Infantry
I remembered an old thread that said rifle ammo units are 1 for 1 round, times the number of rifles in the section; and MG ammo units represent a burst of 5 rounds. But I assume this was for the squad LMG, which would mean it had 450 rounds available.
As one turn is about 2-3 minutes, this would mean that infantry are definitely being careful with ammo in firefights. But as you suggested, the game designers probably didn’t want ammo trucks all over the battlefield.
MGs
I can’t believe the same 1:5 ratio applies to crew MGs because they obviously cause a bit more than 3 times the suppression of a squad LMG, and as a crew served gun you’d expect them to carry and use a lot more ammo.
While we are doing all this speculating…let’s run with the 3 times more than LMGs, then perhaps 1 HMG ammo unit equals a burst of 15 rounds, in which case 90 units equals 1,350 rounds. 15 rounds would be a 1 second burst for a MG34.
This load-out, of just over 5 boxes of ammo, would also make sense as a reasonable amount that a 4 man crew would carry. Though, 5 boxes are only one minutes worth for a MG42 at full auto. But this would match the conservative use of infantry ammo.
Z-fire
The game was designed before z-fire was introduced. It could be that HMGs were considered more of an infantry direct fire weapon before z-fire, but are now more of a suppression/support weapon post z-fire, making them more closely aligned to mortars. And as such perhaps they should now suffer the same ammo supply issues as mortars?
I don’t know…It’s fun to kick this stuff around, but in the end it’s what makes a better game; and that may be in the eye of the beholder.
I think most – but not all - would prefer to limit z-fire, and ammo is certainly a way to do that. Some players would love to see ammo become more of a concern, even for infantry; others would prefer that ammo wasn’t something they had to worry about. But for those who don’t want to run out of ammo, there’s a little button in ‘Preferences’ called “Ammo Limit”, turn it OFF, and you and your opponent can fire z-fire all day long
Cross