SimpleSimon

CM scenarios are usually a bit overpopulated to execute proper recce missions as designed unfortunately. It can be done, but the scenario designers don't usually seem to have a good picture of how recon works and what it's doing. So the player always gets asked to do insanely dangerous stuff like close probes and infiltration. Recon typically tried to avoid fighting as much possible except against targets they could obviously trounce, think a 232 vs a pair of guys in a fox hole. 
If you try to use armored cars like tanks you will be very disappointed. If you try to use them like a Kubelwagon but with armor and a 20mm gun you will turn up better results. The Americans and Germans had some of the most heavily armed and armored recon of any of the Allied/Axis armies-a fact which tended to compel German Generals to use and expend them as armored infantry which also wasted such a valuable asset. American commanders seem to have granted their armored recon a ton of latitude and independence-old cavalry traditions probably-and so they tended to end up surviving more often but also tended to end up driving out into the middle of nowhere, negatively impacting their HQ's situational awareness. These are big reasons why the Russians gave battlefield commanders just about none of it for their own use and withheld armored recon squadrons at higher levels. They didn't have many of them-so they had to be used somewhat more carefully than a Division commander might be inclined to. 
 

While mostly true in the abstract, I think a lot of players will be surprised in the ways Soviet tech can prove superior to western equivalents just as the cases where Western forces will make a viable play with superior numbers rather than technical sophistication. Rarely will cases line up that ideally fit every stereotype that 40 years of badly written fiction implied...

A whole class of guns existed during and before the war you know that had big guns but lacked the benefit of things like protection and self propulsion. They were known as "infantry guns" and they were designed entirely for direct fire on positions they had line of sight toward. That sounds pretty silly at first-but at the ranges of intended use, such as a kilometer or more-most infantry weapons had great difficulty hitting you and you could just bombard them. Infantry guns were slowly being supplanted by mortars as the war went on, but stuck around for a bit when the tank began to appear on the battlefield because anti-tank guns were always in short supply and the infantry needed absolutely anything that could sling a respectable AP or HEAT round into a Panzer. 
But regular field artillery often had substantial mechanisms for direct fire built in as well, and were given that job frequently in some armies in spite of the risk. Because in fact as long as the gun was kept a safe distance from the enemy (or in defilade) the advantage rested with the big gun chucking 15lb high explosive rounds. So with that in mind, it's not that extreme to see something like the Hummel or Priest-which at least had the benefit of armor and mobility-pressed into infantry support. You're right, they're not tanks, but there should still be a lot of work a self propelled 105mm gun in 1944 can do. 

A whole class of guns existed during and before the war you know that had big guns but lacked the benefit of things like protection and self propulsion. They were known as "infantry guns" and they were designed entirely for direct fire on positions they had line of sight toward. That sounds pretty silly at first-but at the ranges of intended use, such as a kilometer or more-most infantry weapons had great difficulty hitting you and you could just bombard them. Infantry guns were slowly being supplanted by mortars as the war went on, but stuck around for a bit when the tank began to appear on the battlefield because anti-tank guns were always in short supply and the infantry needed absolutely anything that could sling a respectable AP or HEAT round into a Panzer. 
But regular field artillery often had substantial mechanisms for direct fire built in as well, and were given that job frequently in some armies in spite of the risk. Because in fact as long as the gun was kept a safe distance from the enemy (or in defilade) the advantage rested with the big gun chucking 15lb high explosive rounds. So with that in mind, it's not that extreme to see something like the Hummel or Priest-which at least had the benefit of armor and mobility-pressed into infantry support. You're right, they're not tanks, but there should still be a lot of work a self propelled 105mm gun in 1944 can do. 

Love to see a module featuring or focused on French forces of NATO... 

