to deploy and fire away, up in the front lines, drawing defensive fire to which they are very tough to hurt - remember the game uses the "alt" style fire rules and density in the target hex is directly related to losses taken. MG units are under 100 men, and field guns are farily small and hard to hurt. So they were a good breakthrough weapon, even though historically they weren't deployed in the front lines in the attack very easily.

But MGs have a range of 2 hexes and field guns 5 normally, so they even though they have to move up in travel mode, they are hard to hurt with fire and can then deal a lot of destruction. The "feel" is right, even though as you say, WarB, they could really setup and fire quickly - but my thought is they are deployed behind the infantry, which means they get delayed as so commonly happened in the war while waiting for the infantry to move into the attack.

Rick