"Is German firepower too high?" Topic

Many WW2 rules give German infantry extra firepower to reflect the MG34/42. In Rapid Fire Reloaded, for example, German companies get an additional fire dice.

This is understandable.The MG42 had a very high rate of fire and was the core of the German squad. However, this came with a trade-off: riflemen were often tasked with carrying ammunition and supporting the gun, reducing their own individual fire output.

By contrast, British and US squads, built around the Bren gun and M1918 BAR, had less intense automatic fire but more evenly distributed firepower and arguably greater resilience.

Different rules handle this in different ways:

Rapid Fire Reloaded: flat German fire bonus (simple, but unconditional)
Chain of Command: German squads heavily MG-centric; loss of MG is critical
Bolt Action: LMGs fairly homogenised—national differences less pronounced
Flames of War: German MG teams strong, but balanced via points/morale
O Group: abstracts firepower at a higher level, differences less granular

Do rules overstate the German advantage by focusing on MG output while ignoring the manpower cost and dependency on the gun? Do our rules capture the trade-off or just the headline rate of fire?

Interesting point, but the tales of troops pinned own by these weapons are legion so they really should be pretty scary. It might be an idea in games like CoC to reduce the number of fire dice for each crew member lost, instead of just when down to the gunner himself. This could be argued to represent the loss of ammo-carriage and a tendency to use what they have left more sparingly?

The German LMGs were a real game changer.
What is often important is that the MG 34/42 can put down a lot of bullets when a target is visible for a short time.
Superb bit of kit.

martin