Not much differently from 1945 either Bletchley. Apply firepower, then a little more, and once the heavy guns are dry, send some bullets. Then send men, but not prior to flattening the grid square. If you're using an Armored Division troop, apply all of the above, but send a tank between the bullets and then the man step. Tactically the US Army looked pretty good, and was second only to the Red Army in being subject to the least of post-war cuts and expenditure reductions-which were still quite substantial nonetheless. US Army Divisions had all of their artillery batteries augmented from 4 guns to 6 after the war, however some of the expansions in US heavy firepower were offset by Soviet improvements in their own artillery parks. So unlike the Wehrmacht US Infantry would be facing much more serious threats from counter-battery and preparatory fire this time around. The BM-21 is not a terribly sophisticated piece of equipment but God, they sure got a hell ofa lot of em! 
Much like the Wehrmacht, it seems that much American thinking was now oriented toward strong-point style defense which would hopefully nullify much of the consequence of the heavier fire by simply not presenting any target. Then of course the Armored Divisions would have many built in advantages against that but much like the conundrum facing the Panzer Divisions in 1944- how many of those do you have? You've got 7th Army. Group Soviet Forces Germany alone is seven Armies. 
What's the promise of defeating the Red Assault with strings of infantry in blocking positions and counter-attacks by Armored Divisions to plug gaps? If 1945 is any hint, it's not good-but there's room for frustrating time-tables and slowing down the enemy's advance. This was a big element of the REFORGER exercises after all ie: hold on until the cavalry arrives. In this frame there's quite a room for Combat Commands/Brigade Combat Teams to work around inside of. If Bill's force looks like the buffet table at the Shoney's that's because his force is a post ROAD (Reorganization of Army Divisions) command. IE: It's all Brigade Combat Teams, not Regiments. So the structure is closer to 2007, but the execution will still look more like 1945. 

Not much differently from 1945 either Bletchley. Apply firepower, then a little more, and once the heavy guns are dry, send some bullets. Then send men, but not prior to flattening the grid square. If you're using an Armored Division troop, apply all of the above, but send a tank between the bullets and then the man step. Tactically the US Army looked pretty good, and was second only to the Red Army in being subject to the least of post-war cuts and expenditure reductions-which were still quite substantial nonetheless. US Army Divisions had all of their artillery batteries augmented from 4 guns to 6 after the war, however some of the expansions in US heavy firepower were offset by Soviet improvements in their own artillery parks. So unlike the Wehrmacht US Infantry would be facing much more serious threats from counter-battery and preparatory fire this time around. The BM-21 is not a terribly sophisticated piece of equipment but God, they sure got a hell ofa lot of em! 
Much like the Wehrmacht, it seems that much American thinking was now oriented toward strong-point style defense which would hopefully nullify much of the consequence of the heavier fire by simply not presenting any target. Then of course the Armored Divisions would have many built in advantages against that but much like the conundrum facing the Panzer Divisions in 1944- how many of those do you have? You've got 7th Army. Group Soviet Forces Germany alone is seven Armies. 
What's the promise of defeating the Red Assault with strings of infantry in blocking positions and counter-attacks by Armored Divisions to plug gaps? If 1945 is any hint, it's not good-but there's room for frustrating time-tables and slowing down the enemy's advance. This was a big element of the REFORGER exercises after all ie: hold on until the cavalry arrives. In this frame there's quite a room for Combat Commands/Brigade Combat Teams to work around inside of. If Bill's force looks like the buffet table at the Shoney's that's because his force is a post ROAD (Reorganization of Army Divisions) command. IE: It's all Brigade Combat Teams, not Regiments. So the structure is closer to 2007, but the execution will still look more like 1945. 

