[RERomine]

To a certain extent, I agree with you Cross. Using a 1-gun MG-34 team as an example, they have 90 ammo points. The question is how many rounds does an ammo point equate to. Given a 3-man team, I'm going to take a SWAG at 3,600 rounds, which is probably high given they the machine gun, tripod and other personal arms and equipment to carry. For the machine gun ammo alone, that gives us over just 200lbs. The math of 3,600 rounds/90 ammo points gives us 40 rounds per ammo point. Assuming the rounds distribute evenly between the target hex and adjacent hexes that gives us 5-6 rounds per hex. In just one shot, it is questionable how much suppression would be caused by 5-6 unaimed rounds. There is an intangible factor to consider, however. Is the mere sound of an machine gun firing cause suppression? More than likely, yes. The US Army had a training film about the MG-42 during WWII because of its reputation. Soldiers hear machine guns firing and they may go to ground first and then try to find out if it is firing at them. This is the equivalent of suppression.

If anything, suppression and damage from a machine gun or any direct fire small arms weapon would likely occur down range from the target. This would be more of a case at close range, when gravity and wind resistance hasn't had much time to impact the flight of the round. Close to the firing weapon, the bullet trajectory is relatively flat. If a machine gun fires at a target at 200m, more than likely rounds that don't hit home will proceed hundreds of meters further before they actually hit the ground and will certainly be traveling fast enough to kill. To fire at longer ranges, you must elevate the barrel to put rounds on targets so at 1000m, more than likely the only hex that would be impacted is the target hex. Now, the short range impact on down range targets certainly would be affected by terrain. Firing down a hill at someone at the base would keep rounds from going beyond the target hex, where firing from the bottom of a hill at a unit up top would send the bullets into the air. Certainly a difficult programming proposition.

With respect to the artillery and machine guns, the apples and oranges comparison comes to mind. If both were intended to just cause suppression, you might be correct. Artillery and other indirect fire weapons can do much more. All types are capable if killing open topped armored vehicles. This is unlikely to occur with a machine gun unless it has an elevation advantage. With a large enough artillery round, it make even destroy a closed top armored vehicle. This can all be done in relative safety from a distance and behind a hill. Some might even have AP or HEAT rounds, giving them the ability to engage armor directly. All of these reason are why artillery costs more than machine guns. In this comparison between artillery and machine guns, my experience has had artillery more likely to damage/destroy HMG teams than HMG teams damaging/destroying artillery units.

Back to the concept of suppression, did you actually run tests to determine how much suppression was caused? Based on the math, there is no doubt that a HMG team can impact more hexes with its standard ammunition payload, but what about the difference in warhead size? Without tests, there is no conclusive way to tell what the true difference really is.