A tactical doctrine for dealing with HMGs?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

5 hours ago, domfluff said:

Moving troops will Quick or Fast move to the next spot if they come under fire, and don't have any contact markers - i.e., "something shot at us, but we don't know who, where or what".

Not convinced that this behaviour is a characteristic of the Move order, I suspect it has much more to do with the AI's 'seek cover' routines.

[domfluff]

Sure, but without any contact markers or spots to react to - what else are they going to do?

They have nothing to fire at, and haven't had enough incoming fire to either go to ground (the next response), or run away out of LOS (and won't know where to run to, since they don't know what's firing at them).

If they get fired at whilst Move-ing by an enemy they can actually see, they'll have a chance of returning fire, rather than running around blind. Typically, the element that makes contact will be the last to figure that out though.

[Zardoz01]

This discussion of the characteristics of the various move orders is great stuff. I might start a separate topic on it as I have a few more questions.

On the MG42 my so-far limited experience in the game suggests that when set up on the sustained fire tripod, LOFs are easier to find.

[axxe]

Something else to keep in mind: suppressing the HMG is not absolutely necessary to assault it. You just need it not firing at the assault team. This can sometimes be achieved by keeping it firing at those scouts who first discovered the HMG. I have had success moving one team toward one side of the HMG team with some cover and concealment (enough to keep them alive but with periodic exposure so the HMG will rotate to track them) and then another team moving around the other side of the HMG team for the assault.  If you can open the scout-team / HMG / assault-team arc to 90+ degrees the HMG will have a tougher time spotting the assault team.

[user1000]

I have found that breaking off a 2 man AT team with bazooka and AT rifle indirect firing at the building is enough to make the HMG team suppressed or flee.