Not much differently from 1945 either Bletchley. Apply firepower, then a little more, and once the heavy guns are dry, send some bullets. Then send men, but not prior to flattening the grid square. If you're using an Armored Division troop, apply all of the above, but send a tank between the bullets and then the man step. Tactically the US Army looked pretty good, and was second only to the Red Army in being subject to the least of post-war cuts and expenditure reductions-which were still quite substantial nonetheless. US Army Divisions had all of their artillery batteries augmented from 4 guns to 6 after the war, however some of the expansions in US heavy firepower were offset by Soviet improvements in their own artillery parks. So unlike the Wehrmacht US Infantry would be facing much more serious threats from counter-battery and preparatory fire this time around. The BM-21 is not a terribly sophisticated piece of equipment but God, they sure got a hell ofa lot of em! 
Much like the Wehrmacht, it seems that much American thinking was now oriented toward strong-point style defense which would hopefully nullify much of the consequence of the heavier fire by simply not presenting any target. Then of course the Armored Divisions would have many built in advantages against that but much like the conundrum facing the Panzer Divisions in 1944- how many of those do you have? You've got 7th Army. Group Soviet Forces Germany alone is seven Armies. 
What's the promise of defeating the Red Assault with strings of infantry in blocking positions and counter-attacks by Armored Divisions to plug gaps? If 1945 is any hint, it's not good-but there's room for frustrating time-tables and slowing down the enemy's advance. This was a big element of the REFORGER exercises after all ie: hold on until the cavalry arrives. In this frame there's quite a room for Combat Commands/Brigade Combat Teams to work around inside of. If Bill's force looks like the buffet table at the Shoney's that's because his force is a post ROAD (Reorganization of Army Divisions) command. IE: It's all Brigade Combat Teams, not Regiments. So the structure is closer to 2007, but the execution will still look more like 1945. 

Love to see a module featuring or focused on French forces of NATO... 

Love to see a module featuring or focused on French forces of NATO... 

You'll see something in between I think. After the Second World War pressure was low enough that Armies could start adopting the first and second generation Assault Rifles. The FAL, the AK-47, the M-14 etc. Despite being capable of automatic fire the thinking was still very much focused around screening the squad's "big gun" it's machine gun. And emphasis was placed on use of automatic fire from the rifle only in an emergency. Meanwhile the LMG/MMG/HMG began to be dropped in favor of the GPMG such as the RPD and M-60, although some stuff like the Bren and Vickers hung around for a surprisingly long time and the MG42 re-appeared as the MG3 because that gun was already a generation-ahead when it was developed. 
If you end up fighting distant targets you'll probably see situations develop little-different from 1945. With the squad's machine gun doing most of the heavy lifting and the rifle infantry occasionally taking pot shots at clearly visible targets. Most rifles of the day still used iron sights and the human eye did not evolve much in the years between 1805 and 1965. Inside of about 200 meters though you'll see situations which will more closely resemble Shock Force 2 though. Now that automatic firepower has been distributed throughout the squad as long as the range is close you'll see the sort of situations where mistakes made at such close ranges can be rapidly punished by a ready defender. 
Don't be surprised when you see situations that seem to fit most of the notions of 1945 but then look a bit more like 2007 in others. This is very much the in-between period of those points. 

Reality is (reflected by this experiment) that tanks of peer tonnage and armament are likely to get lots of kills on each-other and it's going to be bloody. Even crew quality might much be softer than usual, someone's going to get lucky eventually and put a 75mm round into your tank somehow. 
In just about any example one could pull, Villers-Bocage, Prokhorovka, El Alamein, etc tank losses on both sides were usually heavy as long as both sides applied tanks. With the defender typically coming off worse in terms of permanent losses or losses overall. Tanks are not very efficient for defensive work, but they're usually the only way to stop another Tank Army. This is a big reason why the Panzer Divisions were constantly under-strength, because the Red Army wouldn't pause very long between offensives and just kept forcing German Commanders to commit them in order to save the Infantry Divisions and stop whole Armies from getting rolled up. The other reason was the frustratingly slow adoption of the Panther, on the other hand having one of the Division's tank regiments away from the war's biggest battles might also save a Panzer Division from total annihilation, and there was no hope of expanding the total number of tank Divisions after 1942 anyway. 
Nice job on the research Drifter. 

Reality is (reflected by this experiment) that tanks of peer tonnage and armament are likely to get lots of kills on each-other and it's going to be bloody. Even crew quality might much be softer than usual, someone's going to get lucky eventually and put a 75mm round into your tank somehow. 
In just about any example one could pull, Villers-Bocage, Prokhorovka, El Alamein, etc tank losses on both sides were usually heavy as long as both sides applied tanks. With the defender typically coming off worse in terms of permanent losses or losses overall. Tanks are not very efficient for defensive work, but they're usually the only way to stop another Tank Army. This is a big reason why the Panzer Divisions were constantly under-strength, because the Red Army wouldn't pause very long between offensives and just kept forcing German Commanders to commit them in order to save the Infantry Divisions and stop whole Armies from getting rolled up. The other reason was the frustratingly slow adoption of the Panther, on the other hand having one of the Division's tank regiments away from the war's biggest battles might also save a Panzer Division from total annihilation, and there was no hope of expanding the total number of tank Divisions after 1942 anyway. 
Nice job on the research Drifter. 

Reality is (reflected by this experiment) that tanks of peer tonnage and armament are likely to get lots of kills on each-other and it's going to be bloody. Even crew quality might much be softer than usual, someone's going to get lucky eventually and put a 75mm round into your tank somehow. 
In just about any example one could pull, Villers-Bocage, Prokhorovka, El Alamein, etc tank losses on both sides were usually heavy as long as both sides applied tanks. With the defender typically coming off worse in terms of permanent losses or losses overall. Tanks are not very efficient for defensive work, but they're usually the only way to stop another Tank Army. This is a big reason why the Panzer Divisions were constantly under-strength, because the Red Army wouldn't pause very long between offensives and just kept forcing German Commanders to commit them in order to save the Infantry Divisions and stop whole Armies from getting rolled up. The other reason was the frustratingly slow adoption of the Panther, on the other hand having one of the Division's tank regiments away from the war's biggest battles might also save a Panzer Division from total annihilation, and there was no hope of expanding the total number of tank Divisions after 1942 anyway. 
Nice job on the research Drifter. 

It's a training film but any range that required you to lead the tank you were shooting at was probably not range you'd achieve penetrations at. It's certainly impressive how much of the rifle was essentially one big shock-absorber though. 
It's funny how much the helplessness of infantry against tanks is glossed over so cleverly. You are extremely unlikely to snap the track on any tank with a single .55 boys round and if you're a steady enough hand to actually hit the turret ring of a moving tank i'd make you my platoon's designated marksman. I'm not wasting my Company's Olympic Gold Medal shooter on an anti-tank rifle...

It's a training film but any range that required you to lead the tank you were shooting at was probably not range you'd achieve penetrations at. It's certainly impressive how much of the rifle was essentially one big shock-absorber though. 
It's funny how much the helplessness of infantry against tanks is glossed over so cleverly. You are extremely unlikely to snap the track on any tank with a single .55 boys round and if you're a steady enough hand to actually hit the turret ring of a moving tank i'd make you my platoon's designated marksman. I'm not wasting my Company's Olympic Gold Medal shooter on an anti-tank rifle...

Actually, His Dead Puritanical Majesty is my major source of culture and example of how to proper talk right good.  I was actually mesmerized (horrified?) by the videos he linked where some crazy bald fat dude sang about his new 'motor' and his Doc Martin boots.
Maybe it was middle of the night in Blighty and his mind was obforscated or some such.

What is the rationale of the current mechanics Red Thunder governs air attack by anyway? It's inconsistent with the other games and its problem has nothing to do with whether the Russians used Forward Air Controllers or not. The whole thing is just really weird. They're far too responsive and controllable in the active phase, taking orders to point attack individual foxholes  which they most certainly did not do in 1944. But that's not the worst issue with them by far. 
It's that they cannot be controlled at all or influenced in the planning phase that makes them an irrelevant feature. They seriously whiff attacks even when given a TRP based on some silly RNG value. They don't even try to attack sometimes and thus the RNG for them is so wide as to be pointless. You're better off just abstracting the consequences of their attacks by reducing target headcounts and placing some suggestive map craters in the editor. But man what a waste of a feature.
 

Well infantry attacks were by no means abnormal operations-despite the findings of the Royal Artillery after all, it was agreed that heavy fire by itself was usually not decisive. What I'm just noticing these days is that broken scoring mechanics and map context are really corrosive to the scenarios often more-so than balance.
Like Hammer's Flank drove me nuts in base but really it'd be easy to fix by just relieving the player from the insanity of having to capture and clear an entire 2km map covered with overlapping entrenched MG42, flak, and anti-tank positions with some mortars and gun carriers. "Just reach phase line alpha and you can progress. If you're nuts and really want that medal then go for phase line beta but I warn you Comrade, Stavka gave you no artillery support and you will not be rewarded for such reckless conduct in our Army as you would be in the Fascist Army." 
Infantry did a lot during the big wars, it's just that it didn't usually look like how it looked in a movie or pop-history book. The frontline was generally way more permeable than maps made it look. German withdrawals were thwarted all the time by Battalions of Russians appearing-literally-right behind them. This is what I see really. Little in the way of firing and maneuver at the same time, more usually maneuver today, fire tomorrow if you get what i'm saying. This is why the Germans valued weapons like the Pak 40 and MG42 so much, because of the value they got out of restricting enemy movement. Not because movement itself was dangerous but because if allowed unchecked the end-result of the maneuver would be an Allied force in a position from which they could fully apply the mass of their firepower. That's why the Allies didn't value such individually potent weapons like the MG42, they saw the whole mass of the platoon mag dumping on the four of five guys left of a squad who miraculously survived the 25pdr and 4.5 in fire that was falling on them. 
 

It'd be cool if engineer skill level affected things like the quality of mine removal but sadly the fact that mines are never truly 'removed' leaves them a bit overpowered as a game mechanic I feel. They should be used with great caution in a CM game. What isn't used enough I think is barbed wire obstacles. Those are more binary and oddly people only ever seem to use them in way that makes them worthless ie: 2-3 bound together in an open field where they restrict neither movement nor enemy fire.
They should be strung out in places like forests or low ground where the enemy might try to maneuver through out of sight of a defender's heavy weapons. There should be enough of them to seriously and actually impede attacker mobility. Scenario designers seem to use them in a way that frequently makes them ineffective. 

Personally i'm holding out for the appearance of Hungarian and Romanian troops in one of the CM games one day but I doubt i'll see em. The Hungarians especially had a large assortment of domestically manufactured armored vehicles, (the Toldi, Turan, Zrnyi etc) while both of them have large stocks of those old Skoda and German World War 1 field artillery tubes still around that I want to try out. It'd be especially cool if more of the guns would start appear as on-map assets too but *shrug*. 
I kind of want people to get a better sense of how "the infantry" usually fought, but most of the CM games seem oriented around Panzerkrieg stuff. Rolling armored thrusts up the main axis of advance etc. Exciting stuff, but not what most guys were doing lol. Fortress Italy's American campaigns were a good example of what i'm talking about ie: the infantry-artillery slugout...
Infantry who appear under-gunned were usually expected to operate with substantial support-hence why so many Armies were marching around with bolt action rifles. It's just that only the Americans and British could usually make that support materialize while the Russians could take advantage of their "light" troops to whip around the mostly permeable Eastern Front to just appear behind the enemy. That's the other environment where light infantry get along well, where no frontline exists...

Personally i'm holding out for the appearance of Hungarian and Romanian troops in one of the CM games one day but I doubt i'll see em. The Hungarians especially had a large assortment of domestically manufactured armored vehicles, (the Toldi, Turan, Zrnyi etc) while both of them have large stocks of those old Skoda and German World War 1 field artillery tubes still around that I want to try out. It'd be especially cool if more of the guns would start appear as on-map assets too but *shrug*. 
I kind of want people to get a better sense of how "the infantry" usually fought, but most of the CM games seem oriented around Panzerkrieg stuff. Rolling armored thrusts up the main axis of advance etc. Exciting stuff, but not what most guys were doing lol. Fortress Italy's American campaigns were a good example of what i'm talking about ie: the infantry-artillery slugout...
Infantry who appear under-gunned were usually expected to operate with substantial support-hence why so many Armies were marching around with bolt action rifles. It's just that only the Americans and British could usually make that support materialize while the Russians could take advantage of their "light" troops to whip around the mostly permeable Eastern Front to just appear behind the enemy. That's the other environment where light infantry get along well, where no frontline exists...

It didn't become obsolete, it became inappropriate. Tbh I often hear the word 'obsolete' a lot and it never fails to give me pause. What does it mean? Since the Bren is obsolete what does that mean exactly? That it's not a threat? Couldn't be since it fires bullets and last I checked, modern guns still fire those. No the Bren's problem just as the problem of the generation of weapons that came before it was that the Armies it was built for reconfigured around light, mobile, and fast cadres of uniformly well-equipped and motorized task-force style military formations. The US Army typically refers to them as "Combat Teams" ie Regimental Combat Team, Brigade Combat Team, etc. Such formations have no use for positional fighting, preferring mobility and fast reaction to the "trench" fighting of the 20th century's wars. Those wars were fought by huge million man draftee Armies that don't exist anymore for good reason. (They were not terribly efficient and tended to lend themselves to excessive displays of aggression and brinksmanship on the part of the host' nation.) 
Small formations are easier to equip uniformly, the most important element of this the near universal-preponderance of motorization and mechanization by modern military forces. Nobody huffs it on foot anymore anywhere really, except for training events. Maneuverability used to be luxury but now battlefields are under such total surveillance that it means survival and this means that formations must be light. This has an observable affect on weapon systems at all levels of these formations from the prevalence of light armor now reflected by the IFV such Marder, Bradley, Warrior etc, and ICV such as Stryker, BTR, Dingo, MRAP, etc. Modern military forces at least in the west are literally the ultimate realization of Guderian's or Liddell Hart's designs, crucially enabled by the circumstances of today's world- a design which did not exist in their time. In these circumstances yeah, the MG42 is the best. It's such an optimal weapon for this kind of force configuration that just about every potential competitor available, the MAG, the Minimi, the M60, the PKM, all incorporate some degree of it in their design be it technical (air cooled, belt-feed, quick change barrel), or usage (the GPMG as a concept). This is where many of the frequent claims that various modern machine guns are all "copies" of the MG42 has a modicum of truth to it, but statements like that create more questions than they answer without some all important context. "Well yes, but no"
First generation assault rifles already numbered the Bren's days of course, (and never could've equipped those huge draftee Armies) but at least for a time what the Bren had on any assault rifle was that it could actually maintain sustained automatic fire while assault rifles couldn't do this without overheating. (The British designed their version of the FAL for this but it ended up being very heavy.) Design being the way it was assault rifles were expected to use automatic fire only for emergencies but otherwise operate more or less as the last generation of battle rifles just had. Shooting mainly at specific targets. Once the MAG and Minimi appeared of course the Bren was toast but for some reason the British decided they wanted to try making an assault rifle (the L86) try to play machine gun and it predictably failed because the SA80 it was based on is a rifle and lacks a quick change barrel and a host of other features that make it a good machine gun. It turns out regardless of design ya just can't beat physics, especially not thermodynamics. 
 

It didn't become obsolete, it became inappropriate. Tbh I often hear the word 'obsolete' a lot and it never fails to give me pause. What does it mean? Since the Bren is obsolete what does that mean exactly? That it's not a threat? Couldn't be since it fires bullets and last I checked, modern guns still fire those. No the Bren's problem just as the problem of the generation of weapons that came before it was that the Armies it was built for reconfigured around light, mobile, and fast cadres of uniformly well-equipped and motorized task-force style military formations. The US Army typically refers to them as "Combat Teams" ie Regimental Combat Team, Brigade Combat Team, etc. Such formations have no use for positional fighting, preferring mobility and fast reaction to the "trench" fighting of the 20th century's wars. Those wars were fought by huge million man draftee Armies that don't exist anymore for good reason. (They were not terribly efficient and tended to lend themselves to excessive displays of aggression and brinksmanship on the part of the host' nation.) 
Small formations are easier to equip uniformly, the most important element of this the near universal-preponderance of motorization and mechanization by modern military forces. Nobody huffs it on foot anymore anywhere really, except for training events. Maneuverability used to be luxury but now battlefields are under such total surveillance that it means survival and this means that formations must be light. This has an observable affect on weapon systems at all levels of these formations from the prevalence of light armor now reflected by the IFV such Marder, Bradley, Warrior etc, and ICV such as Stryker, BTR, Dingo, MRAP, etc. Modern military forces at least in the west are literally the ultimate realization of Guderian's or Liddell Hart's designs, crucially enabled by the circumstances of today's world- a design which did not exist in their time. In these circumstances yeah, the MG42 is the best. It's such an optimal weapon for this kind of force configuration that just about every potential competitor available, the MAG, the Minimi, the M60, the PKM, all incorporate some degree of it in their design be it technical (air cooled, belt-feed, quick change barrel), or usage (the GPMG as a concept). This is where many of the frequent claims that various modern machine guns are all "copies" of the MG42 has a modicum of truth to it, but statements like that create more questions than they answer without some all important context. "Well yes, but no"
First generation assault rifles already numbered the Bren's days of course, (and never could've equipped those huge draftee Armies) but at least for a time what the Bren had on any assault rifle was that it could actually maintain sustained automatic fire while assault rifles couldn't do this without overheating. (The British designed their version of the FAL for this but it ended up being very heavy.) Design being the way it was assault rifles were expected to use automatic fire only for emergencies but otherwise operate more or less as the last generation of battle rifles just had. Shooting mainly at specific targets. Once the MAG and Minimi appeared of course the Bren was toast but for some reason the British decided they wanted to try making an assault rifle (the L86) try to play machine gun and it predictably failed because the SA80 it was based on is a rifle and lacks a quick change barrel and a host of other features that make it a good machine gun. It turns out regardless of design ya just can't beat physics, especially not thermodynamics. 
 

If the aimpoint wanders it's not going to be a trivial event even if we're thinking in terms of spreads than point fire. As long as you're spotting your fire, it shouldn't matter much, but it's a thing that can happen is all i'm saying. 
Anyway, i'm not seriously trying to suggest that the Bren is a better weapon than the MG34/42, just that its merits are often downplayed a bit much for my taste because it doesn't fit a model or method of fighting it wasn't designed for. The Germans encouraged a bit more distinct squad-level tactics than the British did, fire-and-maneuver etc whereas the British rifle infantry preferred something closer to fire-and-advance, but they never named their design like Auftragstaktik or anything. German infantry squads didn't have light mortars though (they did at first but their early war model-the granatwerfer 36-was one of the worst examples of the type), and this is part of the reason why I think verges on misunderstanding to say "the Bren sucked" which i'm accusing no one of.
It's just that even looking at the Bren from MG42 Mountain paints a misleading picture. It leaves out that the British expected the Bren to work in tandem with a 2in mortar, sniper teams, engineers etc all under the cover of the battalion's mortars and HMGs.  This was all fully appreciated by the Germans too, but wielded differently because from that view the squad's machine gun is the main effort, everyone else supports it. The pyramid of support is inverted, it's bottom-up rather than top-down. That's why if you were to give the Wehrmacht the Bren they'd be inclined to look at it and go "oh we don't have much use for that".